Surgical sperm removal - can anyone help?

[Steenac7]

Hi, my DH has sperm but has a very high DNA fragmentation (54%). I’ve read surgical sperm retrieval can improve the speed and reduce fragmentation but our consultant scared him off saying it can cause erectile dysfunction.

Has anyone done it and their DH been ok? Is it a side effect similar to the millions women can potentially get from IVF or is it more serious!

Please help!

My husband has had it done 3 times.
Twice with a needle retraction and where they opened them up and got the sperm out that way.
No issues at all with erections.

My DH had PESA.
No issues at the time with erectile issues, he now uses viagra, but I put that down to normal age related issues. And it works a treat, so neither of us are complaining.

Thanks both for the replies! @Pigeon84 what method was that that your husband had? I’ve heard of PESA TESE and TESA! That’s reassuring as I really feel surgical is our only hope with such high dna frag and failed cycles!

My husband had it and no problems. Some (to be expected) pain afterwards for a few days/weeks. I can't remember which procedure he had but it was less invasive than some of them (they weren't sure whether they would need to go onto a more invasive one during the op).

It sounds like some men do have side effects but their testosterone levels should go back to what they were before the op after 18-26 months (from what I understood from the journal review I read. There is limited research about it so far though. It said a man's risk level might depend on the cause of their infertility).

Did the consultant offer any other options to improve fragmentation? Or have you already tried some? Sorry to hear you have had failed cycles.

Thanks @HelloMist do you know the name of the procedure? Our consultant is rubbish! We’ve had failed cycles and she just says try again, doesn’t believe dna frag is a thing and said they don’t do surgical as it causes erectile dysfunction. We are stuck with them for another cycle but then moving and I’m trying to figure out what our next move should be myself!

My DH has TESE. He was a hell of a lot more comfortable than me after my egg collection. No erectile dysfunction - all healed fine and it made all the difference to our ivf (used tese second cycle but not first). Now have a gorgeous 7 month old.

54% seems very high - do they think it will help? My husbands was 19.5% so they thought may be too low to make a difference but we gave it a shot and pleased we did! Good luck

Also was going to say some consultants specialise in it - when we went in for dna results saw a different consultant to our usual who was trained int he procedure and was very convincing in telling us to give it a go! I think opinions do vary on it. Maybe chat to a doctor who does it for an opinion?

Best of luck!

Thanks @hoping2018 for the information and congrats on your little one! I’m based in Ireland and honestly they are not great here. I think we will book to see Dr Ramsey and Lister for our next round. No idea whether it would work at 54% as our consultant just dismissed the results. I did push to see a Urologist here who was ok and said he thinks he can feel a varicole and has referred us for an ultrasound. Hoping maybe that is what is causing some issues and if it can be embolised maybe dna frag will go down and surgical/ imsi might help! Definitely going to UK next though as it seems streets ahead! Do you mind me asking the name of your consultant/ clinic if they actually do the surgical retrieval?