So, I’ve been riding ultramarathon distances this year. I did a 380 mile ride with seemingly no real problems. A few days later I get on the bike and immediately feel a sharp pain in the scrotum. Thought something might have been pinched or even some foreign object in my shorts, but it wasn’t. Running, stretching, swimming, no problems. Upon thorough self exam (pause until laughing stops). The pain is from the scrotum itself, close to where it connects to the groin. It feels exactly like I imagine if that area got pinched hard, but again I never felt anything until I tried to ride a few days after the long ride. Also, visually nothing looks unusual or irritated. Everything works like it should.
I took a few days off the bike and did another long ride (I know, I know, but these were scheduled for sometime). Felt fine for a few hunderd miles but then the pain came back.
I have an appointment, but its going tobe a couple of weeks.
Anyone have any experience with something similar?
“I have an appointment, but its going tobe a couple of weeks.”
A couple of weeks? Your doctor either sucks, you don’t care much about your health or put work before life. I’m not a doctor but you are most likely passing a kidney stone. I hope it is the only one working its way through They are VERY painful.
Urologist is on vacation and it doesn’t really seem like an emergency. If the same thing occurred, minus the 300-400 mile rides I’d be much more concerned. Never had a kidney stone but the pain is the actual scrotum, not internal. I’ve always heard kidney stone pain as described more internal.
“I have an appointment, but its going tobe a couple of weeks.”
A couple of weeks? Your doctor either sucks, you don’t care much about your health or put work before life. I’m not a doctor but you are most likely passing a kidney stone. I hope it is the only one working its way through They are VERY painful.
Yeah they are, but that is the way wrong location. A kidney stone will hurt in the lower back region. The pain from a kidney stone is when it works its way from the kidney down to the bladder. Once they’re in the bladder, there’s no pain anymore as the urethra is much larger than the ureter that passes them down.
It almost sounds like the OP is describing a testicular torsion, but that would be amazingly more painful and one of those “Get me to an ER NOWNOWNOW!!!” kind of things.
From what little i know, I don’t think its torsion either. Neither the testicle nor the tube (forget the name) that exits the testicle seems to be the source. It pretty localized on the scrotum itself. I think that by giving a section of the srotum a hard pinch you could duplicate what I have. Localized pain, but mostly when that area is pressured or pinched again. The only mystery to me is I would have expected to feel something there during the ride or at least seen some irritation after.
Epididymitis is usually accompanied by some swelling- my father (luckily he’s 1300 miles away) told me ALL about his.
FWIW, might be a tear of some connective tissue. For the OP, any chance you can be seen earlier? If it is something w/ a minor tear, you’ll want to have it heal right the 1st time, and not need any additional work “down below”.
Consider it, I can’t even spell it. Seriously i asked Dr Google and other than something painful in that general region none of the symtoms really fit.
I really think the pressure of riding about 30 hours straight caused some localized irritation of the scrotum. If not for the rides I’d be at the ER now, but for my hands and feet. Both of my pinkys feel like I hit them with a hammer. I keep looking at them expecting to see bruising. The hand problem happens to one degree or another on every long ride so I doesn’t really worry me. The other problem has never occurred before, hence the concern.
You’re not going to be able to ride through a kidney stone, and testicular torsion would be resolved by now (because your testicle would be dead). If it feels like the pain is in the skin, that sounds like it could be due to pressure (pinched) on the cutaneous nerves coming out of your sacrum / coccyx. If it feels like it is more in the sac itself, it is possible that it is a hernia, but that usually isn’t a sharp pain. Just be careful that the answer you might get from the urologist will be to stop riding hundreds of miles - which I’m guessing isn’t the solution you’re looking for. The hands and feet sound like nerve irritation too - possible from road vibrations, or because of your position on the bike - don’t go to the ER - you’ll wait 6 hours for some pain medications and they’ll tell you to go see your family doc.
I’m not a doc but it sounds to me like either a hernia or a varicocele. I had the latter which I discovered at mile 18 of a 20 mile hike. All of a sudden it felt like somebody kicked me in the balls as hard as they could. The last 2 miles were HELL. The pain would go away until I overexerted myself again which does sound similar to your situation. A varicocele is basically a sack of collapsed blood vessels in the scrotum that many men have just don’t realize. Can affect fertility as well due to blood pooling which heats up the area and kills sperm. Anyway, not sure if this would cause a sharp pain as you described but definitely pain in the scrotum area. I went to the urologist, had surgery two weeks later and was better within about a week or so. 10 months later my wife gave birth to my son : ).
They are VERY painful.