Medical Questions » Sex Questions » Question No. 862
| Question: | After a prostatectomy at age 59, I am suffering from retrograde ejaculation. Will this stop me from fathering further children as I am contemplating marriage to a younger woman? is there any treatment available? |
| Answer: | During the operation to remove the prostate, which is a gland at the base of the penis, the flow of sperm from the sac (seminal vesicle) where it is stored to the outside may be disrupted. Normally a valve prevents the sperm from entering the bladder during ejaculation, but in the operarion of prostatectomy, this valve is usually damaged or destroyed. Sperm can the take the shorter route from the seminal vesicle into the bladder, rather than the long route down the shaft of the penis to the outside.
This problem is called retrograde (backwards) ejaculation, and is a very common complication of the operation.
As the vast majority of men requiring operations on the prostate are elderly, fathering further children is not usually a problem, but you have had the operation at a particularly young age.
Do not despair, because there are techniques that will still enable you to father a child despite the problem of retrograde ejaculation. All these methods involve the cooperation of specialist doctors and your wife.
The most successful technique involves taking medication to alkalinise your urine, emptying your bladder, then ejaculating by masturbation. Immediately after ejaculation, the bladder is emptied again, when you will pass almost equal amounts of urine and sperm. The sperm are then separated from the urine, washed in a nutrient solution, and introduced artificially into your wife.
The other method involves inserting a needle into the tubes around your testes that carry sperm to the penis, and extracting sperm. These are then artificially introduced into your wife; but this method is not quite as successful as the other.
Both these procedures must obviously be carried out at the fertile time of the month for your wife.
You should discuss the problem further with your general practitioner who will refer you to the appropriate specialists.
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