Not sure about you, but I like to see the good in the bad. By focusing on the flipside of adversity, I get stronger instead of weaker. Hey, I’m the first one to fess up to the unpleasant, abominable and awful, but there’s gotta be a way to make silk…or something…out of a sow’s ear....Continue reading
Tag: semen quality
Take a Moment and Picture Your Fertility
How do you solve tough problems? Maybe you pick at them until they’re gone. Maybe you dance around them until they’re contained. One thing I like to do is to step away and examine them as an outsider, from a completely different perspective. In other words, get out of the trees and look at the whole...Continue reading
FNA Mapping: A Tool for the Trade
Do you have a favorite tool? Maybe a great cooking pot or utensil that really works for you. Possibly a shiny, worn and weathered but perfectly performing baseball glove, or a dinged and pockmarked surfboard that handles virtually every swell. Whether you’re a carpenter and fan of curly maple, or a car hobbyist who likes...Continue reading
Artificial Sperm Reinvented
Do you really know that the world isn’t flat? C’mon, tell the truth. In fact, debate raged on whether the earth is flat or spherical from the 8th century BC well into the second millennium (1520) AD, well over 2000 years! Magellan and scientific proof ended up nailing the truth. In the mystical words of...Continue reading
Can you be allergic to your sperm?
They sat in front of me, notes in hand, having read all they could, and looking somewhat concerned. “We read that vasectomy reversals don’t work because of antibodies that men make to their sperm. Is this true?” Don the Immunology Hat Practically speaking, the world’s first immunologist was the formidable warlord King Mithridates VI of...Continue reading
Helping Wounded Veterans Live and Love
His kidney harbored a cancer and it needed to be removed. As a first year surgeon-in-training, I was consenting him for surgery at the Veterans Hospital in Philadelphia. Unlike most patients, he was unusually calm as I talked him through the procedure and its potentially life threatening complications. At one point, he gently put his...Continue reading
Sperm and Testosterone: A Love-Hate Relationship
He stood there looking at me, as deflated as an old circus balloon. “Doc, I heard that testosterone is important for my fertility, so that’s why I started taking it. I had no idea my sperm count would drop!” It’s Complicated Sure, testosterone is good for you. It’s critical for good overall health and for...Continue reading
Cycling Toward Childlessness?
She looks at me earnestly, searching for approval and says: “I’ve made sure that he stopped bicycling as I have read that it’s bad for his fertility, right?” Not so fast. Saddle Sore There is hard data to suggest that bicycling long enough can impair erections, especially if the saddle results in pelvic numbness. But fertility? Not the...Continue reading
Men Are (Really Quite) Complicated
He stared back at me, his face blank. He didn’t like my answer. We had examined the known genetic causes of azoospermia and had come up dry. “I really don’t know why you’re azoospermic, but I’d say it’s still very likely to be genetic, but currently undefined.” Not much to work with, but it’s where we are at...Continue reading