Tough Times are Good for Vasectomies

When the going gets tough, the tough gets ... snipped? It may be economic doom and gloom for you and me, but not for doctors performing vasectomies: they see a little boom in business!

They looked at their statistics and realized the uptick started around November as the economic crisis deepened. October went down in the history books as one of Wall Street's worst months.

Since then, the Cleveland Clinic has seen a 50 percent increase in vasectomies, an outpatient surgery that is the cheapest form of permanent birth control. Vasectomies are less invasive and cheaper than tubal ligation, which involves blocking, tieing or cutting a woman's fallopian tubes to prevent pregnancy.

"It's unlikely that some guy read the Dow Jones numbers that day and said, 'Why don't we have a vasectomy?' " Jones said. "More likely, people have already been considering it and typically a guy and his wife have spoken a year or two about this."

Jones was told by patients that they were getting vasectomies because they were losing their jobs and health insurance, or concerned about being out of work soon.

"They realize they don't have the financial security long-term with what's going on," Jones said. "Several of them have mentioned, 'We can't afford to have any more children in this economy.' My perception is that it's more of the concept of raising children in an uncertain economic future."

Madison Park of CNN has the rest of the story: Link - Thanks Tiff!


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I got sterilized at twenty-three. Best thing *EVER*! I really don't understand why more women don't get tubals? I've never regretted mine and it's never given me a bit of trouble.

"Zero babies!"
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The comment about getting some swimmers frozen is a good point. I know one person who got a reversal, and he tells EVERYONE to freeze some before getting a vasectomy. For him, the reversal was much worse, it was very expensive, and in the end, it didn't work. Divorce, death -- you do not know the future.
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Well, they told me not to do it if there were any doubt whatsoever that I might ever want another child.

My friend's dad was getting a reversal and got an infection and died.

I think there may be another way to have another child. I think they can go into you with a needle and extract sperm and artificially inseminate with it, but that's probably very expensive too.
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Had mine done after my 3rd son. Local anesthetic was horribly painful, as five shots to the sack would most likely be. $20 copay, in and out, drove myself home.

A year later my wife cheated on me, got divorced, now remarried. Reversal is $7000, out of pocket, no insurance covers it, and no guarantees the reversal will work.

Yeah...think it over hardily before getting it done. Or spring to have some of your soldiers frozen before getting it done.
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I had mine done when our second was three months old. Vaguely unconfortable for a few days, and I could sort of tell something had been done for perhaps two weeks after, but not uncomfortable, just aware of it.

Two things I would change were I to do it again...

Firstly, the vasectomist had a very attractive female assistant - not ideal when you're lying naked from the waist down on a cold slab.
Secondly, because of the tiny dose of Valium as a muscle relaxant (think sawing through a walnut versus slitting a purse) the wife drove me home. For some reason she though I'd be in a hurry - the scariest drive of my life - and I used to be a driving instructor.
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