Last updated on May 23, 2025
Question:
Hi,
I’m 14 years old and started having pain in my right and left testicles about six months ago. The doctors told me nothing and said that I was fine. However, three months ago, the left testicle became bumpy and wormy and had extreme pain. I went back to the doctor. I knew it was a varicocele. He again told me everything was fine, but I got angry and demanded an ultrasound. I was then diagnosed as having “a large left-sided varicocele and a right-sided 6 mm epidermal cyst.” Now I have an operation scheduled.
The first time I went to the doctor, he grinned when he saw my penis and said “Well, that’s a little one.” He said it would be hard to know why I hadn’t grown. Up until then, I thought I was normal.
Four months ago, my school had a puberty session, and I was severely embarrassed when the teacher asked for a truthful tally of sizes. When I saw the average was 4″ and mine was 2″, I just said 3″, and even then, the whole class laughed. I am now the only one in my whole school year whose voice hasn’t changed or broken at all. I went from being the tallest to one of the shortest in three years.
I have had pubic and armpit hair for three years. It has seemed that after the first year of growth, it all just stopped. The doctors said there’s nothing they can do. It is small and very peculiar. They said that my varicocele may be affecting my growth by heating the testicle, inhibiting growth, but they had no conclusion.
May I please have some expert advice on my situation?
By the way, I do not masturbate, am not sexually active in any way, and have not had any wet dreams.
Answer:
There are pieces in your story that do not match up. It is hard to imagine that you have such an incompetent doctor who did not recognize the signs of a varicocele and who inappropriately made a comment about a boy’s penis size. I also am amazed (though less so) that a teacher inappropriately asked boys to talk about their penis size in class. This would be equivalent to asking girls about their breast size or discussing a person’s weight publicly.
Let’s start with the epidermal cyst. This means you have an oil gland swelling in the skin of your scrotum on the right side. 6mm is large enough to see easily. Treatment can be removing the entire oil gland, draining it, or treating it with antibiotics to reduce the swelling. An epidermal cyst would not affect your growth in any way.
A varicocele is when one or more valves in the veins in your scrotum don’t work, causing blood to pool. The pain comes from the veins being stretched. The extra blood raises the testicle’s temperature on that side and can cause problems. The most common problem is a lack of sperm production. In a teenager, it can impact the growth of the testicle on that side and potentially damage the cells that produce the male hormones. Usually, the other testicle makes up for the damaged testicle, though a varicocele, even on one side, can impact both testicles. Surgical varicocele correction in a teenager typically results in the testicles repairing themselves and making up for lost ground. This again is something that doesn’t match. You said the doctor indicated there was nothing they could do, yet the surgery is what is called for, and there should be a reasonable probability of returning to normal growth. You might not hit the maximum height you could have reached because of this pause in your growth, but unless there are other complicating factors, I would expect your growth to resume after surgery. For more information, see Varicocele.
Even if the testicles cannot repair themselves, there is the option for an endocrinologist to regulate your hormones so that you finish your development. It would be a rare case, and it would mean that you would be infertile (unable to have children), but you would still be able to have sex because that involves other glands in your body.