On the day

Read our guide on having surgery at our hospitals for information on how to prepare for your surgery and how to recover afterwards.

No eating or drinking

You must not eat for 6 hours before surgery.

You can drink non-fizzy water up to 2 hours before surgery.

If you continue to eat or drink, it might not be safe for you to have surgery and your appointment will be cancelled.

If there’s food or liquid in your stomach during the anaesthetic, it could come up to the back of your throat and damage your lungs.

Medicines

Bring all of your medicines with you to hospital, including:

• medicines prescribed by your GP
• medicines you buy from a pharmacy or shop
• herbal remedies

Take your medicines as normal unless your doctor asks you not to.

We’ll let you know if you need to stop taking your medicine at your pre-assessment appointment before surgery.

At hospital

When you arrive at hospital, a nurse will help you get ready.

We’ll ask you to remove your clothes and put on a hospital gown.

We’ll also give you compression stockings. These stockings help to prevent blood clots in your legs during and after surgery.

Your surgeon will check your scans and draw an arrow on the testicle that needs to be removed.

You’ll have general anaesthetic for this procedure. This means that you’ll be asleep during the operation will not feel any pain.

A specialist doctor (anaesthetist) will talk to you about the general anaesthetic and ask you about your health. We’ll explain the different ways we can prevent and manage pain after your surgery.

You’ll wait on your bed until we’re ready to start the procedure.

During the procedure

The anaesthetist will put a thin tube into the back of your hand or arm. We’ll give you general anaesthetic medicines through this tube. You’ll fall asleep after about 1 minute.

While you’re asleep, your surgeon will make a 5cm long cut at the top of your inner thigh (groin). We’ll remove your testicle and spermatic cord through this cut, then close the wound with stitches.

We’ll take a tissue sample from the testicle we removed and send it to a pathologist for testing.

The procedure takes about 30 minutes.

After the procedure

We’ll move you from the operating theatre to a recovery room. We’ll monitor you closely until you’re awake enough to return to the ward.

Your friends and family can visit you when you’re back in the ward.

When you wake up, you might notice that you have:

• an IV drip in your arm – this helps to keep you hydrated until you’re ready to eat and drink as normal
• a wound dressing on your groin – you can remove this 24 hours after the procedure
• dissolvable stitches – these can take up to 90 days to dissolve

Most people leave hospital on the same day and do not need to stay overnight.