It’s that time of the year again guys: March Madness. Time to fill out your brackets, then rip them up after those first-round upsets.Get ready for clutch performances, buzzer-beaters, thrilling comebacks, vasectomies, and…
Wait, vasectomies?
That’s not a typo. March Madness is also the time when clinics see a spike in guys getting snipped. Sound crazy? Well, it’s actually brilliant. And if you’ve been considering a vasectomy, now is the perfect time to make that appointment.
VASECTOMY MADNESS
So why would you want to schedule a surgery around one of the biggest sports events of the year?
Well, a vasectomy is a minor surgery that only takes 10-20 minutes—shorter than halftime of a game. About half a million guys in the U.S. undergo the procedure each year. After you get snipped, you’ll need 2-3 days of recovery, which means sitting on the couch and icing your crotch.
Hmm, three days of doctor-mandated couch-sitting? Sounds like a great excuse to call out of work for those first few days of the Big Dance.
Vasectomy clinics are taking advantage of this time as well. Several urology facilities run promotions during March Madness, offering discounts, extended hours and other perks. Some offer T-shirts, food, and even ice bags with team logos on them.
Virginia Urology has been running an ad campaign for March Madness vasectomies for years and said appointments increase by 40-50% during tournament time. “It’s interesting this campaign, the feedback we get from women as well as men because they know their husbands will be sitting on the couch anyway,” Terry Coffey, CEO of the clinic, told NBC.
AFTER THE NETS ARE CUT
Whether you win your office bracket contest or not, you get a few days to watch the tournament while your co-workers have to secretly check ESPN alerts during boring meetings. That’s a win for you.
But your recovery period goes way beyond the Final Four. And if you’re not on guard, your sperm can sneak an unexpected layup in your wife’s egg.
Even after you get snipped, sperm can live in your vas deferens for months—meaning there’s a chance you can get your partner pregnant post-vasectomy. To avoid this, you need to use another form of birth control for about three months, or for at least 20 ejaculations.
Then you need to check to see if you’re sterile. Instead of returning to the clinic for this exam—where they won’t be giving away any more T-shirts—you can check your status at home with SpermCheck, an over-the-counter sperm test kit.
If the test shows you’re sterile, you can ditch the birth control—game over!
If you’ve been putting off that vasectomy for a while, you’ve got an incentive to make the appointment. Get the man cave ready for a few days of uninterrupted hoops—doctor’s orders.
