That is "newer" as in within the past couple of decades. Initially with this surgery, they were not as careful about identifying and separating out these nerves. Now it is standard procedure, and that is why the risk is so low these days. Any surgeon not in retirement uses these methods.

Jan

I was extremely nervous about this Impotence problem as well, but probably two weeks out of the hospital i realized it didnt apply to me and i had worried myself for no reason, not that its wrong to think ahead on all aspects but dont get too worked up about it to where it could affect your decision.

There are other risks to the surgery besides impotence. If you are looking for a risk free alternative or guarantees, you are not going to find them. Death was also mentioned to me as a possible complication of surgery, in addition to impotence (death was mentioned first). I don't know what percentage of surgeries result in death, but if it is the same as permanent impotence, which risk concerns you more?

Going back to what Jan said, when I had my surgery in 1992, my surgeon at the time told me that the nerves that control sexual function in males are almost microscopic and there was not any way to know whether the surgical cutting that was necessary would impact on these nerves. Exactly what has changed in the technology since then, I don't know. But the bottom line is that the risk is not 0%, you will be informed of that risk, and you will need to sign off on that risk before they proceed.

By the ways, post-surgical swelling is something you have no control over and something your surgeon has no control over. I was told I swelled tremendously after my surgeries, yet I did not have any impotence. I had a surgery on my sinus cavities in 2000 and my surgeon at that time said he had never seen a patient swell as severely as I did, and that the tissue began swelling immediately after initial surgical cutting. My colorectal surgeon also mentioned that I was a sweller. I probably swelled in the right areas. Hopefully you will too.

So - when all these people and surgeons quote these statistics - what do they actually mean? For example, if my surgeon says 2% chance of permanent impotence. Does that mean that he actually has seen 2 people out of every 100 surgeries he has done become permanently impotent? Or is the 2 percent number an assessment of what he thinks the chances are roughly based on the nature of the surgery?

It is a statistic based on actual incidences. It is not a probability. It is a statistic. I should add that when I had my surgery with Dr. Gelernt in 1992 he had done more J Pouches than anyone in the USA and very likely the world. It was in the thousands. He knew what the percentages were better than anyone.