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We’ve all been there, at least those of us who are the proud owners of testicles.
Whether it’s a purposeful strike to the balls from an attacker or a stray tennis ball
getting you in the sweet spot, you know that it can cause excruciating pain that can leave
you on the floor.
In worse cases, it can actually do a fair bit of damage, or at least make you throw
up.
According to Snopes, who asked the question, “Is It Possible to Kill a Man with a Swift
Kick to the Groin?”
The answer is no, getting a blow to the privates, gonads, nuts, stones, bollocks – there are
more terms – won’t be the end of you.
But let’s find out why it’s so painful, in this episode of the Infographics Show,
Why does it hurt so much to get kicked in the testicles?
Ok, so let’s just clear up a few things up first.
We know we said you couldn’t die from getting kicked in the ding-dangs, but there is some
literature in Germany from the 19th century that said a custom used to exist in which
quarreling men would basically squeeze each other’s balls.
It was written that in one case a man was “seized with violent convulsions, and died
in a few minutes.”
There have been a few very rare cases in recent times when someone died after taking hit,
but there was always a secondary cause as to why they died.
So, it’s not gonna kill you, or make you stronger, but it will hurt like hell.
Why?
These sperm factories and testosterone makers are a man’s crown jewels, but unlike the
real crown jewels they are not exactly heavily fortified.
They hang outside your body, and are not surrounded by bone or muscle as other important organs
are.
It’s almost as if nature gave men an Achilles heel, except put it right under their body’s
piece de resistance, their highly-valued penis.
Your junk of course is your most valued treasure because without them you wouldn’t be able
to procreate.
In the cold eyes of mother nature, that’s the only reason you exist.
For that reason, there are lots of nerves around your cojones so you will take better
care of them.
Pain to some extent is our friend, it helps us to take care of ourselves.
People who feel no pain, those suffering from the very rare condition of congenital analgesia,
often die young and live miserable lives.
So, look on the bright side, your sensitivity is good for you.
Another good thing is the fact that the large number of sensory nerve endings means it can
feel quite nice having them touched.
Squeezing though, might be a bit much for some people.
There is another reason why nature put these highly sensitive organs on the outside, and
that is because sperm likes a nice climate.
If it was too hot or cold the sperm would die before it could get to its destination,
the female reproductive tract.
Your body is amazing, it regulates the temperature of the balls using the cremasteric muscle
to pull them up to the body when conditions are too chilly, and letting them dangle down
on a toasty day.
Your lucky balls have year-round climate control.
When you get hit in these glands, as we said, there is nothing to protect them.
They are soft so can absorb much of the blow, which would be much better than if you could
actually break your balls.
But how does the pain manifest?
As you boys and men will know, it doesn’t just stay down there in those little sacks.
The pain moves into your stomach, which is what we call referred pain.
The feeling travels like a little pain-train up through the perineal and pudendal nerves,
and that train’s destination is all the way to the groin, the abdomen, up the spine
and sometimes with a last stop at the buttocks.
The stomach plays an important part, as your Reese's Pieces actually developed near to
your kidneys, and from there they moved down until they reached your ball sack.
On the way they connected with lots of nerves, which make up the spermatic plexus.
For this reason, getting a direct shot to your walnuts can make you feel nauseous or
actually make you puke.
One doctor described it like this, “It’s due to the vagal reflex, in which a nerve
signal from your testicles travels up your spinal cord and brain stem and activates the
nausea and vomiting centers in your brain.”
He went as far to say that this has another evolutionary purpose, and that is if you are
sick you will give up the fight and no more damage will be done.
He gives the example of animals of the same species getting into a scrap; often if the
testicles are hurt the victim gives up and the aggressor moves off.
Humans, though, can sometimes be a little more barbaric.
So, what else can we expect when we get hit in our plums?
Well, the pain should last anywhere from 10-15 minutes, and as you know, there is not much
you can do about it.
But it can be worse.
You might just get a bit of bruising, which can be managed with some ice.
You might also hit them so hard that you get something called trauma induced testicular
torsion.
That doesn’t sound good, and it isn’t.
We found a research paper that told the story of a 14-year old boy that did a somersault
off a springboard and hit the water baubles first.
His pain didn’t go away and he was taken to ER, where he was diagnosed with a traumatic
scrotal haematoma (blood forming outside the blood vessels).
But the pain and swelling just kept getting worse even with pain medications.
He ended up going back to the hospital five days later and it was discovered that one
of his testicles was gangrenous.
He had immediate surgery and kept the injured apricot.
You could also rupture your apples, which means basically you tear them on the inside
and the testicular contents get spilled.
This can be very painful, and only usually happens after extreme trauma, such as your
bangers hitting the gear stick of your car as you smash into a tree at speed.
You’ll need an ultrasound to see if you have ruptured them.
The rare outcome is you losing one or both balls, but the testis or testes can be salvageable.
Although, your goolies might not be quite as good at making semen as they used to be.
The good news is that 90 percent of these ruptures leads to a full recovery and a working
set of healthy nuts.
There is another thing we should talk about, and that’s the missing bean.
This is what one person wrote on Reddit when the topic of worse testicle hit was raised.
“Riding a bicycle in the rain.
Feet slip off the pedals.
I land on the cross bar.
One of my nuts ends up inside me.”
What happened to him was he suffered a testicular dislocation, wherein a lone marble can get
hit so hard it ends up going into your abdomen or even close to the pubic bone over the penis.
According to one health site, indeed this often happens when riders of bicycles or motorbikes
hit their nads on the frame or a gas tank.
It is rare, but if it does happen you’ll need surgery and a bit of testicular repositioning
if you want your egg to keep working.
We hate to tell you this, but there is also something called being degloved, which is
your scrotum just being torn right off.
But we are talking about hits today, and it’s not likely you’ll get degloved from a blunt
force trauma unless you are involved in some kind of vicious accident.
The rule of thumb is that if your pain doesn’t go away in say 20 minutes, you might want
to get your testicles looked at.
Also, if you start peeing blood after a hit, of course get that checked out.
Taking a swift kick to the unmentionables is no fun and can be really, really painful.
Thankfully Skillshare offers hundreds of courses to help you feel better right now- from massage
remedies to herbal recipes to help soothe pain, try out a class on Skillshare today
and start feeling better right away!
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Over to you now, tell us about the worst time you were hit in the testicles?
How did it happen, and was it over quickly or did you get one of these types of more
severe injuries.
Also, do you know how many terms we used for testicles in this story?
Let us know in the comments!
Also, be sure to check out our other video called Most Painful Things A Person Can Experience!
Thanks for watching, and, as always, don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe.
See you next time!