Scrotum swollen for over a year. What's wrong with me?

ballislife wrote:

This is a bit long, but these kinds of things can be hard to diagnose, especially with no face-to-face contact or testing. I want to give as much detail as possible. Does anyone know what I'm likely dealing with? Ideas for curing this would also be greatly appreciated.

I'm 20 years old. The swelling is on the back of both testicles + the top of the scrotum coming down from my body, with greater swelling on the right-hand side. There's also prominent discoloration, with the very swollen area being much lighter than the rest. The rest tends to be blue/purple, varying. Everything is tender, too.

The pain is a dull ache—not painful in the usual sense, yet discomforting as all hell, destroying my quality of life. It's not bothersome after a good night's rest, but it gets unbearable when I'm tired. I do very rarely get sharp pains, on one occasion while I was on caffeine, and other times, again, probably really tired. Smoking weed can also worsen it, sometimes a lot—gives a whole new spin on the phrase "tripping balls."

I'm not sure if it's related, but a year and a half ago, my right testicle came into a painful collision with my girlfriend's vibrator on high. After this happened, there was some weird behavior down there, but the details of that are fuzzy. I either couldn't get fully hard, or I couldn't achieve orgasm. That weirdness passed very quickly, but the main issue of this post started being apparent a month or two later. One uncertainty here is that I was doing some heavy cleansing at the time, too (using potent herbs): Infection possible?

It sucks so much. Ever since I've had to deal with this, my balls have not felt the same, like they're perhaps being squeezed/numbed/blood flow hampered. I do get pulsing kind of sensations every once in a while—got some of that on caffeine too. They also respond to the cremaster reflex, and when this reflex brings them up, I get noticeable pulsing. Is this pulsing blood-related? My balls have also been way heavier than ever before, not in a way that feels like I've got healthy, big balls either. :(

I went to a urologist once, and he mostly laughed it off and didn't seem to care much. He said I have varicocele and acted pretty sure of it. Yet, I still don't know. I don't see much in the way of bulging veins in my case, maybe just a little veininess in my right side. I've been trying things that are known to help varicose veins (like witch hazel) without much noticeable relief, if anything at all, but maybe I just need to be more patient and diligent about it. It's discouraging, because I also eat an absurdly healthy diet. Super nutrition dense, lots of alkalizing food.

Note, I do not have health insurance so going to a bunch of doctors so they can charge me $250 for a few minutes of their time is something I want to avoid. Although, I guess it may be a good idea to get an ultrasound to be more sure about this. Still, costly.