Do not inject fluid into your testicles.

I’m sorry to report that ballmaxxing is actually a thing.

It’s the injection of fluid into your testicles to make them enormous. Because — well, you’d have to ask the ballmaxxers why.

Yes, a (thankfully) very small subculture (I hope) of men are injecting various fluids into the testes and/or their scrota, in order to pump them up. Saline solution is one option, a surgical lubricant called Surgilube is another, still another is Synthol, an oil which is (get this) specifically for injecting into your body parts to make them temporarily large and freakish. (Link to pics at the bottom.) 👇🏼

Stick the needle in, attach it to a standard IV bag of your liquid of choice, and it takes some 30 minutes to all flow in. Over the course of about two days, it dissolves away into your bloodstream. But for those two days? Hey, lots of fun — I guess.

That’s just for the people doing saline. For the people doing Surgilube, it doesn’t reabsorb… so they have a bit of a longer term problem.

For it is — one shouldn’t even have to say this — extremely high risk. Things that have happened to ballmaxxers, and that every article about this quotes some doctor warning about:

• Infection. This is overwhelmingly the most likely adverse reaction. Infection from your gnarly needle, your reused IV line, and whatever that sack of liquid you got from somewhere, or maybe even mixed yourself. These infections can lead (and have done so) to permanent erectile dysfunction, infertility, cellulitis, abscesses, and sepsis. Some of these will require the emergency surgical removal of tissue.

• Vascular and tissue damage. Blood clots, internal hemorrhaging, and ischemia can lead to stroke, necrosis, and gangrene — once again, requiring the emergency surgical removal of tissue. Which tissue, exactly? Well, I guess you’ll find out.

• Testicular atrophy and necrosis. When the testis itself is inflated, its blood vessels are crushed and it receives little or no oxygen while the fluid is in there. This is like putting a rubber band around your finger until it turns black and falls off. Every time you ballmaxx, you are killing some of your testicular tissue.

• Hormonal effects. Damaged testes mean reduced testosterone production. Think this is making you more manly? It’s quite likely doing the opposite. Messing with your testosterone production signals your pituitary and hypothalamus which start trying to compensate. It triggers a feedback loop and leaves you with an estrogen imbalance, LH/FSH elevation, DHEA and adrenal androgens, and your cortisol/stress axis all completely out of whack. This gives you:

  • Reduced libido and erectile function;

  • Fatigue;

  • Loss of muscle mass and increased fat accumulation;

  • Decreased bone density with prolonged deficiency; and

  • Reduced sperm production compounding the infertility risk already mentioned.