This gives me a lot of anxiety, a lot of anxiety. 

Okay, cups are really uncomfortable or so that's what men tell me. So do you really need one I'm Dr. Rena Malik, urologist and pelvic surgeon and we're gonna talk about scrotal injuries, who needs to wear a cup and what you should look for when you're buying a cup. Make sure you stick around to the end because I'll review some protectors that are available for you on the market today. And make sure you check the description down below to get some discounts as well. 

The good news is that getting hit in the scrum is not super common. They did a study where they looked at over 3 million men who underwent trauma and they found that scrotal trauma was only present in about point 2% or about 8000 men, but some studies have estimated about half of these injuries are caused from blunt trauma due to sporting events. And some of these injuries can result in some pretty bad outcomes. The two big things that we worry about are one testicular torsion, where the testicle actually twists on itself and then can disrupt the blood flow to the testicle or you can have a testicular rupture where the outer lining or the tunica al Virginia of the testicle ruptures allowing the tubules of the testicle to come outside. 

Typically getting an injury to the testicles can be very, very painful as many men have experienced getting occasionally accidentally hit in the testicles. It is not a pleasant experience, as so many men have described to me. Things to look out for is if you have pain that persists beyond an hour after the injury or swelling, those getting significantly worse or black and blue. In those cases, you should go to the emergency room to get evaluated. And what will typically happen when you get there is you get an examination of the testicle. And very often that will also include an ultrasound of the testicle where they put some gel on the testicle and take a little ultrasound probe and put it on the testicle to see if the testicle is intact and to if there is good blood flow to the testicle. The good news is if you're in one of these horrible circumstances that requires emergency surgery, meaning that you have a rupture or a torsion 80% of the time if you get there soon enough, your testicle can be salvaged. So the important thing is don't delay but let's try to avoid being in this horrible situation altogether. 

There's certain kinds of sports that if you're playing or activities that you're engaging in that you should probably wear a cup. These include anything where you may have a high speed ball coming near your genitals, or if you might accidentally get kicked in that area like martial arts. So these include sports like hockey, football, baseball, soccer, lacrosse, or obviously mixed martial arts. But what exactly is a cup if you've never had one before, it's a cup that's designed to fit your testicles inside of it that will prevent it from any impact. It comes in a variety of different sizes to fit different heights and weights. You can wear this with three different types of supporters that can be compression shorts, jock straps, or there are certain specialized impact shorts as well. Typically, they'll include a pocket that is designed to hold the cup in place. Compression shorts are basically really form fitting underwear that can offer some additional comfort. Jockstraps many of you are familiar with have a cup area as well as a elastic band that goes around to keep things snug and in place. Impact shorts are specially designed not only to have a pocket for your cup, but also for thigh and hip guards, so they can be a little bit pricier than the other two options. 

The most important thing about wearing a cup is that it needs to stay in place. Whether you're squatting, jumping, running, whatever activity you're going to be doing in that sport, it should not move otherwise it's not going to be effective. So these cups can be made of a variety of different materials in the past they used to be made with steel. And now they're kind of these hard plastics and other different types of materials that we'll talk about when we review some of the options available. There's also often flexible or softer cups available for less impact sports like soccer, where you're less likely to have a you know high speed ball going out your genitals. Most cups these days are made with tough polymers or carbon fibers that tend to resist any impact. Sometimes they also have a silicone lining or a gel pad lining to add to the comfort where it's touching your skin and also provides a greater seal a couple of things to look out for when you're purchasing cups is figure out if they're machine washable or hand washable so you don't destroy them. Also look for adjustable straps because you want them to fit your body shape and not everyone is created equal. So typically when you're wearing a jock strap when to put on a pair of close fitting underwear followed by the jock strap and then you want to put the cup into the jock strap on top of the compression underwear and then once you've worn it makes you take a few steps walk around do some lunges make sure that it stays in place so let's get into the review of these cups cup we're going to review is called Diamond MMA and I have to say I really like this company I got a chance to speak with the founder of the company is a great guy and they have a great Tic Tok let's check out one of them. Oh...

This gives me a lot of anxiety, a lot of anxiety. They sent me the stress ball, which is really cute little sperm, but I feel a little odd squeezing it, you know, because some of my life's work is protecting those little guys. Anyways, these cups are made by Stanford engineers. They're made using military grade elastics with a polycarbonate core and they come with these compression underwear that is also kind of like a jock strap in one and very comfortable and easy to wear or so I'm told and that was the kid's version and the adults version is just like a regular compression underwear and they come in both adults and kids sizes. They have this very soft part that touches the skin helping with the seal there. And again, super, super hard. They're not breaking. Another great thing about them is they have participated in raising money for the Testicular Cancer Foundation, which of course, I am a big fan of.