1. Make an appointment with your GP for the consultation: the interview takes place in 3 stages (data collection - palpation of the testicles - prescription for the spermogram). To help you, this site is also designed for professionals (protocols - practical guide - consent form). If he refuses, that's his prerogative, but use harm reduction medicine and ask to be referred to a professional who can help you. If this is not the case, contact family planning for support.
2. Contact the laboratory near you. A map is available in the footer. Schedule your spermograms every three months as far ahead as their schedule allows.
3. Choose the jockstrap you wish to wear. Test it to be sure you understand the movements of the lift and that the model is suitable. Test it on a few activities of daily life. Do not wear it regularly before the first spermogram.
4. Plan how you're going to organize your average 15 hours a day. Imagine your day as a 24-hour block. Wearing time should be between 14h and 16h over 24 hours. Day, night, split, continuous, it doesn't matter. The important thing is to find your own rituals that suit you. Of course, there's only one validated wearing protocol, but that doesn't mean that others aren't possible, just that it would be too costly to try out all the possibilities.

• People with testicles are currently under-medicalized and people with ovaries over-medicalized in the field of sexual and reproductive health. Use this soft medical follow-up to do some screening and ask for a complete health check-up. This will enable you to do a little screening.
• Spermograms are reimbursed by social security in France. They can also be done over the counter for around 30 euros in France. To date, there is no self-test for thermal monitoring. In the resources section, you'll find a link to sperm@home. Developed with the help of doctors, it enables you to make your own laboratory for independent monitoring. It does not replace laboratory monitoring.
• To date, no testicular lift device has been CE marked. This doesn't mean that they aren't effective or safe. It simply means that there has been a lack of interest in developing and offering methods for boys for 40 years. Steps are underway with Andro-switch, which is supported by Entrelac, and will be the first officially recognized and available device by 2028. In the meantime, it's up to each and every one of us to take our responsibilities and get involved in practice to continue to justify the collective interest in wanting more methods for people with testicles.
• The thermal method is based on what no other method has. 40 years of practice, tens of thousands of users, and dozens of medical theses and clinical trials, each more reassuring and promising than the last.
• Remember that you are free to do what you want with your body, it's one of the last real freedoms, and access to contraception and sexual and reproductive health is a fundamental right!

Aids :

Your attending physician

Family Planning - CeGIDD - CPEF

The thoreme team

Spermanence every Tuesday night

User committees

Social networks

1. If you are eligible for the method, you can start.
2. During a good week, wear your device progressively, to reach 15 hours per day. If a discomfort appears remove your device, and put it back a little later. Massage your pubic area to relax the pubic pouch, cream yourself with liniment oleo-calcaire between two ports. Go slowly, it can take a little time to get used to this new ritual.
3. Then start your 15 hours every day. Until you have a follow-up spermogram in 3 months, you are not on birth control. So use another method in parallel.
4. Refine your ritual, during the launch until it becomes a habit like wearing a pair of glasses.
5. It's okay if you wear your device more than 15 hours a day, and you forgot it. It is better to wear it too much than not enough.

Aids :

Your attending physician

Family Planning - CeGIDD - CPEF

The thoreme team

Spermanence every Tuesday night

User committees

The entire ring community

Contraceptive threshold not met:

• If you have not reached the threshold, check that your tool is suitable, increase the exposure time a little, and check with the team or a health professional to adjust your practice. We are not all thermo-sensitive in the same way, for some people 15 hours is enough, for others 17 hours is necessary. Schedule a spermogram in 30 days once the adjustments have been made, and continue to use another method of contraception.
• You can play on the choice of the tool, the wearing time, the distribution over the 24 hours.
• It's still very rare, but for some people this method just doesn't work. Body heat isn't enough, a recurring discomfort doesn't stop, and so on. In this case, turn to another method and contact the thoreme team.

• Upon confirmation from the spermogram that you are below the contraceptive threshold of 1 million-ml sperm, you can, if you and your partner wish, use only this method.
• Continue wearing your device as usual.
• Have a control spermogram every 3 months.
• Keep a "sperm jocker" for the day when you have doubts. Sometimes, even with rigorous practice, there is a doubt about the effectiveness. Keep the possibility to check at any time if you are below 1 million-ml.
• 4 consecutive years maximum: Simply because we have no scientific trial of more than 4 consecutive years. This does not mean that it does not work afterwards or that it is risky. It's just that scientifically we don't know.

• If you forget to pump your testicles for more than a day, use another method for 30 days and schedule a spermogram at the end of the 30 days.
• If an unplanned pregnancy occurs : The method has many advantages and also its risks. Heat acts at different levels of spermatogenesis, but there's one that doesn't interest us. This is the alteration of the genetic capital, reversible of course when stopped. These alterations are similar and common to therapies such as chemotherapy or acne treatment. Here's what an embryologist, member of the Centre de Référence sur les Agents Tératogènes (Crat) and of the Académie Nationale de Médecine, recommends to consider this risk proportionately:

"In reading the elements described on spermatic DNA in the context of testicular hyperthermia, the possible risk in case of fertilization with an aneuploid gamete is that of finding this aneuploidy in the product of conception. However, this is a very theoretical risk since the possibilities of development of eggs carrying chromosomal missegregations are very limited. This has not been described for example in other situations where aneuploidies are possible in spermatozoa (paternal chemotherapy). A priori, in this context, if fertilization takes place during the period when sperm chromosomal changes are most marked, there is no reason to propose termination of pregnancy because the risks are very limited. It is only necessary to consider a prenatal diagnosis specifically designed to detect chromosomal abnormalities in numbers (blood marker assays coupled with an early ultrasound at 12 SA), or even an INFP if the result is positive or doubtful."

Aids :

Your attending physician

Family Planning - CeGIDD - CPEF

The thoreme team

Spermanence every Tuesday night

User committees

The entire ring community

Whatever your reason for stopping, do not consider a pregnancy right away.

• As explained above, the risk due to the teratogenic effect of the method is not zero, but must be taken into account.
• Use an effective method of contraception when you stop for a few months.
• So let your body get rid of the altered sperm. This usually takes 3 months, and up to 6 months. Assume that when your sperm count comes back within the WHO standards, you can consider that the poor quality sperm is gone. 
• Once your spermogram is done and back to normal you can consider a baby project.

Aids :

Your attending physician

Family Planning - CeGIDD - CPEF

The thoreme team

Spermanence every Tuesday night

User committees

The entire ring community