To find the varicocele, the doctor must examine the man’s testicles while he is standing upright. When a man lies down flat on his back, the veins tend to collapse. Although you might expect a varicocele to look like the swollen blue canals you would see in a varicose vein on someone’s leg, the skin of the scrotum is often thick enough to hide the varicocele. A man would be unlikely to see it, even if he looked carefully in the mirror.