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Thread: Hernia?

  1. #1
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    Hernia?

    About a decade ago a doctor told me I had a small hernia. "No worries, if it doesn't bother you, don't worry about it." It didn't, so I didn't. A few years ago when I had my appendectomy, the doctor says "Do you know you have two small hernias?" Again, no discomfort/pain so I shrugged it off.

    Over the last few years, maybe a handful of times a year I would get quick knot, discomfort in my abdomen basically where the appendectomy incision was. I at first thought it had something to do with that surgery but now it is just too far gone to believe that. I started lifting again and now I am getting the discomfort daily. It never happens when working out, usually going from sitting to standing and vise versa and not every time. No real pain, just a very weird feeling of discomfort and "tightness?"

    So... does this sound like this is from one of the hernias and it is getting worse?

    Am I doing any harm to myself by continuing my routine before seeing a doctor? Reason being, I have a HDHP insurance plan and if I need surgery, I want to get on a regular plan prior to. Issue is, open enrollment isn't until November at work. I can totally live with the discomfort for a few months and would rather not stop lifting. I am just concerned with causing damage that will either do long-term damage or would make recovery ridiculously long.

    Thanks for the internet prognosis, you guys probably saved my life with my appendectomy.
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  2. #2
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    Do you have any lumps or protrusions in your crotch (serious question). If any have popped up, your hernia(s) got a lot worse.

    Quit lifting until you get that thing straightened out. If it is a hernia and you keep straining, you may make it go from mild to severe. If you do need surgery, you need to do a serious critique of your lifting and breathing form while lifting.

  3. #3
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    None that I noticed. I even tried feeling around, coughing, etc like they have you do during the exam. I'm obviously missing something because both docs told me about my hernia(s) within a few seconds of checking me out and I can't see anything that would lead them to that conclusion. I'm lost, I should probably see a doc, dammit.

    Oh, and I was never trained how to lift when I was younger. I always winged it and am probably so far off from good form it isn't funny.

    Thanks
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  4. #4
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    I had an inguinal hernia and lived with it for a year. It happened when I was getting out of my jeep of all things. Started as a small protrusion just above and to the right of my pubic bone. At the end of the year it was the size of a golf ball and it would fall into my sack. As an active person it sucked.

    Had surgery, best thing ever.

    Look on the internetz. There are two types of hernias if I remember correctly. Both can become serious if the protrusions blood supply gets cut off, which would be very painful. If the hernia reduces itself or is easily reducible then the pros say its not a big deal, albeit REALLY awkward and uncomfortable.

    I don't wish an inguinal hernia on anyone, serious or not serious.

    Good luck.

  5. #5
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    I had a sports Hernia just as the bottom of my rib cage. I got it skiing, instead of angles and proper technique in use brute force to make my skis do what they want. So I blow out my gut I lived with it for a while but it hurt all the time. Good news is the procedure is pretty common and works well. They put some kind of mesh over the tear and you are all better. Id get it fixed asap just in case.

    I recall I waited till the end of ski season so I could recover (only a few weeks) during mud season and not miss any trail runs or skiing.
    People should learn endurance; they should learn to endure the discomforts of heat and cold, hunger and thirst; they should learn to be patient when receiving abuse and scorn; for it is the practice of endurance that quenches the fire of worldly passions which is burning up their bodies.
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  6. #6
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    Hmm, ^^^ is not what I understand to be a sport hernia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athletic_pubalgia

    The guy who runs the gym I go to, Mike Boyle, has a lot of papers and info on sports hernia's, he used to train almost exclusively pro and college hockey players and dealt with a ton of them. He and Eric Cressey seem to follow something akin to this strategy http://www.goeata.org/protected/EATA...ion-boyles.pdf

    But I highly doubt thats what the OP has.

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by neufox47 View Post

    But I highly doubt thats what the OP has.
    But I would think the procedure and recovery are the same, no?
    People should learn endurance; they should learn to endure the discomforts of heat and cold, hunger and thirst; they should learn to be patient when receiving abuse and scorn; for it is the practice of endurance that quenches the fire of worldly passions which is burning up their bodies.
    --Buddha

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  8. #8
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    I've had 2 inguinal hernias, same side as the surgery for my appendicitis. Get it fixed, it will only get worse. First hernia I got in high school lifting rocks for trundling, let it go for a while and anytime I would lift, sneeze, cough, etc it would pop into my sac, and got pretty big...finally got it fixed, but they only sewed it up. Got my second one in college, same place, bust through the old patch job, but I knew what the problem was so I went in to get it fixed soon after blowing it out. This time they reinforced it with a mylar sheet, surgery was way worse second time around going through scar tissue. Sometimes when the weather changes I can feel an "ache" but otherwise no problems now...I squat and DL heavy and have not had problems since. Get it fixed before it gets worse....

  9. #9
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    Hard to tell if you have a hernia or not. From what you say the doc told you sounds like you have small inguinal (groin) hernias. The knot (do you mean a knot you can see or feel, or a cramping sensation) and pain near your appendectomy incision could be a hernia or just a muscle strain--you would need to be examined by a surgeon to find out. You certainly could have a hernia in the incision this long after the surgery, although hernias in appendectomy incisions are rare. It's Ok to wait until you have better insurance as long as you aren't having a lot of pain. It would be a good idea to have the inguinal hernias fixed at some point--if you wait for them to get big and painful the surgery will be a little less likely to be successful. You can continue all your activities in the meantime--I did for a year. The small risk you run is that you can incarcerate one of the hernias. That means the intestine which is poking out through the weakness in the muscles--that's what a hernia is--has gotten stuck and won't go back in your abdomen, even if you push on it. If that happens it will be very painful and you will need emergency surgery to prevent the piece of bowel from dying, but that wouldn't be a big problem, except for the expense, unless you were a long way from medical care. After a hernia is fixed you should be able to resume normal activity including lifting, after you're healed. Weight lifters get hernias. Weak little old men get hernias. Every kind of person gets hernias. A good repair should be able to tolerate weight lifting. The biggest strain on the abdomen is from coughing and sneezing, not lifting. PS--if you have seasonal allergies don't have a repair done during allergy season, and try not to be around anyone with a cold--the last thing you want to be doing after surgery is coughing or sneezing--because of the pain. PPS--I'm assuming that the second doctor who told you had hernias was the surgeon who did your appendectomy. I wouldn't be certain you had a hernia unless it was a general surgeon who told you. I've seen a lot of false diagnoses of hernias, although most of the time the diagnosis is right.
    I've had two hernias fixed, and fixed a thousand or two.

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by neufox47 View Post
    Hmm, ^^^ is not what I understand to be a sport hernia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athletic_pubalgia

    The guy who runs the gym I go to, Mike Boyle, has a lot of papers and info on sports hernia's, he used to train almost exclusively pro and college hockey players and dealt with a ton of them. He and Eric Cressey seem to follow something akin to this strategy http://www.goeata.org/protected/EATA...ion-boyles.pdf

    But I highly doubt thats what the OP has.
    You were right it was a normal hernia. I know that because I have been trying to get my insurance co to approve an MRI of my groin/lower ab area since July. I think I did it using an ab wheel and weighted vest. I finally was approved for the MRI after 6 months of pain (Thanks Harvard Pilgrim, Douchbags ) and I have a large tear which is going to be fixed next week. I can't wait to run, jump, muscle up again without pain. Anyone know about the recovery time? How long until I can go back to work? I was so excited about finally getting a resolution I forgot to ask. Hes going to do a open procedure not a endoscopic procedure.
    People should learn endurance; they should learn to endure the discomforts of heat and cold, hunger and thirst; they should learn to be patient when receiving abuse and scorn; for it is the practice of endurance that quenches the fire of worldly passions which is burning up their bodies.
    --Buddha

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  11. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tuckerman View Post
    You were right it was a normal hernia. I know that because I have been trying to get my insurance co to approve an MRI of my groin/lower ab area since July. I think I did it using an ab wheel and weighted vest. I finally was approved for the MRI after 6 months of pain (Thanks Harvard Pilgrim, Douchbags ) and I have a large tear which is going to be fixed next week. I can't wait to run, jump, muscle up again without pain. Anyone know about the recovery time? How long until I can go back to work? I was so excited about finally getting a resolution I forgot to ask. Hes going to do a open procedure not a endoscopic procedure.
    What kind of hernia do you have? Inguinal hernia, sports hernia, something else? I'm thinking not an inguinal hernia since that wouldn't require an MRI.
    What kind of work do you do. (For most hernias, in fact for most operations the rule of thumb is 2 weeks off work, unless you are a state worker 2 months, or self employed 2 hours to 2 days (2 days is for heart transplant)).

  12. #12
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    The Dr did use the word "sports hernia" to me. I asked him not to write that on anything that my insurance company would see, because I have read that they have been known to deny procedures with a diagnosis of "sports hernia". He said he was aware of that and would just use the word hernia.
    This is not mine but is almost exactly what mine looks like.



    Yeah im a state worker lol.
    People should learn endurance; they should learn to endure the discomforts of heat and cold, hunger and thirst; they should learn to be patient when receiving abuse and scorn; for it is the practice of endurance that quenches the fire of worldly passions which is burning up their bodies.
    --Buddha

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  13. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tuckerman View Post
    The Dr did use the word "sports hernia" to me. I asked him not to write that on anything that my insurance company would see, because I have read that they have been known to deny procedures with a diagnosis of "sports hernia". He said he was aware of that and would just use the word hernia.
    This is not mine but is almost exactly what mine looks like.



    Yeah im a state worker lol.
    Can't help you with that kind of hernia. But how much sick leave do you have--that would be a good starting point lol.

  14. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by old goat View Post
    Can't help you with that kind of hernia. But how much sick leave do you have--that would be a good starting point lol.
    About 140 hours.
    People should learn endurance; they should learn to endure the discomforts of heat and cold, hunger and thirst; they should learn to be patient when receiving abuse and scorn; for it is the practice of endurance that quenches the fire of worldly passions which is burning up their bodies.
    --Buddha

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  15. #15
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    My inguinal hernia story: I was in the Navy and we (4 guys) were loading a torpedo up in the Bering Sea. 500 pound warhead so obviously we don't want to drop it. 2 of the 4 guys slipped on the icy deck and fell down, me and the other guy could not hold it so we g-e-n-t-l-y lowered it down, cause its a live bomb, duh. Doing so I felt a real strong tug in my groin. The next day I woke up and my nut sack was the size of a basketball. As i was 19 i showed my buddies who all told me thats what i get for visiting the working girls the last time we had a port call in the Philippines. The ship was too small to have an actual doctor, the guy we called "Doc" was a 22 year old corpsman. So they dropped me off at an Aleutian island that had an airstrip and a USAF hospital plane came and got me. Just me and an bunch of hot nurses all alone on a DC-9 back to the states (Oakland Naval Hospital). They had to "prep" me for surgery, which meant shaving my nuts. I was in heaven.
    /story
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  16. #16
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    ^^ Great story. I was once flown off the Alaska Peninsula near the Aleutians for what they thought was a hernia, but turned out to be a severe abdominal muscle strain.

    I was working at the cannery in Chignik and this bitch foreman decided to hate me because I dared step off the slime line to change the music in the boom box. So when the (big) guy whose job it was to load the 50-pound boxes of frozen salmon onto the pallets got hurt, she pulled me off the line and stuck me in his place. She sat there and watched me load almost 50,000 pounds of salmon in a 16-hour shift and looked like she enjoyed every minute of it.

    But I didn't have cute nurses shaving my nuts. I had a guy at the local clinic who stuck his finger up my butt to look for bleeding or whatever. Then later some other guy told me that the locals referred to this guy as a butt pirate or some such. I was like, great. Long story short eventually they flew me out of there because I was in constant pain and couldn't work.

    A few months rest and I was okay. Really hasn't bothered me since.

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