inguinal hernia repair- 1 week later

This is a brief account of my experience for others who may be thinking about having the surgery, or have had it and want to compare their experience.

Until last week, I had been living with a left inguinal hernia whose only symptom was intense pain after standing or walking for a short period of time. The pain felt like tingling and numbness in various areas of my left upper thigh, as well as a sort of deep pain on the inside of my groin. This would all occur if I stood for too long, either still or walking. My theory was the weight of my intestines pressed down on the hernia and casued the pain. There was never a bulge. By the way, I'm a pretty fit guy, not over weight at all.

I read a message here about healing yourself by cleansing your "impacted" colon of "crap"- I won't say that won't help alleviate some pain- but it certainly won't cure a hernia. In my case, I don't think it would have mattered at all.

I went in for surgery a little over a week ago- it was a standard, non laparoscopic repair using a mesh. I have a 4 inch incision which was closed up with durabond, so there will be no suture scars. Underneath this incision the surgeon told me there are 4 layers of tissue that were sutured.

The surgeon said it was a big hernia (again, no bulge ever) and that the intestines had slipped into the scrotum. However, he was able to reduce it, and did not have to cut the hernial sac.

The surgeon also mentioned that the laparoscopic repairs are not done frequently for inguinal hernias any more, because the outcomes are so much better with the standard procedure.

I have had no digestive problems, other than the constipation.

I was in and out of the hospital in under 3 hours. The pain wasn't too bad, except when moving. What hurt most was the area below my left rib cage and my thigh. Getting up and down was at times excruciating. The area of the hernia itself has been almost painless.

However, the WORST part of the whole ordeal, was the constipation. Actually, the constipation didn't hurt- After 3 days of no BM, I had to take a Correctal. It worked, but I passed something that felt like a three foot watermelon. It was very painful, as all the muscles involved were still very sore. I broke a sweat, and probably burned 500 calories as well as shed a few pounds. Definitely talk to your surgeon about stool softeners. Wish mine would have mentioned them.

Since the surgery, I have not had any deep hernia pain, but I do still experience tingling and numbness in my thigh. I am hoping this is because things are still swollen and pressing on nerves, and that this will go away over time. My surgeon did mention it may take up to 6 months for thigh/nerve pain to return to normal. Even if it never does, I can cope with some numbness and tingling- put not being able to walk more than 10 minutes without severe pain (as I was before the operation) was really affecting my lifestyle, which has been pretty active.

During surgery, I was catheterized, but I never knew it- it was done after the general anaesthesia kicked in, and was removed before it wore off- never had any pain whatsoever from that.


My left scrotum is still somewhat swollen and a little discolored, but not painful. There was some slight bruising below my navel, and a little discoloration in the base of the penis.

I was on 7.5MG of hydrocodone every 3 hours for about 3 days, then quite taking them altogether. I still have some discomfort, but nothing really painful that merits continuing to take narcotics.

Bryan



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