I developed some groin/stomach pains in August while finishing up the tri season and training for Chicago marathon. I decided I would wait to visit a doc for the pain until after Chicago, but now I’m training for Disney in January and am planning to sign up for Gulf Coast half in May and other summer tris.
My primary doc today told me to get a surgery consult which is now scheduled for Monday. I know that others have undergone hernia surgery and I was wondering how the surgery went and whether you were able to survive a six week layoff before returning to “normal” activities. I put normal in quotes because “normal” to docs means driving, eating, sleeping, working, watching TV and doing things 95% of Americans do, but not necessarily two-a-day workouts, 20 mile training runs, hours on the trainer in the basement or considering your daily workout as a necessity not a luxury or something that you dread.
I also hear that some people just live with hernia pain. I know I should probably just take the time and get it done, but from a selfish prospective I’m not sure the pain of the hernia outweighs the pain I would feel from giving up training for so long. Loss of fitness, weight gain, not to mention the stress that would build for that long would be unbearable.
Any thoughts from those who have faced this issue?
It depends on what kind of hernia you have. Assuming it is an inguinal hernia (the most common type for men), I had both side operated on, about 15 years apart. The first time I was a graduated student and was operated on by a resident. Operation took 1h30 and it took me 4 weeks before I could start training.
Second time I was operated on by a pro (I now have connections in the amazing canadian health system… ). Same operation only took 40 minutes and the cut was about 2.5 inches compared to 5.5 inches for the first operation. I was running lightly 6 days after the operation and back in full training after 2 weeks.
Get the operation. The pain will only get worse and there is always the danger of you having to be operated in an emergency situation. You might be surprised how quickly you will be back on your feet.
There’s never a good time to get an operation. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. It will most likely get bigger the longer you wait, the abdominal wall defect will take more Marlex to repair, recovery will be longer, etc. Colleague of mine carried his around 8 or 9 years - until he couldn’t run anymore. The surgeon took four pounds of omentum out of his scrotum. I don’t know how the hell he got his pants on the last year or so before he got it fixed.
Go get an opinion. Only a look can give you a reasonable recovery time expectation. Maybe you can leave it alone a year or two. But it isn’t going to get better on its own, esp. if you are doing two-a-days and 20 mile training runs.
It not only depends on what type of hernia you have, but how old you are… the younger you are the longer life the hernia will have to get bigger and cause real problems. I guess it is relatively academic- if you are a triathlete, you are probably stressing the abdominal wall so much that it is going to get bigger/worse no matter what.
If it was me I would get the surgery. I would take one for the team and get it over with before the hernia worsens. but you are going to sacrifice training time, no matter what. Despite what the previous poster said, you should take a pretty significant period off of training (most surgeons will quote 4-6 weeks). Your surgeon will most liekly repair the henia with mesh. for the surgery to be successful, that mesh has to scar in. the last thing you want to do is go out 2 weeks after surgery and f–k it up. Recurrent hernia repairs can be very messy and the rate of complications in redo’s are significantly higher. I think the previous poster was lucky… no surgeon who has a clue would ever say it is okay to get back to anything like regular training after 2 weeks…
Also ask your surgeon about laparoscopic repair- the best data shows that in a competent surgeons hands the results and complication rates are equivalent, but you will most likely have less post-op pain and earlier return to work and ativity. You just have to find a surgeon who is competent (ask him or her how many they have done- I would not settle for less than 100).
Thanks for everybody’s advice. Some good points to consider.
Last thing I want is to have an emergency situation arise while out on a long run or ride.
I’m only 37, so I have years ahead of me to train and race, so why let it continue to get worse/bigger and more dangerous/painful. Yes, I will not be able to do Gulf Coast half in May, but I will have plenty more years to do that race. At least I wasn’t signed up for it yet!
I probably need the rest anyway. My “A” races this year were in May/June and October, and I barely took a break before looking forward to an A race on Thanksgiving day and then again in January. So if I scheduled the surgery right after my race in January then I could ‘hunker down and stay inside during the worst weather months of the year’ and then come out again in the spring and train for some summer events feeling much better.
I’m going to the surgery consult today and will hear more about how this doc wants to treat the pain. I did go out and run 15.5 on Sat morning (very slow) and 9 this morning with very little pain. In fact, I felt great all weekend. But any flexing of the stomach muscles is a reminder that it is still there. I’ll let everybody know how things progress since I know others, including my running partner, are facing similar pains and decisions.
I had a left inguinal hernia/repair when I was about 33 or so. It was repaired laparoscopically with 3 incisions in my abdomen. I was back at work in 2 days, and then tried “normal” activites (for me) in 2 weeks. I messed everything up pretty badly and then it took fully 8 weeks for me to begin training again.
I understand that depending on the hernia that it might be a better option, recovery wise to simply have the repair done right at the hernia location. Hopefully I’ll never need to find out.
I can still feel the repair they did when my bladder gets really full.
My hernia occured when I moved from apartment to house. The next day I saw a little lump on the left side about 3" down and 3" over from my navel. It disappeared in a few days and I raced in 7 triathlons that season from the time it was diagnosed to when it was repaired. No problems.
That’s interesting. I read that the lap method provided athletes with the quickest recovery period, but I guess it also provides people with a false sense that they have fully recovered when they should be taking it easy. Sounds like the bottom line is that if I decide to try and resume or restart training shortly after the surgery then I am taking a big risk that I will screw it up more, but if I wait it out the 6 wks to 2 months and resume training then I have a better chance that it won’t make conditions worse.
You know, if it had to happen, then the off season isn’t a bad time for it. I just hope that I can keep the weight down during the inactivity. I may also go insane not training for so long. I’ll just have to find another way to release stress.
My doc had told me it was OK to return to “normal activity” in about 2 weeks, so thats what I did. I had previously told him what exactly normal was for me, but he totally ignored anything I said, as most docs do. Later on, when I returned to him in a great deal of pain, he said “I didn’t think you were serious”. Ass. If I needed to go through that again, I’d take a solid 6 weeks before I even considered athletics again, just to be on the safe side.
FYI, swimming was the worst activity - the stretching/reaching pulled on the repair, aggravating it even more than running. For me, cycling would have probably been the most safe activity to start with.
Worst part of the whole surgery was the after effects of the anasthesia - vomiting, and the first pee after being cath’d. Sneezing is no great fun either.
I think lots of people have missed the part about this being a sports hernia, not your standard brand of hernia.
It is my understanding that there is really one guy on the east coast that does this surgery often. It is really a new thing. My understanding is that it is not su much a new injury or repair but rather that the diagnostic tools never rreally were around before.
At any rate, I think the people who really have any knowledge about this would be the staff at an NFL team or a major division 1 football team. I’d try to get 15 minutes with someone on their staff and ask who they are seeing about it.
I’ve had a small inguinal hernia since February. I’m actually getting it repaired today. i put off having it done so I could race IMLP and IMH. both races went well and the hernia didn’t effect my training. I was taking a risk that it would get bigger or develope a complication. You could probably get away with postponing the surgery without any consequences but you never know for sure. ome of that depends on exactly what type of hernia you have , how big it is, and what agravates it.
For me triathlon training didn’t cause it to pop out at all. Standing around at cocktail parties it would be killing me.
From what I have read, the “sports” or “sportsman’s” hernia is a disruption of the inguinal canal without a clinically detectible hernia. Insidious onset of unilateral groin pain is the most common symptom. So while a tradional hernia shows a visible bulge in the lower abdomen, with the sports hernia there is no bulge, just complaints of pain. The pain may go away with days or weeks of rest, but returns when athletes return to activity, cough, sneeze or do resisted sit-ups (all very similar to regular hernias).
Most docs these days jump right to the hernia as the cause of the pain, which may not be the case. The problem with a sports hernia is actually a tearing and inflammation of tissue very low in the abdomen near the inguinal canal, which is the same tradition location for a hernia in a male.
The sports hernia is popping up in hockey players as well as those in soccer, football and other sports. It’s probably only a matter of time before more triathetes are diagnosed as well.
The cure for the sports hernia is the same as for a regular hernia in that surgery is performed. However, many docs not familiar with sports hernias are hesitant to do a hernia repair when there is not visible bulge (hernia present). Right now it is more common for Eurpoean docs to do sports hernia surgeries than in the US.
From my reading, rest, stretching and strenghening are about 50/50 in fixing the problem. But most opt for surgery when those don’t help. I believe Donovan McNabb and others in the NFL having the sports hernia is what brought this new term about.
I’m not sure whether I have the sports hernia or a regular hernia. I don’t have a bulge, more of a pain low in my stomach/groin when I run and do sit-ups (which I have had to stop doing since August when the pain first occurred). I also can’t tie the injury to a certain event, like moving furniture, since a bulge never appeared.
My limited understanding is that it is a hernia insomuch as a hernia refers generally to a weakness of the abdominal wall.
A sports hernia seems to be where the tendons of the abdominal wall are pulled away from the bone. This is somehow meaningfully different than the “normal” hernias that most of us get.
I’ve had two but the first surgery I was four or so and five at the next one I think. Oddly I do not remember ever having pain for it, don’t know how they figured out I had it. About the only thing I remember is being totally freaked out by seeing double when I woke up form the surgery. That was very difficult for me as a 5 year old.
For the record in later surgeries. I handled the recovery process much better. Not sure if it was because I had experience or the fact that I was older than 5
The cure for the sports hernia is the same as for a regular hernia in that surgery is performed. However, many docs not familiar with sports hernias are hesitant to do a hernia repair when there is not visible bulge (hernia present). Right now it is more common for Eurpoean docs to do sports hernia surgeries than in the US.
From my reading, rest, stretching and strenghening are about 50/50 in fixing the problem. But most opt for surgery when those don’t help. I believe Donovan McNabb and others in the NFL having the sports hernia is what brought this new term about.
there was an article about this in the philadelphia papers a few weeks ago. yes, mcnabb has a sports hernia, and this seems to be very different than traditional hernias (to the point where, when i read the explanation of the injury, i wasn’t too sure why they even shared the name). apparently this is a common injury for soccer players, and there is some german doctor who has been working on a new way to repair it that only takes 2 weeks to recover from. the general gist of the article was that mcnabb should fly to germany and get the surgery done there. of course, he makes millions of dollars every year, so he has certain options open to him that others don’t…
the article was somewhere on philly.com, sometime around the eagles’ by-week, if that helps any.
Thanks for the message. I just found and read the article. Interesting that this German, female Doc has done over 12,000 hernia surgeries and has about mastered the sport’s hernia operation to where soccer players in Europe are back playing in two weeks. I guess the more US docs study up on her techniques the more available it will be here. (They were suggesting that McNabb fly over after a game, sit out the open date, and come back the following week without even missing a game).
I think the great thing about knowing about the sport’s hernia (and you are right it shouldn’t be called a hernia at all) is that I’m going to push back on the surgical doc today if he thinks I don’t have a more traditional hernia and isn’t sure what is causing the issues.
I faced the same hernia question. For the last 2 years I canceled the November surgery for an inguinal hernia. This year I am doing it, tomorrow at 1:30 EST. It will be laproscopy surgery but I do expect to be laid up for 3-4 weeks. I am 48 and I decided to bite the bullet even though it rarely bothers me and did not show up after the NY marathon I just did. But it will get only worse so I am going go just get it over with and off my mind as it can be a distraction. My first 1/2 Ironman race is not until May so plenty of time to train- but I know I will be going crazy for the 3-4 weeks mentally
Good luck with the surgery tomorrow. After my primary doc told me that she thought I had a hernia, the surgery consult was with another doc who disagreed. He is a runner himself and he thought I should lay off the heavy exercise for 4-6 weeks to let my groin/ab area heal properly. He didn’t detect a hernia, but thought that it was probably a strain/pull from overuse. I told him that if the recovery was 4-6 weeks then why shouldn’t I consider surgery now. He said that he couldn’t say that surgery would help, so why go through the operation if it might not help. I asked him about running the ATL Half Thanksgiving morning and Disney in January and he said it shouldn’t cause further damage to the area. So I did feel better about that and was able to tell my wife that the Doc said it was OK to keep training.
At least if you have to get the surgery done, winter time seems like the best time of the year to do it.
