I mostly lurk around and gather advice, but now I need some.
Last October, ran a marathon followed by a long hike the next day. Had some groin pain on the left side, but wasn’t too bad. Fast forward to late Nov, ran a 5k on Thanksgiving Day, and then a 12 miler with a football game on that Saturday. Groin pain on the left side worsened. Pain persisted getting out of the car, coughing, sneezing, rolling over in bed. Upper leg felt stiff so I stopped running for a couple of weeks. Started back running in January and by mid-Feb, the pain was gone. During a long run in March, I felt a pain along my adductor on the left side and had to have my wife come and pick me up. I stopped running altogether and read as much as I could about what this could be. Note, I am able to swim (no flip turns or breast stroke) and bike without irritating my groin.
By May, I thought I had an SH, but hoped it was something else. Saw an orthopedist and had an X-Ray and MRI. Hip area looked good on the X-Ray, but the MRI showed large fluid signal along the left side rectus abdominis aponeurosis. Recommended another MRI with sports hernia protocol. He thought there was no reason for the additional MRI and suggested a couple of Drs who could diagnose and treat this better.
In the meantime, I started PT and went from the end of May until the end of August. PT exercises were actually making the pain worse toward the end. Stopped PT and finally saw a Dr who knows about these injuries. Suggested that I either get surgery and there is an 80% chance that I would recover fully based on his statistics for guys over 40 (I’m 46), or I could wait and just let it ride. Within 5 years, the tendons should be healed and I should be pain free.
I’ve scheduled surgery for 10/13, but I have some mental reservations that I’m trying to resolve. In the end, I may not go through with it, but it’s just hard to have the pain there daily.
Has anyone just recovered from this type of injury? How long did it take? If surgery, what type and did you recover or were there more complications?
My advice would be to take a trip down to Philadelphia to see William Meyers for a consult before you go through with the surgery. He might be a charlatan, but the more opinions you get on this the better, especially because there are a lot of really incompetent MDs working on these injuries/in this space.
I underwent the surgery for athletic pubalgia and labral tear simultaneously. Recovery was the easiest of any major operation I’ve had (ACL/MCL repair, meniscus tear, etc.). There weren’t any real complications. Unfortunately, it didn’t work and I have severe hip pain and issues running to this day. I doubt I will ever be able to run more than 30 miles in a week ever again, and frankly I just don’t have it in me to go through with another surgery.
Sport hernia is not an inguinal hernia (and vice versa), but interestingly I saw a specialist for suspected sports hernia and he found inguinal hernia instead. Bilateral, in fact.
I may not remember exactly correctly, but I thought my doc said that an MRI would be unlikely to detect a sports hernia, but would pick up an inguinal hernia. In fact the best test for sports hernia is a very special piece of finger insertion that you will remember for the rest of your life, taking a path into your body that no man should ever discover. In the words of Jim ‘Wash Out’ Pfaffenbach from Hot Shots! - “ain’t no man taking that route with me”!!
If its inguinal, and it looks like it might descend, you have to ask yourself whether you are willing to wait until it appears as a squatter in your scrotum. I had mine both whipped out.
My recovery from laparoscopic repair of bilateral inguinal hernia was probably not typical. I did a race about 3-4 weeks after and ran within 30 secs of my 5k PB. But the swim was “interesting” with all that tightness in my abdomen. It was probably a really shit idea. I think most people are out of the game for a fair bit longer than that.
The most fun part is post surgery, if they do lap repair. They filled my abdomen with CO2 and inflated me. After the op when they had sewn me back up again, I had an intense and painful feeling that I needed to fart out of my armpit.
I feel certain that this has all been no help to you, but I enjoyed remembering it.
EDIT: apologies, I read your title as Sports Hernia/Inguinal *Hernia *when clearly that isn’t what you meant. Should have paid more attention. the bit about the SH test still stands though, you need to find somebody willing to poke you.
Exactly the same procedure back in 2007… you just gave me a queasy flashback. It was 3 months before I raced a tri, but then that was my triathlon comeback year, so I had to learn swimming & biking all over again.
OP should get it sorted, ideally asap as the off-season is now upon us…ages to recover & re-build.
ETA - did you have mesh Knighty? It was a new procedure when I got them done, and the surgeon (in Germany) said the long-term effectiveness of these was not certain. It’s held fine, but I still get the odd painful twinge when I straighten-up if I’ve sat awkwardly for a while.
I saw Dr. Busconi at UMass Worcester. He’s presented papers on the subject and I’m fairly confident in his abilities after finding others who have been to him.
I’m just worried about the surgery itself. I’m confident in the diagnosis after speaking with several other Drs about this.
I’m not sure it’s going to heal on its own. I’m ok with not running a marathon again, but not ok not being able to run with my kids for sports, leisure, etc…
I had the inguinal repair done laproscopically this past April. Had it done by Mark Reiner in NYC. He also fixed an umbilical hernia at the same time. He literally had me riding he trainer easy the next day. Two weeks out I was running and riding better than ever completely pain free. My only regret was not getting the surgery sooner.
I did have the same experience with you had with the gas pumped into my stomach. That was the worst of it. I thought I was going to burst.
Thanks. I did that rehab protocol during April and May before going to see a PT as I thought I could rehab myself out of it. In addition, I went to a massage therapist and chiropractor. I believe the chiropractor helped with hip mobility, but the PT wasn’t much help at that point. I think I needed to have the injury heal up a bit more at the time because certain exercises hurt a lot.