Hernia Question....

How do you know if you have one?? 

Mel... It depends on if you're talking internal or external. Kinda sounds like I'm talking about belly buttons, huh? Anyway..the internal ones..which often are also referred to as KBS...kinky Bowel Syndrome...for me was very, very painful. Because of all the extra room to move around, the intestines would fold, bend and get stuck in little pocket openings. As they were pinched, it hurt...to me, it was like having a charlie horse..but it the stomach. I kinda massaged it, and that helped a little bit. Each episode would last a few hours...or until the intestine was able to de-kink itself. I kept a journal of what time, for what duration, and a description of the pain. The doctor can do a cat scan but if you aren't kinked up at the precise moment of the scan, it won't show anything..mine didn't. The surgeon will want to do an exploratory & fix whatever kinks are there. Again, for me, they went into the same laprascopic openings as for my RNY and found 3 'kinks' and 1 area of scar tissue. The kinks were taken care of my some well-placed meshing. Physically, on the outside, there was no evidence that I had a hernia at all.                                                                                                       Now..if you're talking external, I think the situations and symptoms can be very unique. Technically, I think a 'hernia' is anytime there is an opening to where things can go where they don't normally belong. When we think of external ones..that opening is usually in the abdominal wall..usually due to surgery (like mine) or injury. What was moving was my intestines...and they were moving to the outside of the abdominal wall. While this felt weird, it wasn't painful. It was however very evident with the huge protrusion from my belly. Since they couldn't just pull the two sides back together for me (my opening was very large), they pulled the two sides together as much as they could and then attached a mesh to each side to close up the gap and retain the intestines back behind the wall where they belong. While this type of hernia didn't hurt at all pre-op, it hurt ALOT post-op and the recovery has been much slower.                                                      The best advise I can give is to be sure you journal everything. This will help your surgeon in determining what the issue may be.                        Sherri

Hi Mel.  I just had surgery on mine on Apr. 11th.  It really wasn't painful at all, but you could definitely see it.  It was the size of a baseball, but on the outside it looked more like a mini-basketball....lol.  I will see my surgeon next Monday.  I don't know what all he did, but I'm pretty sure he had to use the mesh in mine also.  He kept me overnight, but some people go home the same day.  It's still sore and still swollen, but I'm definitely glad I had it done.  I'm almost to my goal weight, but it looked so big (and still does somewhat), that I couldn't tell my stomach wasn't nearly as big as it was before my RNY.  He had to cut about the same place that he cut me with my open RNY.  It's the same length. If you have questions, you should definitely call your surgeon and see what he thinks.  It's pretty normal I guess after having RNY.  I don't know if this helps much, but usually if there is a lump of some kind somewhere close to your incisions, there's a good chance it is.  If you lay flat on your back, a lot of times it will disappear, but will show up again when standing. Candy