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Torn hernia repair or a kidney stone attack?
I had my hernia surgery in 2019. It was a right-sided indirect inguinal hernia, and I have had it for about 9 years before it was operated on. It was repaired by open surgery. I believe it was a modified Shouldice technique. No mesh was used. It was a tissue repair, with two absorbable (PBS 2×0) and two permanent (Prolane 2×0) sutures.
So I have been hernia free for about 5 years now. Apart from the initial pain and challenges following surgery, my recovery went very well. I clearly remember that getting in and out of bed was most difficult and painful. I was bending forward when standing or walking, because it was painful to stand or walk straight up, or to stretch my arms over my head. This is normal, and expected after abdominal surgery. But after about one month I was completely pain free. The scar on the incision site was barely visible, and I could only feel a linear bump along the incision line. That too disappeared over time. I started going to the gym and doing very light exercises, mostly cardio.
In the time since the surgery, I have had moments of general discomfort in the lower abdomen, mostly in the right groin region, sometimes a bit closer to the midline. I would describe it as very light numbness and aching. It just comes and goes, seemingly unprovoked. It doesn’t happen very often. It’s always completely gone in the next morning, or within a few hours of rest during the day. It’s never painful. It’s just this odd sensation, like having a weak spot in the abdominal wall, which reminds me a little of the time when I had my hernia.
My hernia was retractable. It would be reduced to nothing when laying down on my back for some time (at least an hour). So I would always go to bed with a hernia and get up in the morning without it, and then it would slowly creep back out. I would sometimes feel how it was pushing to get out, but most of the time I would not even notice when it came out. It’s the similar feeling I have now whenever I get that sensation, it’s as if something is pushing on that abdominal wall.
What worries me more is that for the past two years, I sometimes have a sharp, stabbing pain in the right groin region, a little below the incision line. It feels almost like a sudden muscle cramp. If it happens, it happens only once in a day at most, and it seems to be provoked by certain moves or activities. There seem to be two specific spots where it pains. One spot near the midline, close to root of penis, and one spot distal from it, closer to the right thigh. When it happens, it feels like one or more of the muscles in that area are tender and irritated.
So last month, I was moving out an armchair with a friend of mine. It was not very heavy, but it was big and difficult to get a grip on. I was helping him throw it out basically. He was getting rid of it. The garbage collection room is just 100 meters away from the building. As he lives on the third floor and there is no elevator, we had to carry it down the stairs. He lifted from the back. I went first and took on most of the weight as we went down.
The biggest problem for me was that I had to go down low to grab on from underneath with my back towards the backrest of the chair and my hands turned backwards. You have to understand, I’m not a strongman. I don’t do heavy lifting, and I don’t have much experience moving furniture to be honest. I’m an average build, more sporty kind of guy. I’m very flexible and agile, but not very strong. (I like to help people when they ask for help. I’m bad at saying no).
It went well, but we had to put the chair down and lift it up three times or so, as we needed to open and hold up doors and we took some time to rest. Even though I’m very flexible, I’m not used to these very extreme positions. Especially not lifting things up at the same time. My quads were aching for two days as they took most of the beating during lifts.
In hindsight, we should have installed some sort of handles or should have taken it apart. You live and learn! I have actually thought about it beforehand, but I had not come up with a plan, and it was too late to think of that when time came to take it out.
I had abdominal pain after this. To the point where it made me lay down on the bed when I got back home. I just suddenly felt very weak and sick as I came home. I could not stand up on my feet. My belly was aching and I almost felt like vomiting at one point. But the pain was not in the immediate groin region. It was a bit higher up, but on the same side as my hernia. It felt better after a few minutes and I got up and went on to eat my dinner, watch some TV and go to bed.
But the very next day, I had the same thing happen again. So I went to hospital in the afternoon. I drove myself there. I saw a doctor who said I was a bit tender on the right side when he did the palpation. He ordered a urine test and they found blood in my urine. He suspected I might have a kidney stone and so he sent me to the ER for more testing.
At the ER, I saw a (male) nurse, and he took the blood tests. I was waiting for the ER doctor to come see me, but they were all very busy. So I decided to go home for the day as it was getting late and I didn’t want to alarm and worry my family. I decided to get back in again in the morning. Just before I left, I asked about the blood test results, and the nurse said that they came in and were looking good.
During that night, and while at home, I woke up from my stomach growling and what felt like constipation. This was around 3 AM in the morning. I thought it might be due to something I ate. I went to the toilet, hoping to get a relieve. I sat down on the toilet chair but I could not go. And what felt like constipation was now turning into pain. It was on the right side again, just below my belly button. The pain got so bad, I had to sit down on the floor to try and find relieve. I tried laying down flat, but it was not helping. I also tried kneeling over the toilet chair in case I need to vomit, but I didn’t feel like vomiting. It was getting worse by the seconds. I started to panic and was minutes away from calling an ambulance. I sat down on the floor and started breathing heavily like never before, and my whole body started to shake violently. I had taken my mobile phone with me, but I could hardly find the strength to reach for it and it was just an arm’s reach away from me. Thankfully, this nightmare started to wear off, and within minutes I felt better. The whole episode lasted about 15 minutes. But it felt like an hour had passed. I had never experienced anything like this in my life, the pain was unbearable. My abdominal muscles on that side immediately felt sore like after a strenuous exercise at the gym.
I went back to bed to catch some sleep, and in the early morning I went to the ER again. I saw a doctor, told him of my new symptoms, and he also suspected a kidney stone. He ordered a CT scan. It was a low dose, abdominal overview scan, without contrast. The scan didn’t show anything abnormal they said, and no kidney stones were found. But the doctor still suspected that I had a kidney stone, given my symptoms and the most recent event, something he called a stone attack. He said the stone may have already passed or it may not be seen on a scan if it’s very small and the resolution or dose is low. He prescribed some medicine and I was released from hospital.
I bought one of the meds that’s supposed to help with passing of the kidney stones via urination. But after reading about the side effects, I decided not to take it. It was just too scary and seemed inappropriate to take without a secure diagnosis. He also prescribed something for pain, and I didn’t even buy that one.
The images were reviewed the very next day, and a 3 mm ureteral stone was identified on the right side. The doctor called me up and told me about the new findings and change of status. An appointment was made to the urologist and a follow up with a proper scan. But to my dismay, the urologist appointment was later cancelled because the stone is very small they said and will pass on its own, and the follow up scan was also cancelled. They left me with uncertainty and a lot of questions on my mind.
In the next few days, I was feeling much better. I have not had those stone attacks or whatever that shit was. I had a little tingling sensation at the base and neck of penis. I never had fever. But I had to pee two times in a row on one or two days. Then it all cleared up I think. If there was a kidney stone that is. In the last few days, I have been feeling a slight discomfort by sitting on furniture that is not well padded. My scrotum feels like it’s all tense and tender. I sometimes feel like a radiating pain at the base of penis on the hernia side, on the inside of upper right thigh, and sometimes I feel it a little around the inner side of my right butt cheek. I’m thinking this might be due to a nerve irritation.
Those of you who have had a hernia relapse, can you tell me what that felt like? Have you felt like the repair is tearing up? Was it extremely painful? Perhaps some of you have had kidney stones too and can relate to what I’m saying? Or maybe you know someone close to you that did?
My initial thought after moving that chair was that perhaps one of the permanent sutures has come loose, or something like that. But perhaps this was all caused by a kidney stone attack and I’m worrying about my hernia for nothing.
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This discussion was modified 1 hour, 1 minute ago by
John Fortem.
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This discussion was modified 1 hour, 1 minute ago by
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