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For almost 13 months my hernias went undiagnosed-had both a MRI and a cat scan and saw two surgeons over that time. I had burning and heavy feeling in two places in the left groin. Sitting at times was unbearable at times. Lying down was the only thing that most of the times would bring relief. Finally after seeing a rx surgeon to rule out a sports hernia (even though i didn’t play sports but I was desperate to find an answer) he diagnosed me as under having a hernia. After surgery he informed me I had both a direct and indirect hernia. No wonder I was I so much discomfort. Imagine that two hernias and no one could diagnose them and I had to live with this pain for more than a year.
What I am learning through my very nightmarish journey with hernias is that there is for whatever reason a subset of people that just don’t present in the normal fashion. And how the medical field as a whole is really quite bad or poorly trained at helping this subset of people. Unfortunately my mesh failed and I had to spend another 6 months in excruciating pain being told by the medical field that everything was A ok. I was told by one hernia specialist that the pain I was going through definitely without a doubt had nothing to do with my mesh or anything to do with the hernia site. Dejected I asked in your expert opinion what should I do? And he said get a deep back massage. Thanks. Anyways I finally found an expert who after looking at the same cat scan this other surgeon looked at that my mesh had folded up. The take away is don’t give up and do your best to do whatever you can to find specialists who can read these scans even if the hernia doesn’t present itself in the typical way. They are out there.
And chaunce 1234 yes pain can absolutely extend below the knee from a hernia or mesh from a hernia. Again this is probably rare in most situations and uncommon but that doesn’t mean it can’t. When I had my mesh folded up I had burning in my thigh all over and in my calf and foot.
if you research the femoral nerve it shows that it can extend to the calf and even the foot.
And everyone just isn’t wired the same way.
when I wanted to rule out the lateral femoral cutsneous nerve as a nerve causing my burning pain the pain management doctor was convinced it wasn’t this nerve Bc I was comparing if not only thigh pain but pain just above the knee and he said this nerve doesn’t go to the front top of the knee-sure enough after they did the nerve block I felt numbness in the area I was complaining about. My case was probably an anomaly but it just goes to show you everything isn’t a textbook answer.