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Femoral Hernia, no surgery?
I recently was diagnosed with a small Femoral Hernia. It came about because I started feeling a pulling/tightness pain from the right side of my groin/hip flexor area up towards my midline. the pain wasn’t happening all the time, just when making certain small movements; getting up from sitting, twisting, moving around. I’m also a competitive bodybuilder so I lift weights 5-6 days/week. I never feel pain while lifting. I went to my acupuncturist/chiropractor who had been working with me on some hip flexor strains I had a few months back, and he couldn’t find the underlying issue, so he ordered an ultra sound. When I did this, the findings are below.
FINDINGS: Ultrasound of the right inguinal region demonstrates a small femoral hernia measuring 2.4 x 0.7 x 1.6 cm for a volume of 1.4 cc. The neck of the hernia measures 0.3 cm in diameter. There is no bowel involvement. The hernia completely resolves with cessation of Valsalva. Ultrasound of the left inguinal region demonstrates no evidence of a hernia. Ultrasound of the umbilical region demonstrates no evidence hernia.
CONCLUSION:
1. Right femoral hernia.After this, I went to a surgeon who specializes in hernias in my area, and his opinion is that the femoral hernia is so small, that my pain may actually be due to my very inflamed adductor muscles. He did a few touch tests and looked at the area and this was the conclusion. He said usually hernias of this size have no pain, and they don’t normally operate on them to repair. He had me go back to my doc (the acupuncture/chiro guy) to get some work done and see how I feel after the inflammation goes down.
I’ve had two treatments with acupuncture, manual massage/therapy, vibration gun, along with exercises he’s given me to work on my abductors daily, along with some stretches, heat/cold treatments, and taking collagen and turmeric to help. I’ve been staying off my adductors completely.
After/through all this, that same pulling/tightness pain has not come back, and for the most part I feel better. What I worry about is; if I don’t repair it now, while I’m in an off season from competing, is it better for me to not get surgery and just hope it doesn’t get bigger or worse, even though i’ll be lifting weights and training pretty hard (intelligently, obviously), or would it be beneficial to get the hernia repaired now so its out of the way and I don’t need to worry about it coming back later?
Any help/advice is appreciated.
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1 Reply
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If you’re feeling better, have no pain or other annoying symptoms, and a surgeon told you it is safe to ignore it, I would probably ignore it, but that’s just me as a fellow patient.
Keep in mind that groin hernia surgery in general now has as curiously high risk of chronic pain and so it’s not a risk-free procedure, thus the potential benefit must outweigh that risk.
I recall reading that a direct hernia and femoral hernia are sometimes confused on ultrasound, so that is a possibility too.
A second opinion may be helpful for various reasons and for peace of mind, what region are you located? Perhaps someone could recommend a nearby expert for you to consult with.
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