Hernia: What You Need To Know?

Hello Everybody!

This is Dr. Muffi here from Digestive Health Institute. So, we specialize in laparoscopic surgery or minimal surgery in any form be it obesity surgery, hernia surgery, we do laparoscopic surgery for various ailments. What is hernia is the question I am quite often asked. So, hernia is any defect in your muscles of the abdomen cavity. Now, what are the different types of a hernia. So, the hernia can be divided into different types and location. Most often seen in men is a groin hernia which happens usually in the groin and it can also be an inguinal hernia, which happens because the testis which causes the problem to the kidney. And the track which leads testis to come down and that's why you get an inguinal hernia. You also get a femoral hernia. You can get the hernia which is located in the belly button which is umbilical hernia or it can be around the umbilical region called paraumbilical hernia.

This usually happens because of obesity and it is more commonly seen in women. You can also get the hernia which can also happen because of the previous surgical scar and these are called incisional hernia. You can have a hernia at the lateral side of the abdomen cavity which called spigelian hernias. The hernia can also happen because of lung cavity to abdominal cavity. Hernia can happen congeniality in your wall. Or it can have a small defect in the muscle because of the obesity and it is called hiatal hernia which causes a lot of acidities. Sometimes it is called as internal hernia that can happen post surgery especially after bypass surgery and the small defects left inside and called an internal hernia.

So, is there any emergency for surgery. Whenever the intestine comes up, either they stuck or obstructed and you start vomiting or absolute constipation. And some of the blood supply to that part of intestine gets stuck and the skin around the hernia defects starts turning into blue, start turning into fever than it becomes an emergency. Right I said an internal hernia needs high emergency. Most of the surgeries are not emergency. And in old patients, you can avoid some of these surgeries. There are various reasons that why hernia might need to operate. Sometimes you need to make lifestyle changes. Especially in hiatal hernia you might have to sleep at 30 degree of position, eat your meals and walk at least for half an hour. Try to avoid lifting heavy weights.

Try to avoid anything which is very acidic, dark coffee, dark chocolates or the citric drinks. In terms of lifestyle changes, you have to avoid lifting weight after having surgery. All you try to prevent holding stress. How do we treat the hernia? A hernia is the defect in the muscles definitely come with any kind of medications. Gone are the days when we used to do open surgeries for hernia to now laparoscopic and robotic surgery. Very less scars with these surgery. So, most surgeries either gives few stitches or place a piece of pen which is an artificial material which covers the defects. These surgeries work really well. When sometimes if you use 2 smaller size of large defects and if surgeries are not done correctly or you have not taken proper stitches or it will pull the muscles too tight than you can get the recurrence of hernia.

Sometimes, the defects are too large, then you have to go for new techniques called AWR abdominal wall hernia repair or the trans-abdominal repair of hernia wherein you pull muscles the sides and put them closer. In the case of hiatal hernia, laparoscopic surgery is done to repair the muscles defect. In case of an internal hernia, again it is the case of emergency, you have to bring the intestine through the defect, bring it out and than close it with surgery. For all those who want to get in touch with me, consult me, seek an appointment, please do consult me through lybrate.com.