Hernia - can it still be done?
 

7 years ago I had a hernia above my navel taken care of in surgery. And I went to a lot of trouble to even get them to perform the surgery, because of mye weight.

Now, a couple of months into my exercise- and weight loss journey, the hernia is back. I can't even begin to tell you how frustrating this is. My worst fear is that I won't get surgery because of my weight and I feel that I really need to exercise to lose the weight.

Anyway: I would love to hear about others experience with getting a hernia while still being overweight. Advice, encouragement... anything. Right now I'm struggling to not let the hernia be an excuse to quit, to be honest. Mostly because I'm not sure how to work around this obstacle.

Anyone?

I would visit my favorite, understanding surgeon (yes, they are out there) and explain your desire to exercise, your continued weight loss, and ask what your options are. Is surgery inevitable? Can it wait? What activities can you do? What should you avoid, and what should you watch out for. The hernia will always be there. It is a defect in the abdominal wall - ummm, that sounds like you are defective... no your abdominal wall has a weakness or it could be (most likely is) an incisional hernia from prior surgery.

If the doc says weight prevents surgery now - ask why (it's not an absolute contraindication to anesthesia.) Ask when.

Go prepared with a list of questions. Take control of the visit. It's your body!

BTW, normal weight people have abdominal hernias too.

Sitting here 4 days post op after having my umbilical hernia corrected for the second time...... Can't tell you how bummed I am to be sitting and not working out. But actually today I am feeling good. I walked to the mailbox and my goal is to be back at the gym on Monday...even if it's just for walking on the treadmill. There really is no good time for surgery, but I figured if I didn't fix it now it would continue to hold me back. I want to lift weights and have a really strong core. Almost impossible to do with a hernia. You could hold off for a bit and work on some more weight loss.... I lost 20 pounds before this surgery and I really think it made the surgery less invollved. There was less fat squishing through the tear. Actually on the day of surgery, my tummy looked great and you couldn't really tell I had a hernia...except when I worked out hard it was uncomfortable.... But my thought was to go into surgery in the best health I could so my risks and recovery would be better....

Good luck.

I have an umbilical hernia from my c-section last year and a they won't fix it till I lose at least 100 lbs. It's really hard to excersise with it. It sucks!

I'm new today (Hi everyone!), but wanted to say I can sympathize about the hernia. I've been cut down the midline of my abdomen three times to have parts of my small intestine removed, and now I have a huge hernia that goes two inches above and three inches below my navel. It's several inches wide at this point, so no worries about strangulation at least.

I need to lose 30-40 pounds before the surgeons will fix it, so I'm trying. The benefit for me to lose the weight first is that the hernia is so big, that when they fix it, they'll basically end up doing a tummy tuck WHICH INSURANCE WILL PAY FOR!!

Thank you so much for answering. I'm sorry I haven't been around lately. The good news is that my doctor has sent a letter to the hospital and hopefully the surgeon there will say yes to fix the hernia.

The other good news is that I went to the gym and tried to find out exactly what I can and can't do. And discovered that there's still a lot I can do. I do focus a bit more on cardio now, but even during some weight lifting I can modify and get something done.

Thank you so much for answering me!