Hernia - Symptom, Treatment And Causes

Hernia is a symptom that happens when an organ tries to push through an opening in the tissue or muscle that hold the organ in place. Like, our intestine may sometimes break through a weak area inside the abdominal wall. Although hernias can happen in upper thigh, groin areas and belly button, but hernia is most common in the abdomen. Generally hernia is not immediately life threatening. But hernias don’t get cured on their own and so requires surgery for recovery and avoid dangerous complications that can happen for this disease.

There are mainly four types of hernia:

• Inguinal hernia
• Hiatal hernia
• Umbilical hernia
• Incisional hernia

Hernias are formed as a combination of strain and muscular weakness. Depending on the cause, this disease can develop quickly or it may also take a long time. The causes of muscular weakness are, age, damages from surgery or injury and trauma, chronic coughing, failure of the abdominal wall to close rightly while in the mother’s womb (congenital defect). Strain factors that can cause this disease (especially if your muscle is weak) are heavy weightlifting, being pregnant, being constipated, ascites or formation of fluid inside the abdomen, persistent sneezing or coughing and also sudden gain in body weight.

Factors that escalate the risk of developing this disease includes chronic constipation, smoking that can bring about a chronic cough, being obese and having a family history of having a hernia. Incisional or inguinal hernias are generally diagnosed by performing a physical examination of the affected area in the body. The doctor can check for a bulge in your abdomen that gets bigger when you stand up or cough. In case of hiatal hernia, the doctor can recommend an endoscopy or a barium X-ray for seeing the internal locations inside the stomach. If children have umbilical hernia, the doctor can perform an ultrasound scan.

Whether a treatment is required for your hernia completely depends on the severity of your symptoms and the size of your herniation, Dietary changes are generally recommended for treating hiatal hernia. Patients are advised not to eat heavy meals. You can also be advised to give up smoking cigarettes or lose weight. For hiatal hernia, patients are also prescribed over-the-counter medicines that helps in reducing stomach acid to eliminate acid reflux or heart burns.

However, if your hernia has grown larger and is creating discomfort and pain, the doctor may decide to operate. The hernia surgery is most commonly done by patching the herniation with a surgical mesh. Hernia surgery can be done both laparoscopically and by open surgery.

It must be noted, that as hernia recurrence is much higher than other surgical procedures during the post-operative phase, absolute care is needed for total recovery from the disease.