Trouble sleeping after inguinal hernia surgery

Did u have mesh put ib u? And if th answer is yes do u know what type of mesh they used?

Hi Stephen, I am just short of 4 weeks after my op. In week one I was still very sore so probably not that unusal. Do otc pain meds help at all? I was still taking paracetamol a week after my op. I felt much better after two weeks when I returned to work but then seemed to go back a bit pain wise maybe becuase I sit at a desk all day with the added presure on the scar area. I am still quite sore to the touch especially at the end of the day and am hoping things will improve more over the next few weeks. I am also left with a tightness on the side of the op in the groin area which can sometimes verge on pain but have read this can be improved with stretching exercies progressively a month or more after surgery and will loosen the area. Also my scar seems to be more sensitive at the top end rather than the bottom end, although visually it has healed fine. Do you get pain if you lay on your side of the op, the other side, or your back or all of them? I was probably still laying on the opposite side or my back after one week. I had a mesh repair by a specialist hernia surgeon and was hoping I would be back to 100% by now but reading up on this I am putting my hopes in a comment elsewhere that states "pain after a routine inguinal hernia repair should gradually subside and be gone or of minimal concern by 4-6 weeks after surgery. The scarring process can cause tightness in the groin area that is described by many patients as pain when their activity forces this area to stretch".

I'm now 4 months into my open surgery hernia op. The more I research the subject and follow these forums the more I realise the op is more poblematic than the surgeons imply. I've had all sorts of burning pains, twinges, sensitive skin (and nerveless skin) and senstive nerve roots. I did have little serious pain after the op and no bedtime pain so was lucky on that score. I was prescribed 32mg codeine but hardly used any which was good due to the constipation I wasn't warned about. Now at 4 months I have very little pain and some days now I'm unaware of the op. The improvement has been very gradual so don't give up, but it appears hernia ops have a very slow recovery time.

I kept well away from the codeine after a bad experience post op to extract impacted wisdom teeth (bad infection and pain like nothing I'd felt before). That stuff really should have a warning on the packet about constipation. In big red capital letters. I did however take the tramadol for a few days then switched to normal otc pain killers.

Yea, Stay on they until it either goes away with time of healing or get it fixed, dont wait for years of pain and misery before you do something because chances are if you start complaining now you may get help in a few years... you will see denial and other road blocks Drs will put in your way to getting better. and it can be a long depressing road to help unless you live in an area where mesh removal is easily obtainable, Vegas, Fla, NYC, California, and I beileve I seen one for Mn.

 

Hi Stephen.

I can add my tuppence worth, and hope it helps.

I have had two Inguinal Hernia ops, one on the left groin and one on the right, which was done last February. Both were open incision, the left scar is  about 5 inches long, and the right about 3.5 inches.

I can give you good, honest, hard-won advice, as i think there is a lot of unrealistic nonsense written about hernia ops, and recoverey, on the internet and elsewhere.

The first thing you have to remember is that someone has sliced you open, rearranged and repaired your abdominal wall, and then closed you back up again.

So, there is going to be quite a bit of pain, stiffness, and discomfort for the first week or two, but it does get better gradually after that....it is a healing process!

The second thing to learn is, taking into account my first point, is not to expect too much!

Some people seem to think you can start taking long walks, running, cycling, weights, and other silly things immediately after a hernia op. Trust me, that is not a good idea.....you are nowhere near fit for that!

You  will also have  a hard,, long,, ridge of scar tissue for probably three months after the op, which can be sore, itchy, and uncomfortable, especially if you overdo it.

It's best to take it very easy immediately after an ingunal hernia op, and very gradually, and carefully, ease yourself back into your normal routine, and a bit bof walking when your body feels like it. They say to listen to your body, and i reckon that is sound advice.

I started taking long walks five or six weeks after my last op, and ended up in quite some pain, which took nearly two weeks to subside, and left me quite worried, so be careful.

As for work; i have a manual job, and my surgeon and GPs advice was to take three months off; which is what i did both times, and i reckon if you are going to manual work which involves lifting, pushing, pulling etc, you definitely need that three months, otherwise you run the real risk of tearing the repair...i personally know three guys who did exactly that, and they all said it was worse the second time round.

However, in office jobs etc, people can go back to work fairly soon.

The last thing i would say is, that in my own personal opinion,procedures like this leave a weakness in your body at the op site, even when well done. I do most things i was doing before, but at work two years ago, i caused some damage to my first repair through lifting stuff up onto my shoulder, and i have been left with some lasting pain, and definately weaker there...so be aware, and be careful.

I hope i don't cause you any worries, but i believe in saying it as it is.

Cheers, Callum.

Many thanks for all your replies - I guess the general message is nothing unusual, which is comforting.  At the moment I can only sleep on my back - no more than an hour at a time, and I try to ration pain killers to once a day to reduce the constipation.  Things aren't too bad - at least my penis has returned to a reassuringly pink colour, rather than the vivid purple hue after the op.

Yes, for the first week after this last op, i could only get some sleep, by sleeping in a certain position on my side; and even then i didn't get much quality sleep that week, with the pain and discomfort, and i was taking painkillers every 3 or 4 hours. But, hey, i got there eventually....and, yes, the purple bruising of your intimate bits is something else!

I'm surprised they didn,t prescribe any pain killers. They did for me, and it pretty much kept me in bed for the first week, which I think was just as well. You'll probably need to wear sweat pants for the next month. Take it really easy. It takes six months for the mesh to fully grow in, if they did that, and they probably did. The less stress you put on it, the better the repair will be. For me, my biggest surprise came three months after my surgery, when the inside scar wrapped itself around a nerve, now I'll forever get a nerve block, (ablation) every nine or ten months.

I have had liprocopic hernia surgery 3 weeks now, just under where my appendix incision was I get a slight pain when walking and driving when I hit rough spot. Is this normal?