exercises to avoid - umbilical hernia?

randydogsf

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Went to my doctor last week with what turned out to be a small umbilical hernia at the top of my belly button. I've got an appointment to see a surgeon, but in the meanwhile my doctor told me I could just go on with my life - including my workouts. This seems suspicious to me - surely there is *something* at the gym I shouldn't be doing.

So, I went ahead and hit my workouts over the weekend, just taking things a little easy. Nothing seemed to aggravate the problem, but I'm still a little worried.

So my question: are there specific exercises I should just flat-out avoid while dealing with this umbilical hernia?

Thanks in advance!
 
MF210

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Sorry, but I can't answer you bro. I just stumbled across your thread from a search b/c I think I may have ambilical hernia. A big knot above my belly button.
 

randydogsf

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Sorry, but I can't answer you bro. I just stumbled across your thread from a search b/c I think I may have ambilical hernia. A big knot above my belly button.
Sounds like it.

See a doctor soon. Some people put up with the thing for years, but that can get dangerous - if a section of your intestines gets "stuck" in the hole and you can't gently push it back in while laying down, for instance, that definitely means emergency room, probably emergency surgery, all sorts of unpleasentness.

Whereas, getting it taken care of right away - for me, at least - was almost effortless. I went to my doctor, he referred me to a surgeon, we made an appointment for day surgery, and that was it... 10 days later, I had the repair work done. On the day of the surgery, I left for the hospital at 10am and was home again at 4pm. The surgery part of that was less than an hour. And my fairly lousy HMO insurance paid for the whole thing.

Had moderate discomfort for a few days, which was pretty much eliminated by 1 Vicodin every 4-6 hours. (Ask for Vicodin - don't let them get away with prescribing Tylanol with Codine or something lame like that.) By a couple of days after that, I was off the Vicodin completely.

I was lucky enough to be able to work from home for the week after the surgery, but I could have come back to the office within 3 or so days if I would have needed to.

Now it's been 10 days - and I'm back at my normal routine except for at the gym. I've started working with really light weights just to keep everything warmed up - but I'm gonna be a good boy and do what the surgeon says and not try to hit the weights too hard again for 4 to 6 weeks.

Be sure the people who are gonna work on you know everything you are putting in your body - I had just gone off cycle and started PCT when I had my surgery. I made a list of everything I was taking or had taken in the last week before the surgery, and made sure the anethesiologist and surgeon both saw it. I stopped taking all suppliments and everything for a few days before and a few days after just to keep things simple.

Make sure also that the surgeon knows that you are phsically active and put a lot of stress on your muscles - it may affect how he decides to fix the problem. In my case, although the hernia was small, he decided to fix it with a "mesh" rather than just a suture, to make sure the fix was strong enough to hold.

Oh yeah... and the scar is really tiny, and completely inside the "innie" of the belly button, so no great disfigurement. (Usually the scar is suppossed to look like a smiley face... but since mine was on the top of the belly button instead of the bottom, it looks more like a little frown. Of course, I guess that kinda depends on what direction the person who is looking at it is facing...)
 
MF210

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Did the anesthesiologist say anything about the meds interacting with what you were on? I'm always worried about the drugs they put in you for the surgery more than the actual procedure. Especially after hearing from my buddy who was violently ill from his anesthesia for 6 hours, some people have allergic reactions and die, the bodybuilder Orivile Burke slipped into a coma during surgery, etc.

Did they put you completely out for yours or did they give you an epideral in your spine?
 

randydogsf

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Did the anesthesiologist say anything about the meds interacting with what you were on? I'm always worried about the drugs they put in you for the surgery more than the actual procedure. Especially after hearing from my buddy who was violently ill from his anesthesia for 6 hours, some people have allergic reactions and die, the bodybuilder Orivile Burke slipped into a coma during surgery, etc.
There is always the chance that you are allergic to the anethesia, and I guess there is no way of knowing that for certain until its actually inside you... but four different people asked me if I was on any meds, etc. that morning - the intake nurse, the prep nurse, the anethesiologist, and the surgeon - and I made sure all four saw the complete list I had put in my file. I told them about everything that had been in my body in weeks, including recreational substances.

And, like I said - I totally stopped doing everything a few days before the surgery and didn't start again until a few days after. The intake nurse clicked her tongue disapprovingly about the prohormones and recreational substances, and the anethesiologist giggled a bit about the fact that I was on Nolva - but they all seemed quite confident that nothing I was taking was a problem.

If you follow instructions, you've put nothing in your body anyway - not even food or water - for 8-12 hours before surgery, so you are -empty- ...there just isn't much there for the drugs to interact with. They say to not take aspirin or other blood thinners for a week before, cause they don't want unnecessary bleeding - but other than that, mostly I think they would only be concerned about anything that had a synergistic or antagonistic effect with the anesthesia... uppers, downers...

Did they put you completely out for yours or did they give you an epideral in your spine?
I was OUT. the prep nurse put an IV in my arm, and after they wheeled me into the operating room, the anesthesiologist plugged the happy juice into that. He said I'm going to give you something light at first... and wham. He then said "now I'm going to give you something stronger." ...and 90 minutes later I woke up in post-op.
 
MF210

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Thanks bro, I'm a paranoid nut. I really don't want surgery. I'll find out Thursday, I pulled the plug on the cycle and started nolva today. I'm also not going to workout until I find out what is going on.

I've read that the best surgical method is to get an epideral and be awake, this way the doc can ask you to cough at times to make sure the mesh is holding up and that everything is cool. Because so many past surgeries frequently screw up or continue to cause people pain. I'm sure you don't want to hear that now though:blink:

I'm glad yours went okay and hope you recover well bro.
 

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