Everything you should know about the diagnosis and treatment of inguinal hernias
Written by:One of the pathologies that most frequently leads people to General and Digestive Surgery visits are abdominal wall hernias, and the most frequent of all is inguinal hernia. According to scientific evidence, one in thirty people will develop a hernia throughout their life.
What is a hernia?
The hernia is the output of some of the content that is inside the abdomen, whether fat, small or large intestine through the different weak areas of the abdominal wall. Depending on the location of the defect, hernias are classified into three types:
- Inguinal and crural, when they emerge in the groin area
- Umbilical, when they appear in the navel
- Midline, when located in the mid-abdomen
Inguinal hernias are the most frequent, usually appear between 40 and 60 years and affect men more than women. However, since it is a pathology so common, anyone, regardless of their physical or social condition, may suffer. There are no known mechanisms to prevent the occurrence of these.
What discomfort does an inguinal hernia cause? What should a person with a hernia do?
There are patients with hernia that do not know that they have it since they do not suffer any type of discomfort, others notice a lump in the inguinal region that may or may not be painful. It is possible that the first manifestation of an inguinal hernia is a picture of strangulation that forces the patient to go to the emergency room.
A person affected by hernia should see a specialist. The specialists in General Surgery and the Digestive System analyze each case in particular and make timely recommendations in a personalized way.
However, the risk of strangulation as well as the inconvenience caused to patients, together with the limitations to the development of a normal life, mean that the recommendation in the great majority of cases is the surgical treatment .
How is surgery to treat an inguinal hernia?
There are three anesthetic options to choose from, depending on your preferences and the doctor's recommendations:
- General anesthesia: it forces the patient to intubate and connect him to a respirator, remaining completely asleep.
- Spinal anesthesia: consists of a puncture in the spine and belly button anesthesia is produced.
- Local anesthesia: involves applying anesthesia in the area where the hernia is, accompanied by sedation to get the patient to relax without problems.
Thus, the new repair techniques allow solving the problem of hernias using the patient's own tissues, at the present time this is little done, the placement of synthetic materials in the form of meshes being the most used surgical procedure. These materials are integrated into the tissues, accepting them as their own. The introduction of these techniques has improved the results, preventing the hernias from appearing again, while improving the recovery of the patients.
An awareness on the part of the doctors to obtain good results in this disease so prevalent has led to the search for an improvement in the surgical techniques with the consequent reduction of the numbers of reproduction and its repercussion in the social, labor and economic conditions of this surgery.
