Secondary Symptoms After Hernia Repair
My husband directed me to your name on Earth Clinic and raves about you, so I'm hoping you've got some ideas about this before I consign myself back into the hands of the medical establishment.
So, had what should have been a simple repair of an umbilical/ventral hernia from an old midline incisions on 1/5/2012. The two visible herniae turned out to be the tip of the iceberg. He found 5 herniae on or near the old midline incision plus the umbilical. I did opt for the mesh. The incision that started as a minimal 6 cm now reaches pretty much from below my belly button all the way up to the tip of my xyphoid.
That incision has actually healed quite well. My problem is some sequellae. Sometime during the first several weeks of this surgery, I began to notice what felt like a pull in the groin muscles on my left side. I've gotten the "Well, when you work on the rectus abdominus, you can jangle all the little tissues that insert near or under it" as well as a rough diagnosis of it being some nebulous hip flexors (what's left when you don't want to use those freshly-operated on abs, and you want to sit up?).
I can feel one deep anterior tendon very close to where you would palpate the femoral pulse. I've been living with that one (first noticeable) since about two weeks after the surgery (although with the pain from the huge incision, this other pain may have masked it initially. I came out of the hospital with oral Dilaudid, and didn't feel much of anything). Anyway, in the past several days, the quality of the pain has been changing so it feels like lots of little muscles, ligaments, or tendons in the area just edging the area that defines the perineum. Some deep tissue seems involved, but only to the extent that my hip will pop loudly if I move just wrong; any torquing of that hip joint can still be quite painful, typically if I have had to rotate off that foot, if it gets stuck, the pain can be brief but intense (likewise, if I step too far forward with my opposite foot (so that initial tendon/muscle is stretched with my leg somewhat stretched behind me, it will provoke the original injury. It's getting better, but sooooo slowly.
My husband has a lot of confidence in what he's seen you write? Would you see if there's anything here you have advice for?
You really have to get vitamin E 400 iu, in that the antioxidants will decrease oxygen demand to the cells, magnesium citrate (200 mg will get muscles to relax), B3 niacinamide 250 mg x 3 times a day to help with the relaxation. Now normally the healing can go quite well after surgery, but I do suggest some lysine 1000 mg x 4 and glutamine 500 mg x 2 just in case to help the healing anyway, and eat an aloe vera plant. Finally acidity can cause muscles to contract, so 1 lime (small one) or 1 lemon (1/2) and 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda mixed with 1 glass water and drink three times a day preferably after meals. This should help you with some spasms. If not then you may need additional manganese chloride, 10 mg, but it is rather hard to find, it is a SOD (superoxide dismutase) mimetics which means in simple terms an antioxidant but may help some of the spasms too!
Now I might comment on the general hernia. yes you do need surgery, but it can be prevented to large extent by taking lysine and glycine regularly as well as vitamin C, say 2000 mg of lysine, 3000 mg of glycine and 500 mg x 2 of vitamin C. As you have a collagen deficiency and the one critical one is lysine that helps in the synthesis of collagen. Collagen by itself doesn't work as the body has to breakdown the collagen and it doesn't do that because most prepared foods are cooked, and with limited digestive enzymes, you end up with hernia, especially if you avoided meats and skins of animals in general, preferably partially cooked, not fried.
Ted
