Over the past couple months I have been seriously considering just getting hernia surgery since I haven’t had any luck with my natural inguinal hernia repair. I’ve become annoyed with always having to think about the hernia, and having to wear a hernia belt every day to manage it. Although my annoyance could be coming from an old back injury that I’ve been dealing with for years. It seems that every time I get going with a certain exercise routine and feeling like I might be getting close to being able to heal this sucker up, I end up hurting my back. It gets hurt to the point where all I can do is stretch and lay flat on my back to relieve the pain.

I’ve been dealing with compressed disks in my back since I was about 18 years old. From what I was told, it is from a genetic defect in my spine (my younger brother has the exact same problem). The first time I hurt it I was snowboarding. I went over a ramp, ollied off the top and felt it go. It was so out of place that my torso was off to the side of my body, and I was in extreme pain. If you looked at me straight on, my hips would be off to the right, and my shoulders would be off to the left. For about two weeks all I could do was lay on my back on the floor in riving pain. It was brutal.

Since then I have learned to live with it, and have been able to manage it pretty well for over 20 years now. I will go months with  my back feeling great, with the pain being about at a level 2, feeling like I am getting in really good shape, then bam, it’ll start hurting again. Back to level 9 type pain. All it takes is a mistimed step into a little pothole, or twisting a little too much.

Once it happens, I feel like every time I move I am going to break in half. It’s pretty awesome (sarcasm). It doesn’t get to the point like it did when I was younger, where I can’t stand straight, but still painful enough to restrict a lot of movement. I look like an old man when I get up out of a chair because it takes me a minute to stand up straight.

This is what I’ve been dealing with since I made my last post. A little while after I fixed the pain in my shoulder I started feeling really good and flexible, then…….. my back starts up. So I started doing yoga about a month ago. Since yoga is all about elongating muscles, building core strength and getting in touch with your body, I figured it would probably be great for me. I’ve been feeling really good except for the forward fold, and upward dog poses which are pictured here:

Inguinal Hernia Reair

courtesy yoga international.com

Exercise For Inguinal Hernia Repair

courtesy decidetostayfit.com

I could barely get past a flat back position at first trying to do the forward fold, but within a fews weeks I was able to touch my finger tips to the floor. The upward facing dog, I cannot do at all, so I have to skip that part of the practice because it causes too much pain.

During this whole time that I was supposed to be attempting a “natural inguinal hernia repair” I have been trying to work through all this other pain in my body that is more acute. Although it’s annoying, I can manage my hernia daily without pain, but these other things that have been happening are causing too much daily pain to just work around. So I started looking for yoga moves that would be beneficial for someone with a hernia and found a website that had a bunch of yoga exercises that were supposed to be good for a hernia. I originally had the link listed here, but it has since been changed, and I can’t find the page any longer, but the videos are still up on youtube, and listed below.

It takes you through a few different yoga exercises that seem way too simple to have any affect, but I’m going to mix them in with my daily yoga practice and see what happens. After all, I’m treating this as an experiment anyway, so no harm in trying!

There is a breathing exercise that you can do throughout the day wether you’re at your desk, watching TV, or whatever, and goes like this:

Pull in your Abdomen (for Inguinal) Hold for 3 Seconds, release slowly. Repeat this 10 times. Do it once every hour throughout the day. Avoid it for 2 hours after meals. Increase holding duration to 5-7 seconds when you are comfortable.

Then there are some videos showing the yoga asanas (I know they are a little cheesy):

Inguinal Hernia Repair With Five Yoga Moves
    1. Pavanmuktasana
    2. Uddiyan in sabasana
    3. Utthan padasana hands on hernia
    4. Sahaj agnisar
    5. Sabasana

Could it really be that easy? I don’t know but I’m going to try it and see. I’m going to mix these in with my daily yoga practice. Hopefully I can keep my back and everything else healthy, and continue working on this long enough to see some sort of results.

For now I’m still opting out of surgery, even though some days I am just over it. I think I have to remain patient and work through all the bullshit that my body throws at me so that I can get to a point where I can really focus on trying to come up with a truly natural inguinal hernia repair.

I’ll let you know what happens!