Well since it was this blog that helped me I thought I would post my own experience with what ended up to be a sports hernia.
Started 3 years ago after I pulled up on a wrench from work. I had felt some type of tear (not painful but just a tear) on the left side of my abdomen. It was a little tender but not terrible. Went to my family physician since I was planning on training and running my first marathon to make sure I did not have an actual Hernia. Had never heard of a sports hernia yet. He took a look and since he could not see a bulge sent me on my way.
Started running and training with pain in abdomen coming and going. Would get worse and then better (Ice did not help nor did rest) but I was able to run through it and completed the my first marathon in Philly in just over 4 hrs.
After that - got cocky and decided I want to qualify for Boston. Following year training increased but so did pain. Sometimes it was so bad I could only run a few miles . Lower middle abdomen felt very swollen. Still went ahead and ran three marathons within 6 months of each other - Marine Core, Philly and Cape May. I was able to get my time down to 3:42 in Philly but by Cape May - not only was I unable to cough or sneeze without bending over but just getting out of bed was tough. By this time I had been to three doctors all of whom said they could not find anything wrong with me. My family physician, a regular hernia surgeon, and a sports medicine Dr. The last Dr really scared me since he had me have a Cat scan and could still not find anything wrong. He was thinking about doing some pain shots and possible exploratory surgery which did not give me any sense of confidence so I ignored it.
By now my training mileage was between 35 - 55 miles per week.
So being stubborn I ignored the pain and I decided to up the training (doing a 20 mile run once a month) and by spring I had done a 58 mile week when my whole right side went to hell. My ankle started to bother me, hips, both sides of my groin etc etc. That was my high mileage mark and everything went to hell after. I was never able to run more than 20 - 25 miles after that since the pain was just too bad.
About 6 months ago I gave up on the Dr's and instead elected to try my own research. I googled abdominal pain during running and this blog came up. After reading it I decided to contact Dr Myers office (since I only live an hr away from Philly). Within two weeks his assistant Marcia had me come down and do an MRI and then immediately meet with Dr Myers. He spent 5 minutes with me and immediately diagnosed me with a sports hernia. He said the MRI clearly showed the damage and said I was a good candidate for his procedure. He was the first Dr to diagnose me with any sense of confidence which also gave me confidence. Also the fact that I knew he has done some major professional athletes also gave me confidence.
So I had the surgery (bilateral abductor release) 4 weeks ago and this being my first full week back to running am up to 26 miles and so far feeling great. I can't believe I ran 4 marathons feeling the way I did - I guess you can get used to just about anything. Stomach feels great and ankle getting better (I am doing some ankle strengthening exercises that are helping and also wearing a brace). I don't need to bend over to sneeze or cough and can get out of bed in the am without having to pull myself out.
Long story short - You could probably live your whole life with a sports hernia but if you like to do sports or you do allot of heavy lifting your gonna have problems. Also trust me - it will not go away on its own. During the 3 months I took off before the surgery I felt hardly any difference at all. Still needed to bend over to cough and sneeze and pull myself out of bed in the morning.
If you have a sports hernia and train hard like I am (still plan to qualify for Boston) then forget it unless you have surgery. If you press your luck and run through the pain it will effect your stride which will effect your balance which will in effect cause all kind of other problem (knees, ankle etc.)My PT had me doing hip exercises and groin exercises in order to re strengthen my core. He says since my abdominal muscles quit working my glut-es quit providing any power during my stride and instead my hamstrings took over. That makes total sense since I had such a hard time keeping them flexible. They always felt really tight and I just felt like I could not get any power out of my legs. I had the cardio down - just could not will the legs to move any faster. Kinda like running with a big rubber band around both of your legs.
Dr Myers is no longer taking insurance so he would be considered out of network. However the surgical center he does the surgery at (located in the Philadelphia Navy Yard) does take Blue Cross Blue shield so only the Dr Myers portion (around 7K) is out of network. The surgical center is around 8K and again in network. Both Dr Myers, his staff (especially Marcia his assistant) and the people at the surgical center were absolutely wonderful. I could not be any happier with how I was treated. I recommend you get pre certified by your insurance before getting the surgery (i.e. make sure they will pay for at least part of it and that they deem it a medical necessity). Dr Myers will provide a letter detailing his diagnosis of you and also what the surgery entails which you can give to your insurance. You will need to get the surgical codes from him in order to get pre certified. I do not believe there is a standard code for sports hernia.
Compared to what I went through in running with the hernia - the surgery and the recovery were a breeze.
Feel free to reply to this thread and ask me any questions if you wish. I can only share my experieince and not diagnose yours however I do hope this post can help anyone else out who is going through what I went through.
Regards :-)
KB