Anyone ever had a "Sports Hernia" aka: "Sportsman's hernia", "Gilmore's groin", or &quot

Has anyone have experience with SH surgery where the illioinguinal nerve was ablated on the left and right side due to two high medial tears of external oblique fascia.Six months after surgery still feeling the burning of lower groin area alomg leg crease down into genitals.Wondering if it is a pelvic area out of balance issue or something with possible nerve irritation.Checked that inflammation would cause all this constant burning sensation and not really bad enough to justify cortizone shots.I am told it takes some hockey players up to a year to feel normal.Anyone have a similar experience post op.

I'll post in case anyone is interested...I'm 3 weeks out from right inguinal and left sports hernia surgery from Dr. Richard Cattey out of Milwaukee. As others have said earlier Dr. Cattey is an all around outstanding person and is very confident with doing these procedures. I got very lucky he was in my area and was able to see me and do surgery all within a month. I was orginally dx'ed with bilateral inguinals, but during surgery a left sports tear (about 1/2") was discovered instead. This did fit with my symptoms of groin pain on that side and inability to do any running at all. I started jogging slow 2 miles/day last week and am doing 3/day now and so far, so good, but I'm taking it real slow and have my fingers crossed. Any questions I'd be happy to reply.

I saw your post regarding having a sports hernia. How are you now? What I would like to know is how was your experience with Dr. Craig Smith? I live in PHX, but was referred to Dr. Smith by Dr. Steven Lombardo at Kerlan-Jobe in LA. I trying to find info on Dr. Smith and if he really knows about sports hernia. His name does not appear on any websites about it. I've also been referred to Dr. Meyers in Philly, but not sure I want to travel that far.

Let me know if you have any info on Dr. Craig Smith.

My email is

dhorowitz@prodigy.net

. Thanks. - danny

Someone please fix this thread.

I live in Seattle, and have experience similar symptons to the "Sports Hernia". I went to a "Sports and Medicine Clinic" locally, and my doctor new exactly what to look for. In fact, he knew all about the "Sports Herniea" and educated me about it as well. Perhaps, you can find a sports/medical clinic in your area. Doctors that are use to working with Atheltes instead of the general MD, who's answer is always the same...Stop Running!

I'm not sure how many people still read this, but if there is anyone still having pain I would strongly suggest trying prolotherapy. I've been conditioning like I did before the injury for almost a month now. Squats, sit ups, lunges, sprints (all things that would have killed me 8 months ago) I'm now doing again. The guy I saw was great too. I'm actually thinking about going back to get an old shoulder injury taken care of (once I save up some money of course).

If you live in the So Cal area and I'd suggest contacting Dr. Fields. If not there are a lot in the area of others in the area too. But I did like him a lot.

Best of luck to everyone. I know how horrible this injury can be!!!!

JBJ, I saw Boyarsky before my surgery with Dr. Meyers. I was a compensation case since I got hurt at work. Boyarsky did absolutly nothing for me, checked for an inguinal hernia and pronounced I did not have a hernia! His big move was the "finger in the groin" test. I finally saw Dr Meyers, who did my surgery. Still have problems even after surgery. 2 years post op.

Whats up all. I had surgery on the 4th with meyers. Today is day 17 for me. I had bi-lateral rectus tears with deattachment on right side. No adductors release. I had a consult with both UM and meyers, they both found the same tears using their own methods (CT Scan & MRI). I decided to go with meyers. I have (2) 4inch incisions on both sides, doesn't bother me one bit.

Hospital was perfect, surgery at 9:30am and discharge by 3pm. I have no issues with discomfort, my si dysfunction feels like its completely gone, low back pain much better, although it does act up sometimes since i sit at work all day. Now, i'm not 100%, i still have to strength my core and work on weak muscle that were compromised from the imbalance, but I can feel the difference. Scar tissue is the huge problem after the surgery. As most have said on here, the doctor will fix you up, however your efforts with post-op rehab is whats really important. my rehab begins at week 4. I was able to walk a mile everyday since day 1. I massage my adductors twice a day to help break-up immature scar tissue that is building on my adductors. Scar tissue matures by week 10 so after that it will be more difficult to break up and can remain permanent which is when people begin to complain about discomfort or think the surgery was not successful.

All i can say is, I was diagnosed, did researched, did PT, and just follow the path which lead to surgery, its not rocket science, if you have this see a professional.

testing

Turkkdog.

If you didn´t had an adductor release why are you getting scar tissue on your adductors then?

Canada,

I didn't have any nerve ablation done when I had my surgery with UM in Munich but I, too, am having the burning and pain sensation along the crease. I recently contacted her and she wants me to travel back to Germany to have a special 3D multi-slice spiral CT scan done to see what is going on. Unfortunately, a trip back to Germany just for some tests is out of the question - mainly for financial reasons (I'm sure people can relate since a lot of us here do the Munich trip and procedure using cash out of pocket).

I will tell you it has been hell trying to get follow-up care here in the US because most doctors don't want to deal with you once it is revealed that you had surgery out of the country - usually you have to fess up anyways as doctors' first line of defense is, "you need to go back to the surgeon that operated on you and see him." Simply trying to get a doctor to order this test here in the States is proving difficult. So, I muddle along with my mind in overdrive wondering what my problem is. To be honest, my fears are mounting as I hope it is not a recurrence or a new herniation.

If you live in Canada, by chance, you should have Shouldice take a look at you to see if they can detect anything.

Scar tissue will begin to form for a period of 10weeks post-op on your adductors even though an adductor release was not performed. Your adductors think it experienced truma from the surgery to the rectus, hence begins the process of scar tissue. That's why its important to massage the adductor bellis 2x/day min. A lot of people will experience adductor pop (scar tissue release) if they do not keep up with the massages, i believe around week 14 people are reporting the scar tissue release/pop. Now, Meyers will tell you deep massage, but if you're trying to prevent scar tissue from building and did not have a release, you need to use a littler-touch technique, as the massage therapist will discuss in detail.

The goal is to keep breaking up the immature scar tissue day after day so that you prevent it from forming and never let it build. Meyers has been working this massage therapist for 2yrs to address this issue. A lot of people complain of discomfort in their groin/hamstrings and that is a result of the mature scare tissue. Once its mature, good luck breakin up the scar tissue.

I feel amazing after the surgery. I'm 25days post-op, still have some num spots but the more i workout the better i feel.

Turkdog,

I'm 10 days post-op with Dr. UM. She operated my right side SH where she found a 3 x 2 1/2 cm tear. During diagnostic she also found SH on my left side with minimal symptoms and much smaller. That's a different story. As you know Dr. UM is fixing the SH but she doesn't do adductor release or pelvic floor repair. She told me that starting week 3 I have to work hard. She didn't specify why but it coincides with what you say about avoiding forming permanent scars. Do you think that massaging the adductors applies also in my case o this matter?

What do you think about Boyle's SH rehab?

Hey Turkdog-

Great advice. i am 6 months post-op and went back to Meyers because I was having opposite side tightness and i just wanted to get a diagnosis. He says everything is great (had an MRI) just a little scar tissue on my adductor longus muscle. It says grade 1 sprain on the MRI report. However, i do not have pain nor tightness there. I did have my NMT massage it and he said it felt great (tissue wise)....My surgery was a success and i am diligently unwinding all the other dysfunctions that I had during the 4.5 years of this injury. Primarily strengthening my adductors and keeping them loose instead of hypertonic.

Continued success with rehab.

Hey canada,

During my operation with Dr. UM 9 days ago on my SH right side she cut off 2 cm of the ilio-inguinal nerve as she found it damaged. She said during any SH surgery she examines three nerves and is she finds any of these branches damaged then she decides what to do with them. I also got the information from one of her colleagues that the nerve rehabilitation takes about 1 year so it coincides with what you heard. You still have 6 month to go so do not give up and keep doing what you have to do.

I also live in Ca so if you want to talk about it you can write me at

jb_alphamale@yahoo.com

Hey Albert,

Nice to hear from you again and happy for you that you're doing great. You knew that the rehab is going to take longer than usual but look at you now :) :). Your positive attitude and optimism mean a lot to us and I really appreciate your feedback.

I have bilateral Sportmans hernia and I am gonna have it fixed real soon. But my doctor won´t do any adductor release since my adductors looks ok on the MRI and Ultrasound. I have classic "sportmans hernia"-pain so that diagnos is correct but unfortunatly I have also pain in my adductor-area. And my adductors also feels very weak. If I stand up for more then an hour I get a very stange feeling in my adductors, they feels tired and irritated but I have no terrible pain there.

My guess is that my adductors are overloaded right now because I am overcompensating my weak groin with them. So after the surgery they will feel better.

BUT!! I have one question for you guys.

My adductorpain is located like directly next to my penis. So my concern is that if I in the future will be needing a adductor-relese isn´t it dangerous to be operating so close to the penis? I mean when my penis expand during erection it grows in girth and if a surgeon is operating like 0.5 centimter from my flaccid penis then what happen after the scartissue has been formed? How can the penis expand to full erection if it is dense scartissue in the way?

I am seriously really worried about that but since no one in this 154 pages long thread have said any thing about that I guess it is no risk of impotence and stuff like that from the surgery? And I would guess that if Meyer had 100 angry hockeyplayers calling him and said that they coldn´t have sex with their beutiful wifes then he would stop doing the surgeries right?

But my fear is that my pain in much closer (proximal) to the insertion of the adducor longus than a normal tear, were your tear located more like 2 inch down the leg or what? Were do they make the cut?

Many question and bad spelling but I would appreciate any thoughts on my rambling...

I think that if you have had this injurie longer than a year (as I have) then your whole pelvis start to acting up. And you get adductor pain, hip pain, back pain and so on. So I am hooping that all I need is bilateral SH-surgery whitout adductor relase but I prepare myself mentally to not freak out if I in the future needs a adductor lealese or labral tear-surgery (I have a small tear)

Albert,

As many others also have said I want to tell you that your story has been so inspiring!

Turkdog,

I'm curious based on what did you decide to start the rehab after the 4th week after the op? Did Dr. Myers tell you to do that? Please share with us your knowledge maybe we can learn from that.

Thank you.