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

Watch out for that cortisone. One of my hernia doctors was Dr, Kugel inventor of the famous kugel mesh patch. I was seeing him up until he shut down his office suddenly . Now you cant look up " hernia kugel " without finding a law firm willing to help you out. He seemed like a great doctor and did try to help me even though he couldn't find a hernia in me. He stated that sports hernias were a myth.

He warned me that anymore than three cortisone shots lifetime in anyone area could be dangerous. He and other doctors confirmed that the tendons attaching to the pubic bone are small and can be further weakened by cortisone. I had three cortisone injections in my pubic area . The first was a miracle for two weeks, then the pain came back just like before. The second three months later lasted longer but had less total effect. My third had zero effect. After my Kugel experience I discovered online the problems with patches and mesh and I am glad I missed that experience. I started looking for anyone that didn't use mesh or patches. I couldnt find anyone around here. I emailed Dr Mucshaweck about this and was told she rarely or never used mesh as she feels it is an inferior way to do hernia repairs. That was what made the decision for me.

In response to how much it cost. Her fee is 4100 euros . The fee for the medical hotel including food was 400 euro for a huge room for three nights including 3 plus meals each day.Multiply it by 1.38 or so. I am going to try and submit the bills to my insurance though I doubt they will repay me anything. My copay is 20 percent if they did pay, so even if they dont pay I don't really care I probably would be paying out 6000 anyway if I had the surgery done here. I will never have any medical procedure done in this country again after experiencing how the German medical system works.

From reading this thread, I thought I had a sports hernia. I've been battling abdominal/groin pains for months now (since about a month before Boston). I saw my doctor yesterday. Come to find out from my urine test, I've been battling prostatitis (an infection of the prostate... but not cancer) and didn't know it.

I'm 39yo so that might not be on the radar screen yet for some of you younger runners. I'm on cipro for 4 weeks (assuming it's the bacterial form of the infection). Evidently, the prostate is kinda hard to cure of an infection so it takes 4-6 weeks of an antibiotic like cipro.

I'll have a check-up in 5 weeks to make sure this is all resolved. Hopefully so. My doc mentioned that the pain from prostatitis is somewhat vague and hard to pinpoint. That is so true in my case. I actually cancelled a doctor's appointment with him a couple of months ago (and almost cancelled again yesterday) because I didn't want to go in and describe what would sound like make-believe pains that I couldn't pinpoint.

But I went through with the appt because I knew something was definitely wrong. Almost everytime I run, I get these aches and pains in my lower abdomen. On most days, it would have been very painful to attempt a sit-up after running.

Hopefully I'm back on the road to recovery because running has been anything but fun for the last several months.

Lesson learned... there's no substitute for seeing your doctor.

thumbs up on all that, johnb!

i too won't (hopefully)have surgery in this country again after 5 here in the us and 2 in germany.

i start neural therapy and prolotherapy in a couple weeks. neural therapy is apparently much, much better for you than cortisone (like no cons from what i can tell) and something like 35% of surgeons in europe use it. they also commonly use prolotherapy. we use cortisone here in the usa. insurance companies cover that but most won't cover prolo or neuro.

hope it works, that scar tissue in me is still causing some issues.

Hey johnny,

Really timely that you mention neural therapy and prolotherapy.

Before I considered surgery, I saw a great naturopathic doctor who recommended prolotherapy...after 3 sessions (over the course of 1.5 mos) a lot of the pain I was experiencing went away, including testicle pain.

I am totally in favor of injections of this nature.

But, of course, I didn't recover to the point where I thought I could get back to an exercise regiment without pain, so it did have it's limitations in terms of a.p.

But, now I'm 4mos out from surgery and the left side is just tight and inflamed above the scar. My chiropractor and I both believe it's a nerve problem and I'm on the verge on inquiring about neural therapy. It sounds similar to what Muller-Wolfarth does in Munich - sher mentioned him a while back. He may be a bit more avante-garde, however.

Please keep us posted with your progress. Do you have a link to the doctor administering the injections? How was this diagnosed as a nerve issue?

Looking forward to hearing more, I feel like we are on the same course which is a helpful support.

Joe

joe

i too think we are more or less feeling the same pains from same causes...

dr muller-wolfhardt is a homeopath, and according to um, the injections he (and she can inject them as well) uses are "neural therapy in a special point of view." i don't know how that would differ from a neural therapy treatment here in the us.

if you do prolo again definitely don't go to the prolo powerhouse doc in illinois (google prolotherapy and you can't miss him). a couple of respectable sources said that he is way trigger happy with his needles, overtreats people, and they can end up worse in ways.

joe, email me if you want the osteopath's name in nyc that i am going to see. i don't want to post his name up in case it doesn't help me in the end..

the naturopath/homeopath i saw started the northeast school of homeopathy, google that and you'll find him.

shoelessj, I don't have information on the web regarding Dr Mullars approach to relaxing the nerves because it is written all in German. You can call his office to get information in English. He has been using this method for over 30 years now. First he used it only on proffesional athelits but now its available for everybody.

His phone number is: 089 2355656.

I'm currently 5 weeks post-op and feel I owe this thread a lot for it's information and reassurance. It is, oddly but without question, the most comprehensive information available on the internet, and I feel obliged to contribute what I can.

Dr. Meyers was my surgeon, and I really can't praise him enough. He reattached my rectus abdominus and released my adductor longus.

My recovery and rehab went like this.

Week 1: Walk at least a mile a day.

Week 2-3: Walk/jog beginning with 1:00 X 2 progressing to 3:00 X 5, while being careful to stop whenever pain set in

Began soft tissue work at points of insertion

3x a day contrast baths or icing

Very very gentle stretching, and increase of range of movement on adductor

Cross training (biking) 1 hour a day

Week 4: 3 miles a day, trying to run as normally as possible

Cross training (biking and water running 2 X 1 hour a day)

Continued soft tissue work, ART to correct tightness/imbalances caused by off-kilter running

Began rehab and stretching linked several times on page 43

Began pilates work

Plan for week 5:

Increase to 4 and then 5 miles

It's been made clear to me that

#1 I should be as active as possible to speed up the recovery.

#2 Nothing that doesn't hurt will slow my recovery

#3 The return to running will not be comfortable, as the two sides of my body are not of equal strengths or ranges of motion.

#4 It is very important to correct, through massage, chiropractic work and active release, the damage done during these runs to other parts of the body (in my case-tight adductor,abductor muscles and twisted pelvis) and to help with scar tissue at the points of insertion(which may rip, quite painfully but necessarily)

#5 It is also important to actively correct the imbalance caused by the surgery through the rehab/stretching/etc

#6 Also, strengthening the often-neglected ab muscles other than the rectus abdominus (the 6 pacc muscles) in order to correct the original cause of injury and help take the load off the rectus abdominues as it heals. I have been advised to take up pilates to help with this. (I was skeptical, but it works!)

I'm lucky to have the resources that I do, so if I can help anybody either through my own experience or by asking one of the specialists I've sought out, I'd be more than happy to.

Riverside runner wrote:

From reading this thread, I thought I had a sports hernia. I've been battling abdominal/groin pains for months now (since about a month before Boston). I saw my doctor yesterday. Come to find out from my urine test, I've been battling prostatitis (an infection of the prostate... but not cancer) and didn't know it.

.

I had Prostatitis last fall... It took 4 weeks of Doxycycline to knock it out... Keep your workout clothes clean.. Running shorts, cycling shorts etc.... Also, add some pure cranberry juice to your diet.. It will help create a evironment that's not conducive for bacteria..

I've been dealing with a pesky groin injury for the past 7 months.. I can do just about everything virtually pain free except run.. I've been swimming, cycling, rotating stairs etc. etc... Pain is centered mostly deep in the groin but I'll sometimes feel pain in my lower right abb or down my leg.. One guy told me it sounded like my soleus... I've been trying to run thru it off and on but running definitely aggravates it. I did take 5 weeks off from running and it seemed to get better but not alot. When I began to run again and it just flared back up. I have now decided to continue alternate exercise but to discontinue running until November 1.. I can't really afford to see a Dr. or Sports Med professional... Thoughts ?? Suggestions ???

vex

if that cipro doesn't get you better then you should rethink that prostatitis diagnosis. that's coming from experience. my chronic prostatitis wasn't chronic prostatitis at all, it was nerve pain from the sports hernia and its scar tissue.

Johnny, I was responding to Riverside Runner on postatitis...

I currently have a different kind of Pesky Groin Injury.. Could be my Soleous.. See previous post..

oops sorry vex

btw, you have symptoms of a sports hernia, if i were you i'd at least go to a reputable doc who knows the injury and can check for it.

as you can tell, lots of people with it end up running in circles for quite a while before diagnosis.

Yes, I agree Johnny but I'm going to give it more time with 10 weeks of no running. Just not ready to get on the Dr. Merry Go Round that I cannot afford.... The amazing thing is that right now I feel no symptoms and I've been cross training quite a bit with No pain, however, if I were to go for a run, I'd be hurting... I know if it has anything to do with connective tissue, repair time can be lengthy.. I once jammed my thumb skiing and messed up a tendon.. It took over a year to heal.....

Hi, I haven't posted in 5 weeks but maybe somebody is wondering what came of my trip/decision to see Dr. Meyers. A quick recap. 3 years ago I toar my groin and got no diagnosis untill I went to UCLA. I had a significant tear on my right inguinal. Here is my Sports Hernia surgery report from 11/2005

"the external oblique was extenssively disrupted starting at the internal ring and extending almost all the way up to the level of the internal ring. Only slight separation of these fibres needed to expose the cord. The cord was gathered at the pubic tubercle and freed back to the level of the internal ring. The anterior medial aspect of the cord was explored. There was no evidence of an indirect hernia. There was disruption of the fibres of the floor resulting in a bulge that started at the level of the conjoined tendodn and extended back to the level of the epigastric vessel. A Bassini recontruction done for the transversalis fascia down to the shelving portion of the inguinal ligament. This external oblique was imbricated back and forth over this repair to add additional reinforcement and to help prevent the cord from becoming involved in any scar tissue."

So I did return to sports about 6 months later with 50% relief. I was still having groin pain and soon it became bilatteral. So I revisited Dr. DiFiori @ UCLA and he ordered another MRIw. dye . This showed labrum tears and FAI. My groin pain after the 3 years and 5 MRI's later had me wondering if it was possible to have the left side with a sports hernia. Dr. DiFiori ruled out another look into sports hernia pain. Relying on his new MRI and the referred groin pain of FAI and labrum tears.

I went to Philly with the Dr. Meyers ordered -fresh, MRI without dye, and was examined by Dr. Meyers. He was great along with his staff. He checked my inguinal floor- canal openings, hip rotation, many questions. He read my UCLA reports and wanted to pursue the FAI- Labrum tear issues with his own MRI and tests. After thinking about this course I decided to come back to CA. to pursue this here. Tomorrow after a month and a half wait I will see Dr. Carlos Guanche a VERY acclaimed- minimally invasive, labrum (among other things) surgeon.

I will keep you guys informed. I am seeing Dr. DiFiori next week as well. This forumn is very much appreciated. Good healing to all.

wow! - i first saw this thread about 2 years ago now i think and its just grown and grown!!

I am getting more and more convinced i have a sh on the left but i would not mind some others opinion.

History: 5 years ago, yep 5!, had a strange pretty mild burning type feeling in my left inguinal area. Nothing that bad but annoying and i found it was worse lying on my back in bed but less severe if i pay on my right side. Went to docs and did not really reveal anything and had lots of basic tests, fast forward a year and still no real difference but burning had migrated into an 'inflamed' feeling and i also had pain when sitting kinda piriformis type pain. MRI's revealed nothing so i thought sod it and started pretty low key running, and discovered that if i ran the left inguinal region would go numb after about 5 minutes or so. Have tried physio etc as muscles are really tight and i have a painful hip on the left when i rotate the hip inwards. with stretching i can avoid the numbness when i run however it still feels 'strange' down there.

So here i am today, 5 years down the line and no closer to a solution. I have seen a guy called Chris Bradshaw, i am in the UK, and he thinks i have inguinal nerve disruption perhaps caused by a small hernia etc. I have also noticed that adductor insertion on both sides is a little tender but much more so on the left side.

Basically does this sound like it can be sh ? If i run i can get the numbness so to be this means something mechanical is happening in the left inguinal region, its also slightly tender compared to the right and sometimes i can fel a really tender spot but not all the time, i also think i can feel more of an opening on that side. I had the finger up the canal test and the left hand side was tender but not agony, the right was fine.

I would like any input anyone can offer but in my favour i guess is that Munich is much closer to London than it is the US, and the £££ is a little stonger :)

One last thing, has anyone ever had issues with sitting as after not that long it gets pretty uncomfortable for me, right on the adductor insertion area both sides but starts on the left hand side, i guess this could just be inflammation?

thanks for any help guys unravel this mystery as i have had it for long enough now!!

Hey LS, your condition sounds pretty much like mine.

I suffered for 2 years before I had enough and had surgery.

5 months post-op I am far from 100% but I am much better than before surgery and improving at a slow pace.

As you can see in this forum surgery is not a sure thing but might be your only chance.

In your case after 5 years I would make an appointment ASAP.

I think the longer you wait the longer you will need to recover.

Wish you the best and keep us posted.

thanks for the response! Nice to know others have/had the same symptoms as me, although not nice of course! Its strange as i have felt since day 1 that this was a groin disruption of some sort and the only person that would listen is Chris Bradshaw, he did feel the only option was surgery but i am a bit risk adverse when it comes to docs that i tried deep tissue and acupuncture etc first to see how i got on. I think a lot of the pelvic issues i have like tenderness sitting are secondary to this, ie brought on by the sh, and so i dont expect an overnight miracle thats for sure. As an example my abs and psoas and adductor's hurt like heck!! However my left hip pain is directly related to the adductor as i have had dry needling and deep tissue work there and the hip pain almost vanishes on internal rotation!

Long shot i know but do the guys of of Munich know if they treat or diagnose anywhere else apart from Munich? ie would she visit London ever? To be fair a flight to Munich is pretty cheap for us UK guys and the minimally invasive approach attracts me as the thought of a general is not my idea of fun and reducing nerve disruption as much as possible is a big bonus for me. I also get the impression she 'cares' a lot about her patients outcome a lot so for me thats important.

I would love to hear from anyone who has gone to Munich who could describe how they went about gettting diagnosed by her etc.

thanks for the support maybe, just maybe, this long road is coming to an end!!

ls,

your symptoms sound just like mine. 18 months of bad pains then finally had bilateral surgery in munich. she will not steer you wrong. you will have to email them to see about her schedule but you will most likely have to go to munich for the diagnosis and surgery. they truly care for the patients there.

i tried same approaches to cure my pains (acu, myofascial release, pt, etc) before my diagnosis. my nerves got trashed and most likely entrapped in scar tissue due to the long time without diagnosis and continual damage to the area as the injury got worse. the pt (etc) got me better only to a certain point. the other symptoms like the sit bone, sij, hip pains are for sure brought about by the sports hernia.

um believes that the longer you have it, the longer it takes to recover, many of us are living proof of that. the longer you have it, the more damage can be done, and the more your body compensates (for good or bad) to work around and protect the damaged tissue. that in itself can cause pains and dysfunctions.

i too am freaked out by doctors, after my battle with this injury (i saw waaaay too many and had waaay too many diagnoses offered, for example, one doc recommended a hip replacement- my hip is pretty darn sound according to mri's). but um is a step above that kind of thinking- her confidence is genuine and comes from very extensive experience. don't put it off.

feel better,

johnny

London sufferer, You are lucky to have Dr.Bradshaw on your side. I really wanted to see him after one dr thought I had obturator neuropathy an even more obscure diagnosis then SH is. See if he can order a dynamic ultrasound. This is more accurate then MRI for finding hernias. In a dynamic ultrasound you stand and bear down with pressure. Lots of hernias wont be seen with mri because you are laying and there is no pressure on your guts. I had 3 negative mri's with no hernias found. With a regular ultrasound nothing was found, but while standing and bearing down one of my two hernias could clearly be seen moving. Dr Muschawecks aids are experts at finding hernias this way. You could at least fly over for the exam and mill over the results with dr Bradshaw. . I am now at day 28 since surgery and actually feel great. My last bit of numbness and scar pain are almost gone. I am pretty much back to training 2 hours a day doing a variety of different workouts. This is after having this pain almost six years.Dr M told me to work out as much as i could. I followed her advice even though I was afraid of reinjury, she told me that her work on me was not going to tear, so I went for it. I started lifting weights last thursday on day 22 and lifted again much harder on sunday. I have been doing lots of kicking and dribbling drills. Each time I would start a new activity I would be a bit cautious but so far I think I am fixed.

My genital-femoral nerve was being pressed on by a lymph node. No one was going to find that without surgery. I also had two tears in my ilingual canal. My surgical cut is only about 2.5 inches. It had a bulge for about three weeks that was about the size of my thumb that is now gone. I know Dr M only does surgery in Munich. She is set up for it there with

a great team. I was totally impressed by them and the level of organization that allows her to do 5 surgeries daily yet still allows plenty of contact with each patient. It would be to risky to do surgery in some strange hospital compared to doing it in Munich.