I had a bilateral inguinal hernia repair performed open, with mesh, a little over 30 years ago. It held up extremely well over the years and I nearly forgot I had ever had it done. Over the years, my activity level varied, ranging from very active to fairly sedentary. I was even a cigarette smoker for a brief period of time, and at one point had gained about 50 pounds.
Once I embarked on my fitness journey, I managed to lose those 50 pounds and had quit smoking well before then. I was doing a powerlifting routine on and off, and during the first year of Covid, I was training Muay Thai.
Initial Symptoms
Around the summer of 2023, I began to notice a tiny bulge in my inguinal area, which I attributed to residual scar tissue. I didn’t think anything of it and just continued my routine. Around the same time, my wife commented on how weird my belly button looked. Again, I didn’t think anything of it.
When I was in Las Vegas for the IBJJF World Masters, I glanced down at my lower abdomen and for the first time began to consider that the bulge could be something more than just scar tissue. I resolved to have it checked out. While I remained optimistic, I also realized that I could be looking at another hernia surgery and a hiatus from my BJJ training.
A few weeks after I returned from Las Vegas, I visited the local urgent care with the hope that I’d be sent away being told that what I was seeing was a whole lot of nothing. Instead, the doctor on call immediately diagnosed an inguinal hernia on my right side and told me I should have the left side checked out as she felt something unusual there, but it couldn’t be confirmed.
Hernia Diagnosis
Once I found a surgeon I liked, he scheduled me for a CT scan, which confirmed bilateral inguinal hernias plus an umbilical hernia. I’m still not sure how I acquired them, but my guess is a combination of the powerlifting plus the Muay Thai. I love striking, and I especially love the feeling and sound of a shin hitting a pad, but I’m going to guess that the age of the original hernia repair compared with the strain of the kicking could have been what caused it. That said, I’ll never know for certain, nor does it matter much. I scheduled my surgery several weeks later for December 27, 2023 at Mount Sinai Oceanside South Nassau with Dr Hideo Takahashi.
Thankfully, none of my hernias were causing any pain or discomfort, so I was able to continue training the same as I had been previously. While I hated the thought of having hernia surgery and what that would mean for my BJJ training, I knew that they wouldn’t get any better and had to be addressed, so I resolved to proceed with the procedure.
