A sports hernia is a painful, soft tissue injury that occurs in the groin area. It most often occurs during sports that require sudden changes of direction or intense twisting movements. An untreated sports hernia may lead to a traditional, abdominal hernia in future. It can be cured by laparoscopic hernia operation for complete recovery.
A sports hernia is a strain or tear of any soft tissue in the lower abdomen or groin area. The soft tissues most frequently affected by sports hernia are the oblique muscles in the lower abdomen. Especially vulnerable are the tendons that attach the oblique muscles to the pubic bone. In many cases of sports hernia, the tendons that attach the thigh muscles to the pubic bone are also stretched or torn.
The cause of this mainly related to sports activities that involve planting the feet and twisting with maximum exertion can cause a tear in the soft tissue of the lower abdomen or groin. Can occur mainly in vigorous sports such as ice hockey, soccer, wrestling, and football.
A sports hernia does not cause a visible bulge in the groin, like the more common, inguinal hernia does. Over time, this may lead to an inguinal hernia, and abdominal organs may press against the weakened soft tissues to form a visible bulge. Without treatment, this injury can result in chronic, disabling pain that prevents you from resuming sports activities.
The best solution to sports hernia is to get a Laparoscopic hernia operation. A laparoscopic repair requires several small incisions instead of a single larger cut. While open surgery is also done in this case. However, this requires large incisions and that means a long time to get recovered from the surgery scars. A sportsperson can’t afford to wait long for their recovery. That is why laparoscopic hernia operation is a must for sports people. It not only leaves you with smaller incisions, also it leaves you almost scarless. Recovery time will be much lesser as well.
Most likely a patient can return to light activity after 1 to 2 weeks. Strenuous exercise should wait until after 4 weeks of recovery. Studies have found that people have less pain after laparoscopic hernia repair than after open hernia surgery. The chance of a hernia coming back after laparoscopic surgery is really satisfactory, because it rarely comes back. However, in case of open surgery, it can come back.
To find out more about the comparison between open versus laparoscopic surgery click here: http://www.varanasihospital.com/2017/06/13/hernia-surgery-recovery-open-vs-laparoscopic-approach/