Harry the hernia

My hernia is getting worse by the day, it’s hard to know what to do for the best. It will be fixed in April during my pouch surgery but till then it’s getting increasingly difficult to deal with.

It’s a large hard swelling behind my stoma about the size of half a large grapefruit. There’s quite a lot of pressure behind it and as it sticks out I’ve actually knocked it a couple of times. Ouch.

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It’s quite hard to photograph myself but I tried so you can see what I’m talking about. This photo is looking down onto it, so you can see the left side of my tummy is flat whilst the hernia is pushing out from behind my bag. It makes the bags not work perfectly too.

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This is from the right side, you can see how far it’s sticking out.

There’s some information on parastomal surgery techniques here.

I believe that they will stitch the muscles and put a mesh into place that will stay in my body and reinforce the muscles where my stoma was. As I’m having the pouch surgery I will be having my stoma removed anyway.

Still no date on surgery, I think I won’t get a date till after my tests which I’m having on the 26th March.

Thanks for reading

Sam xxx

6 replies
  1. Terri
    Terri says:

    Hi Sam, I am so sorry that you are having so many problems I was recently diagnosed with gall stones and went to see a
    surgeon today. Luckily I am asymptomatic so she and my husband and I decided to leave well enough alone. My experience
    has been that the more you can do without surgery, the better off you are. I also have a stomal hernia and have had it for
    14 onsyears. I saw my surgeon and He said to try to wait 5 years before having it fixed, But I have decided to leave well enough
    alone. My insides are so full of adhesins that my last surgery took 8 hours for the doc to carefully go through the ‘ball of string’
    that is my small intestine. When I finally surrendered to the surgery back in 1997, I got MRSA, C-Difficle and many fistulas
    I spent a total of 7 out of 11 months in the hosp. that year. It has been a long journey. I suppose if the docs ever told us
    about all the possible complications that can occur, no body would ever have surgery! I can also relate to your ‘devastation’
    with your new problem. I will be sending out positive thoughts for you that you will finally be able to heal and get some peace
    in your life. If you ever want to e-mail me direct, please feel free to do so. My thoughts are with you!
    in
    ,

    Reply
  2. Erica
    Erica says:

    I know this post is old but I have a parastomal hernia like you did. I am miserable because output keeps getting under my wafer and nothing I do is helping. I see my surgeon on Thursday at least. I hope he will do the hernia repair surgery again (I previously had a hernia repair surgery last year). I hope the hernia won’t come back after I have surgery again.

    Reply

Trackbacks & Pingbacks

  1. […] quick update about Harry the hernia… I blogged about getting the news I was being treated at a private […]

  2. […] quick update about Harry the hernia… I blogged about getting the news I was being treated at a private […]

  3. […] do you remember that when I had my stoma I also had a parastomal hernia that I named Harry?  Well, Harry is a tenacious little sod and even though I my surgeons fixed my hernia during my […]

  4. […] do you remember that when I had my stoma I also had a parastomal hernia that I named Harry?  Well, Harry is a tenacious little sod and even though I my surgeons fixed my hernia during my […]

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