How We Improve Post Hernia Surgery Results
We Help You Return to Activity Quicker
We offer extensive advice, from what hernia supports to wear, to a dedicated post-surgery exercise program, in order to help you return to activity quicker. The more active you are post surgery, the better your hernia repair results will be.
- Our use of local anaesthetic and sedation is gentler on the body than general anaesthetic, with patients typically walking out of the hospital the same day as their operation.
- Our post surgery advice page makes it clear what you should expect to be feeling and doing and when, and we are always happy to address and questions and concerns you may have post surgery.
- The hernia supports we recommend help you feel more confident being mobile and returning to activity after surgery, particularly when starting our post surgery exercise program.
- Our post-surgery rehabilitation exercise program helps to improve muscle strength post-surgery. Stretching also reduces scar contraction by helping to show the body where the tension is going to be long term. This way, we can try and influence the remodelling in a way that is most favourable.
We Lower Risk of Long-term Pain
Once you decide you want hernia surgery to improve your hernia pain, there are many steps we take to lower the risk of long-term pain after your hernia repair:
- Use as large a volume of local anaesthetic as is safe from pre-incision. In repairs using local anaesthetic and sedation, this helps to modify your nerves’ responses to tissue injury, reducing the pain response, and provides good pain relief for 12 hours or more.
- Use self-fixating mesh for inguinal hernia repairs. The mesh we use fixes with little Velcro-like barbs that hold the tissue lightly but over a wide 12x8cm area so that any tension is borne equally through this surface area and not along the line of repair. These barbs dissolve to avoid long term discomfort (if they cause any at all).
- Use absorbable fixation alongside mesh. Use absorbable material for any element of fixation to the posterior wall of the inguinal canal where the hernia protrudes and the nerves running through this space exist.
- Provide good online and downloadable preoperative advice on what to expect and how to manage activity post-surgery. Anxiety and the unexpected are positively related to pain perception and experience of pain from tissue injury. Our pre-operative information can help reduce this anxiety and pain perception.
- Advise use of hernia supports both before and after surgery. Hernia supports help manage pain before surgery and act as a pressure dressing to reduce haematoma size (this is a risk factor for persistent pain). The hernia pants reduce pain by supporting the affected area as well as the muscles of your abdominal wall when they have little strength initially post-surgery.
We Lower Risk of Recurrence
There are also a number of steps we take to improve your hernia repair outcomes by lowering the risk of your hernia recurring:
- Mesh repairs are standard, and have a much lower risk of recurrence than suture-only repairs.
- The more cases a surgeon or centre has, the lower their recurrence rates tend to be.
- Our highly experienced surgeon discusses a personalised surgery plan with each patient to create a strategy that meets your needs.
- Read more here about what causes hernias to recur, how we lower this risk, and what you can do to lower this risk.