Hernia Types And Hernia Diagnosis

Hernia types and hernia diagnosis

        You have to keep in mind that the number of hernia types makes them harder to categorize than other conditions. Thus, the following structure is a simple one, based on the location of the hernia bulge:

• Hiatal hernia: this hernia type is the most common; it has not preference for age, gender or race. The bulge is situated at a border, between your chest cavity and your abdomen. It is formed due to the loosening of the muscles that hold your diaphragm tightly closed, allowing a part of your upper stomach to become trapped inside your chest.
• Inguinal hernia: it mostly affects men and newborns. A congenital defect in your inguinal canal muscles leads to its enlargement and the sliding of your lower bowel on either sides of your groin.
• Umbilical hernia: your belly button is considered a weak spot due to the fact that it basically interrupts your muscle structure. Thus, it makes it easier for a tear to happen and to create a canal between your inner abdomen and your skin. A bulge is formed, right next to your belly button, containing a part of your fatty tissue and, in severe cases, a part of your intestine.
• Femoral hernia: as a hernia type, it greatly resembles inguinal hernia and sport hernia. Next to the inguinal canal, there is a femoral canal. If the latter is loosened, your small bowel falls through it and creates a painful bulge on the outside of your thigh.
• Sport hernia: the rarest and most contested of all hernia types, it generally affects only professional athletes.
• Epigastric hernia: the mellowest hernia type out there, it leads to the appearance of small lumps on your higher abdomen, where parts of your fatty tissue pass through small ruptures in your abdominal muscles.

       Each of these types of hernia has both their own particular manifestations and some common ones. To name a few, obesity, pregnancy, diabetes, heavy lifting on a daily basis, straining due to constipation, chronic coughing and permanent sneezing are all culprits whenever hernia is involved.

        Hernia has no preference for age, sex or race. Because of this universality of the condition it is simply impossible to prevent it completely. After all, you could spend a lifetime not lifting anything heavier than a bucket of water and get umbilical hernia out of nowhere.

Hernia diagnosis

       Once you start experiencing the first symptoms of any type of hernia, you should schedule an appointment with your attending physician. He or she will perform a series of tests to determine if your condition is indeed hernia. If it is indeed, a surgery is to be performed within the next few weeks. It is best to repair a hernia early on so as to avoid a lengthy recovery period. Your hernia diagnosis should not scare you, since hernia is not really a severe condition if it is diagnosed early on.

       However, do not think that a hernia diagnosis is such a complicated thing. In most cases, only the sight and feel of the bulge will determine your attending physician to claim that you suffer from hernia. One other way to offer a true hernia diagnosis, more modern and more complicated, is through imaging on any kind (be it X - ray or MRI).

       The one type of hernia that requires a different take on the hernia diagnosis is sport hernia. It is one of the most contested and hard to correctly diagnose conditions in existence, simply because its symptoms overlap exactly over those of a normal inguinal or femoral hernia or even with those of a benign muscle strain. Only a skilled physician can notice this hernia type and only the right kind of surgeon can repair it.