advertisement


NHS and Hernias

zippy

zippy

pfm Member
Couple of weeks ago I realised I'd developed an inguinal hernia.
Trawling the net for advice reveals roughly half the UK web sites I looked said don't worry about it - lots of people have them, if it doesn't hurt ignore it.
Of course the other half tell me it's really bad, must get urgent medical treatment immediately.
Virtually all U.S. sites adopt the latter stance, no doubt because sums of money are involved.

OK, play safe, I'll get it checked out.

Step one, NHS111 online. Go through all the symptoms list and end up being told to see a GP.
Step 2, go to my GP's web page - not taking phone bookings, 'must use e-consult'. nice idea but after several pages of symptom checking, I just get to 'see your GP'.
Tried 111 phone number, 'this number is for emergencies only, call your GP'
Call my GP's normal number (I finally took the hint!) 'sorry no more consultations available today, call again tomorrow at 8.00 am'
8.00 am next day - actually get through and talk to.... a receptionist, who makes a note of my request and says 'doctor will call you back'.... progress!
So 8.00 today doctor calls, we go through the symptoms again and doctor books a face-to-face meeting - hooray, I finally get to 'see my GP'

I guess now I will finally find out whether it's serious or not, though if it is, I strongly suspect there's a massive waiting list for surgery. In the meantime I must not lift, bend, cough, sneeze, strain or anything else that might upset it..
I guess no gardening, lots of TV.
:(
 
zippy said:
Couple of weeks ago I realised I'd developed an inguinal hernia.
Trawling the net for advice reveals roughly half the UK web sites I looked said don't worry about it - lots of people have them, if it doesn't hurt ignore it.
Of course the other half tell me it's really bad, must get urgent medical treatment immediately.
Virtually all U.S. sites adopt the latter stance, no doubt because sums of money are involved.

OK, play safe, I'll get it checked out.

Step one, NHS111 online. Go through all the symptoms list and end up being told to see a GP.
Step 2, go to my GP's web page - not taking phone bookings, 'must use e-consult'. nice idea but after several pages of symptom checking, I just get to 'see your GP'.
Tried 111 phone number, 'this number is for emergencies only, call your GP'
Call my GP's normal number (I finally took the hint!) 'sorry no more consultations available today, call again tomorrow at 8.00 am'
8.00 am next day - actually get through and talk to.... a receptionist, who makes a note of my request and says 'doctor will call you back'.... progress!
So 8.00 today doctor calls, we go through the symptoms again and doctor books a face-to-face meeting - hooray, I finally get to 'see my GP'

I guess now I will finally find out whether it's serious or not, though if it is, I strongly suspect there's a massive waiting list for surgery. In the meantime I must not lift, bend, cough, sneeze, strain or anything else that might upset it..
I guess no gardening, lots of TV.
:(
Click to expand...
congratulations, you are being queue-managed. Prepare yourself for a great deal of this over the coming weeks and months. Oh, and remember if you tough it out and say "well, it's not so bad really, I can just about cope" then cope is exactly what you will do, until hell freezes over.
 
I’ve had one for about four years. I remember it happening. Tennis elbow, Co-codamol, constipation, you can guess the rest. I didn’t bother doing anything about it because (1) it wasn’t troubling me and (2) I thought the NHS had better things to use its resources on during Covid. But in the early summer I went to my GP for a prostate exam. He saw the hernia and asked if I’d like to get it sorted out as, he told me, these things are fine until one day they suddenly aren’t and then it is emergency admission time.

I saw a consultant about six weeks later. The examination took fully ten seconds. His words - ‘let’s get it fixed while you are still young, slim and fit.’ As I’m 66 I don’t know how much of that was intended to be taken seriously or if it was important to his decision, but he repeated the phrase in his letter to my doctor. Shortly afterwards I was offered a choice of dates for an operation, the first being in October. As I liked the idea of being a grumpy invalid over Xmas, I went for mid-December. So that will be about six months from GP to knife, but would have been only four if I’d gone for as early a date as possible.

Absolutely no complaints about the service I've had from the NHS. So far, anyway...
 
Last edited:
I suffered my hernia in May 2020, so not great timing with Covid. Very quickly my GP surgery’s nurse checked it out, agreed it needed seeing to. A few weeks later I went to the hospital and the surgeon had a look to confirm how serious it was. 13 months after the injury occurred, I had the surgery.
The surgeon said, at my first meeting with him, that the waiting time used to be 2 months, but during Covid that would be just guesswork.
15 months after surgery, I can lift heavy things without giving it a second thought, glad I had it.

Your hernia may well not be life threatening at the moment, but one false move by you with a heavy ish object causing a strangulated hernia could be extremely serious.

I am not a doctor. I just believe what they tell me and do exactly what they say.
 
My mum developed a nasty hernia from coughing when she had Covid. Two and half years later and she’s decided to go private.
 
I suffered one as i was sitting minding my own business in a restaurant in Budapest. No lifting apart from a pate starter.

Had a mesh repair back home and then it popped over the top of the mesh in an accident so had to have it fixed again.

That was 2013 and it's been fine, occasionally feels as if there's a bit of tension at the edge of the repair.

I'd say book in to get it done as fast as the NHS will go.
 
My sympathy to all who have suffered this.

You have got me worried. I strain my stomach muscles and elsewhere on my 82 year old body, regularly, in my home- made (modified) springs, weights, straps, and doorknob contraption. The worst I have had to endure so far is a bit of sore muscle 2 days later. I cure this with scotch bonnet rubbed in.
 
Strangulated hernia is definately not good ! I had one and was in agony and could hardly walk , quick trip to hospital and operated on that night , pre covid so service was good . It did take a long time to recover unfortunately as the mesh was too tight and possibly a reaction to it . However a lot of people have the op and are fine within a week
 
These "work" as a counter -irritant.
counter-irritant.
"something such as heat or an ointment that is used to produce surface irritation of the skin, thereby counteracting underlying pain or discomfort."
"Deep relief "has ibuprofen gel .
 
my mother had high strength capsaicin patches applied to relieve the pain associated with post herpatic neuralgia. Very effective, but she needed to attend a special pain clinic.
 
Local paper reported on man who had his hernia done privately. There was a later complication which required NHS to sort out the immediate issue. (After the inevitable back and forth on 111and multi hour A&E delays). Now he is waiting for private clinic to sort it out properly.
 
I'm not sure I follow that,but if I do it begs the question why didn't the private hospital sort any complications.Answer they'd all gone home for the day.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.


advertisement


Back
Top