Sports hernia treatment

Hernia is a pretty wide term referring to any kind of body tissue that is protruding through the cavity in which it is normally located. However, sports hernia is a bit different. It occurs due to the sudden movements of athletes that may result in the stretching of the wall of a particular cavity, which ends up pressing a nerve, but with no visible protrusion, except for the swelling of the area that goes along with the injury. There are various methods to treat sports hernia.

Using physical therapy to treat sports hernia

Unless there is some sort of a complication of sports hernia, physical therapy is the logical first step in the recovery of the joint affected by it. The therapy can last from one month to a month and a half and it is usually efficient enough to cure the condition completely. However, when that does not happen to be the case, surgery is necessary.

First of all, to understand the things that physical therapy for sports hernia entails, it is important to understand why the injury happens in the first place. What happens to cause the injury is the lack of balance in the muscles, which are located in the pubic bone area. Therefore, the physical therapy must make sure that the balance is restored by stretching the muscles of the lower abdomen, as well as those of the lower extremity. It is also important to work on the muscles of both upper and lower torso, or the so-called core muscles because they need to be much stronger.

When the therapy is completed and if it turns out to be a success, there should be no consequences left from sports hernia, such as restricted movement of the joint or chronic pain.

Using a surgical procedure to treat hernia

The most important thing to establish before undergoing surgery for sports hernia, is that it is, in fact, the condition in question, because an oversight can easily occur. Once this is done, the patient will be sent to rehabilitation and try out physical therapy. And, while physical therapy has proven to be very effective in the majority of cases, every now and then it happens that someone is not responding to it very well. That’s when surgery comes in.

The surgery basically has the same goal as physical therapy – to restore the balance in the muscles around the pubic bone. What’s also done surgery is the removal of the superficial nerve because it could end up causing problems with the scar tissue.