Monday, October 20, 2008

Sports Hernia Redux



I've written about this topic before. But here we go again. Jeremy Shockey, the New Orleans Saints tight end, is upset. It seems he's still feeling pain in his groin following surgery for a "sports hernia". He feels that the team made him return to the playing field too soon. Moreover, he thinks the team doctors screwed up by not diagnosing his "hernia" sooner:

`I'm worried that this thing could have been taken care of in camp, like it should have been,'' said Shockey, who the Saints acquired from the New York Giants in July for two draft picks. ``If it wasn't misdiagnosed in camp like it was there'd have been no problems. ... Next time I know. When I get hurt I'll get three or four opinions besides just the team's.''


That quote pretty much encapsulates everything that's wrong with the concept of "sports hernia". No clear diagnostic tests. Multiple medical opinions often sought. No clear time frame on the recovery period. Shockey is like the sixth or seventh professional athlete this year I've read about who had surgery to fix an alleged sports hernia. Kevin Curtis, the Philadelphia Eagles WR, had surgery way back in August and he still isn't due to return to the team for several more weeks.

If you present to me with an actual inguinal hernia and I fix it in the standard fashion, I pretty much remove all restrictions by week 3 or 4 post-op. The Kevin Curtis situation is simply outlandish. Three months off just because some expert surgeon tacked a piece of mesh to your strained lower abdominal muscles? It's absurd. Hopefully, these kinds of undesired outcomes will lead to NFL players thinking twice before subjecting themselves to future sham surgeries.....

4 comments:

Johnny Biacofsky said...

So what is your advice as opposed to these surgeries? I read the blog you linked in this one that said to "rest" and it will go away and I can tell you by experience, there is no way to "rest" away groin pain that is often attributed to a "sports hernia" or athletic pubalgia.

NSAIDS, nitroglycerin pads at the site of pain, physical therapy, ultrasound, ART, and even iontophrenisis combined with rest doesn't do anything for someone with unexplained groin pain. And I can tell you that surgeries don't work either as I've had two of them with no real results. I understand the idea of trying to disuade people from surgeries, but if you think telling people to rest and take some useless INSAID's is a better strategy, you might need to go back to the drawing board.

Unknown said...

Maybe he should try some growth hormone!

Johnny Biacofsky said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Johnny Biacofsky said...

Glad to see intelligent responses. Thank you Billy. For those who stumble across this blog looking for answers to the sports hernia and groin pain problem, I'd recomend you take a good look here: www.thegroinpaincenter.blogspot.com which is a blog I write. It takes the problem of groin pain seriously.