Parastomal hernia

[Trying]

Hi

Unfortunately i developed a parastomal hernia following my colostomy. Since i still have other surgeries in my future i dont want to look at repairing this with surgery now. Ive already been fitted for a propper belt. I have read that losing weight can decrease the size. Has anyone had luck with this. I know this sounds petty considering my health issues but it really bothers me. Thanks!

Nicole

[JJH]

Hi

Unfortunately i developed a parastomal hernia following my colostomy. Since i still have other surgeries in my future i dont want to look at repairing this with surgery now. Ive already been fitted for a propper belt. I have read that losing weight can decrease the size. Has anyone had luck with this. I know this sounds petty considering my health issues but it really bothers me. Thanks!

Nicole

Advanced searches for "hernia repair" threads
https://coloncancersupport.colonclub.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=46460&p=339854#p339854

[Trying]

Thanks. Im reading alot on the surgery but was curious if weight loss worked for anyone. Maybe its there and i just missed it. Thank you for replying

[JJH]

Thanks. Im reading alot on the surgery but was curious if weight loss worked for anyone. Maybe its there and i just missed it. Thank you for replying

I'm sorry but my experience with parastomal hernias was not with a colostomy but with a temporary ileostomy and is not quite relevant for your case. I was very thin at the time, but the hernia produced a bulge about the size of a grapefruit. My surgeon did not want to do a repair until I was finished with the ileostomy, so I had to wait another 8 months until my ileostomy was reversed. I don't know what effect weight loss might have had on my parastomal hernia since I couldn't have lost any more weight at the time, even if I tried.

Eventually, after several years, my hernia repair failed and I had to have yet another surgery to repair the "repaired" hernia. That was five years ago.

BTW, have you seen this article?
Stoma Issues in the Obese Patient
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3311493/

Also, if you are planning to lose some weight, you can use the Body Mass Index (BMI) calculator to track your progress in reaching normal weight.
Body Mass Index calculator
https://coloncancersupport.colonclub.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=48921&p=372280#p372280

[Trying]

Thank you for responding to my post.

[texazgal]

I also developed a hernia post op. Probably due to having a 7 mo grandaughter who needed carrying around.lol. Anyway, my surgeon looked at it and didn't recommend repair. The only problem is that with my last colonoscopy, it impeded the camera and doc was only able to scope the first 5 inches or so. I'll likely never schedule another scope because of that. As for the weight loss question, I've lost about 35 lb in the last year due to a different cancer (see signature) and it made little difference in the hernia size.

[Trying]

Thank you

[Lee]

Thanks. Im reading alot on the surgery but was curious if weight loss worked for anyone. Maybe its there and i just missed it. Thank you for replying

I too have a parastomal hernia. Weight loss will not help reduce it, maybe a bit, but nothing really noticeable. BUTT weight loss will help prevent it from coming back or possible getting larger.

I am not over weight, butt I did have an open surgery to remove my tumor, and most importantly I power walk. My surgeon feels my power walking is probably the biggest contributor to my hernia. Butt walking is probably one of the most important things I do to my body so I'm under doctor's orders not to stop power walking.

If you are thinking about getting the surgery to repair the hernia and if you are overweight, consider getting the weight off first.

good luck,

Lee

[crikklekay]

My husband's first surgery was an emergency so they had to use a very large abdominal cut, he has quite the gnarly scar! Unfortunately despite being careful during healing he has two incisional hernias and his surgeon told him not to worry about it unless it started causing a problem. He actually lost a ton of weight during treatment and it didn't affect the hernias any, but now that he gained it back the surgeon says he needs to lose weight before he could consider a repair. So I'm not sure if losing weight will help it, but it may make the repair healing easier. She mentioned losing weight lessens the pressure on the abdominal area, but losing weight won't make it go away.

[Trying]

Thanks everyone. Im not really overweight just about 10 pounds more than i would like and had hoped it would make a difference.