Hernia has for long been a dreaded health issue prevalent mostly among men from their late adolescence to old age. It is common among people engaged in physically-laborious occupation. This health issue is common among people engaged in building industries, mechanical and structural engineering jobs where lifting of heavy items is involved, traditional medicine practitioners who also produce their products physically, weight lifting athletes, traditional farmers and reckless style of living – multiple sex partners – and activities.
Hernia is one of the most controversial health issues within our traditional medicine groups. We have for a long time been fed with wrong perception due to lack of the internet in those days.
Some of us in the field are still cherishing this notion and this article will for once open their eyes to facts about hernia as a health issue to be left to conventional medicine. It is an opener and testimony of my person who had been actively involved in witnessing and also treating it for over a period of 15 years before finally surrendering to conventional medicine.
I attach a picture of one of my clients who suffered Hernia for 12 years believing that traditional medicine can treat it. He survived surgical operation and lived to tell his story, without having any bitterness or loss of faith in traditional medicine. Thanks for helping to bring this awareness to our traditional medicine practitioners as well as the general public who may seek help in traditional medicine because of the high cost of surgery or fear or misleading medical advice from my people.
In Western countries, where majority depend on conventional (orthodox) medical therapy, and with exposure to all the information resources of the internet, Hernia has seized to be a myth , but a health issue or body accident, that conventional medicine can repair. Few years back, before the benefits of technology, the Internet was relatively within the reach of many Nigerians or West Africans since it was a luxury before the year 2000, only available to the rich literate few, hernia, to most people, was another type of disease that required medicine either traditional or synthetic drugs to treat or cure.
This opinion is factual as I am writing from the point of view of a Naturopathic as well as traditional medicine practitioner, a renounced herbalist, who had encountered many clients and sufferers who had approached me for advice on how to deal with their hernia problems. To most of us traditional medicine practitioners in the last 20 years, hernia was being considered a health issue that traditional medicine therapy can cure and that belief is still prevalent among many of our practitioners today.This is because of the erroneous belief in the efficacy of traditional medicine as panacea for all health issues and our fervent antipathy for surgical operation as the scorn of conventional medicine since to us they are ‘licensed butchers’. We never believed that traditional medicine also had its own limitations. Even though I was already a graduate from United Kingdom before I joined traditional medicine group and later moved to becoming their national secretary general, I was led into believing that we could handle any health issue with the ‘magic’ of traditional and herbal medicine; unfortunately most of the practitioners at that time were still under the cloud and hence the importance of this eye opener article on the hernia, a myth or a health issue explained it is beyond herbal treatment.
What then is hernia? We have come across many of our predecessors who firmly believed that any traditional medicine can be used to cure any genital-related health diseases such as testicular cancer and other neoplasms swelling of a testicle, caused by hydrocele testis. Inflammation of the epididymis, called epididymitis, can also take care of hernia. And in all honesty, I was inclined to share their strong belief and hence submitted to trying for the next 15 years to prove them right. But hernia is not related to any sexually transmitted diseases which can be cured with traditional medicine. If only we have all come to this awareness many years back, many lives would have been saved. I still recalled the case of a close associate who was diagnosed with hernia in 1999, when he noticed a swelling around the region below his navel, the groin. He was advised to come for surgical operation to repair it, but he was discouraged by our predecessors who guaranteed his cure with herbal medicine. He believed and including me too. For the next 10 years he was drinking so many traditional medicines; some so toxic as they are made with burnt lime peels mixed with caustic soda in alcohol with the belief that it would burn away the tear. My friend was also given another medicine soaked in cow bile, of course very bitter but it never solved it but rather it made his matter worse as the second side of his loin got torn and he ended up with double hernia with the scrotum enlarging by the year to accommodate the intestine that escaped into the region of the scrotum thereby pushing the testicles downwards. Hence he had to be lying on his back to reduce the pain and the annoying noise emanating from the region of the stomach which we call “Ikunsinu” or loud rumbling stomach as the movement of the intestine (Peristalsis) were becoming so audible to his embarrassment sometimes in public.
What then is hernia?
A hernia occurs when the contents of a body cavity bulge out of the area where they are normally contained. These contents, usually portions of intestine or abdominal fatty tissue, are enclosed in the thin membrane that naturally lines the inside of the cavity. Although the term hernia can be used for bulges in other areas, it most often is used to describe hernias of the lower torso (abdominal wall hernias).
Hernias by themselves may be asymptomatic, that is when there is no symptom indicated, but nearly all have a potential risk of having their blood supply cut off (becoming strangulated). If the hernia sac contents have their blood supply cut off at the hernia opening in the abdominal wall, it becomes a medical and surgical emergency.
Different types of abdominal wall hernias include the following:
Inguinal (groin) hernia: Making up most of all abdominal wall hernias and occurring up to 25 times more often in men than women, these hernias are divided into two different types, direct and indirect. Both occur in the groin area above where the skin crease at the top of the thigh joins the torso (the inguinal crease), but they have slightly different origins. Both of these types of hernias can similarly appear as a bulge in the inguinal area. Distinguishing between the direct and indirect hernia, however, is important as a clinical diagnosis.
Indirect inguinal hernia: An indirect hernia follows the pathway that the testicles made during prebirth development. It descends from the abdomen into the scrotum. This pathway normally closes before birth but may remain a possible place for a hernia. Sometimes the hernia sac may protrude into the scrotum. An indirect inguinal hernia may occur at any age. This type of hernia is what we call ‘ipake’ and I will like to say I have seen this cured in babies and young children with herbal concoctions.
Direct inguinal hernia: The direct inguinal hernia occurs slightly to the inside of the site of the indirect hernia, in a place where the abdominal wall is naturally slightly thinner. It rarely protrudes into the scrotum. Unlike the indirect hernia, which can occur at any age, the direct hernia tends to occur in the middle-aged and elderly because their abdominal walls weaken as they age. This type is very common among the cases we erroneously believed that traditional medicine can treat; hence resulting in preventable deaths of many sufferers due to ignorance and misconceived idea passed on from generation to generation.
Traditional or herbal medicines cannot cure direct inguinal hernia because it is not a disease; it is a tear within the membranes of the body which can be repaired not with herbs but surgical operation. It is beyond the application of herbal medicine; hence one of our limitations.
Femoral hernia: The femoral canal is the path through which the femoral artery, vein, and nerve leave the abdominal cavity to enter the thigh. Although normally a tight space, sometimes becomes large enough to allow abdominal contents (usually intestine) into the canal. A femoral hernia causes a bulge just below the inguinal crease in roughly the mid-thigh area. Usually occurring in women, femoral hernias are particularly at risk of becoming irreducible (not able to be pushed back into place) and strangulated.
Umbilical hernia: These common hernias, not very common, are often noted at birth as a protrusion at the bellybutton (the umbilicus). This is caused when an opening in the abdominal wall, which normally closes before birth, doesn’t close completely. If small (less than half an inch) this type of hernia usually closes gradually by age two. Larger hernias and those that do not close by themselves usually require surgery at age two to four. Even if the area is closed at birth, umbilical hernias can appear later in life because this spot may remain a weaker place in the abdominal wall. Umbilical hernias can appear later in life or in women who are having or have had children. This is another type of what we commonly refer to as “Ipake” and we have seen them treated with herbal concoctions so I believed, but I stand to be corrected.
Obturator hernia: This extremely rare abdominal hernia develops mostly in women. This hernia protrudes from the pelvic cavity through an opening in the pelvic bone (obturator foramen). This will not show any bulge but can act like bowel obstruction and cause nausea and vomiting.
Hernia causes
Although abdominal hernias can be present at birth, others develop later in life. Some involve pathways formed during fetal development, existing openings in the abdominal cavity, or areas of abdominal wall weakness. Any condition that increases the pressure of the abdominal cavity may contribute to the formation or worsening of a hernia. Examples include:
- Obesity – The people suffering from inguinal hernia are often getting constipation with heavy foods such as yam, cassava flour (eba) as the heavy food contents descend straight into the scrotum region causing so much pain from further tear of the thin membrane. It could lead to the strangulation of the intestine.
- Heavy lifting: People suffering from hernia are more at risk of worsening the damaged thin membrane separating the abdomen from the groin due to excess pressure released from lifting anything above 50 Ibs.
Coughing : Lump increases in size when standing or when abdominal pressure is increased (such as coughing)
Straining during a bowel movement or urination
Chronic lung disease
Fluid in the abdominal cavity – This rumbling noise is from where we named this type of hernia as ‘Ikunsinu” meaning noisy stomach, very audible to next person sitting beside anyone with direct inguinal hernia.
A family history of hernias can make you more likely to develop a hernia.
Hernia Symptoms
The signs and symptoms of a hernia can range from noticing a painless lump to the painful, tender, swollen protrusion of tissue that you are unable to push back into the abdomen—an incarcerated strangulated hernia. When you push it back, it comes out again and it is by lying on your back before you can get relief from pain as the intestine moves back again into the stomach.
The common symptom associated with Reducible hernia is: New lump in the groin or other abdominal wall area as in the picture above. The lump may ache but is not tender when touched. Sometimes pain precedes the discovery of the lump. Lump increases in size when standing or when abdominal pressure is increased (such as coughing) May be reduced (pushed back into the abdomen) unless very large.
In addition to this, people suffering from advanced hernia have complained of erectile dysfunction; lack of erection when about to penetrate, though they may feel the erection during fore-play as extra pressure is put on the wall of the groin which at this stage is already torn.
We hope all practitioners of traditional and herbal as well as Alternative medicine will not rely on the assumptions and claims handed over to us by our renowned predecessors but keep an open mind and readiness to investigate and conduct their own research now that the internet is readily accessible to everyone willing to learn and gain more knowledge.
