SearchExclusive.com

Diseases & Conditions,Health & Lifestyle

Effective Treatment Options for a Hernia

A hernia occurs when an organ of your body bulges out through an opening in the tissue or muscle holding it in place. This is most common in the abdominal area, where the intestine breaks through the abdominal wall; however, it can also occur in the upper thigh, near the belly button, or also in the groin areas.

What are the types of a hernia?
There are five main types of a hernia depending on which organ has been affected.

Inguinal hernia
This occurs when the intestine pushes through a weak spot on the abdominal wall. This is the most common type of a hernia.

Hiatal hernia
This occurs when your stomach bulges into your chest through the diaphragm (it separates the organs in your lungs from the organs in your abdomen).

Umbilical hernia
This type of a hernia only occurs in babies aged six months or less. Their intestines protrude from their abdominal wall near the belly button.

Incisional hernia
This happens when you have undergone surgery in your abdomen, and your intestine pushes through the scar from your surgery or in the surrounding area that has become weak.

Femoral hernia
This type of a hernia generally occurs when a fatty tissue or a part of your bowel bulges through your groin into the femoral canal on the upper part of your inner thigh.

Treatments for hernia
The following ways are effective treatments for hernia. You can follow these to get timely relief from the discomfort experienced.

Lifestyle changes
Some changes in your diet can help cure the symptoms of a hiatal hernia. Make sure that you don’t eat extremely heavy meals or lie down or bend over right after the meal. It also helps if you maintain your weight in a healthy range. If this isn’t sufficient to cure the symptoms, a surgery would be recommended as one of the treatments for hernia. You can also improve your symptoms by avoiding foods that cause acid reflux and avoiding cigarettes.

Medication
Some over-the-counter medication for reducing acid reflux can help improve your hernia symptoms. These medications can act as effective treatments for hernia.

Exercise
There are also some exercises that you can do to treat a hernia. The best way of treatment for a hernia is through these exercises.

One is where you lie down on your back with your feet at a raised position. With someone’s help, you can either try to spread your legs apart or raise them up higher while your assistant resists.
You can perform a self-massage for a hiatal hernia where you lie down on your back and place your fingers right below your rib cage. Press down and slowly move your fingers down to your belly button. Repeat this for five minutes daily.
There is another exercise where you use warm water to help with your hiatal hernia. Right after waking up, drink a glass of warm water, and stand up with your arms out sideways but your elbows bent inwards. Rise onto your toes and drop down rapidly and repeat this several times. After this, throw your arms up and take several short breaths for about 15 seconds. This helps to drop your stomach into your abdomen and then tighten the diaphragm to heal a hernia.

Remember to consult with your doctor before performing these exercises as treatments for hernia because the difference in everyone’s metabolism doesn’t produce the same results for all.

Surgery
When a hernia continues to grow larger and cause more pain, it is best to consult with a doctor and get it operated. During the surgery, the doctors generally replace the organ back to its position or cut it off if it has suffered strangulation (oxygen cut off). The hole in the wall is then stitched up, generally with a surgical mesh. It is necessary that you understand the symptoms of a hernia in the early stages so that effective treatments for hernia can be recommended. A hernia doesn’t cure on itself, and special attention is needed as severe cases can even prove fatal.

Surgery methods as treatment options for a hernia
A general surgeon can perform the following types of hernia surgery on you.

Open surgery
In this, the doctor makes an incision into the skin near a hernia, and the organ is pushed back into its place. The muscle wall is then stitched up. This method is suited better for smaller hernias or in cases where it is possible to use stitches without causing any harm to the tissue. The approach, however, depends on how big the hernia is. Most times, the patient can head home on the same day as the surgery but the recovery time lasts up to three weeks. Make sure you only perform strenuous exercise after six weeks.

Laparoscopic surgery
This method is relatively new compared to the open surgery but requires smaller incisions. In this method, the surgeon makes two to four small incisions near a hernia, through which the doctor will insert a camera and the instruments.

The camera has a light and is connected to a monitor to display the insides of your abdomen. Gas is used to inflate the abdomen to give the surgeon some space to work. Similar to the open surgery, they return a hernia to its position and the tear in the muscle is stitched up. Once a hernia is treated, they remove the gas and the abdomen returns to normal.

Most times, hernias aren’t life-threatening, but since they don’t get cured on their own, they may need to be treated with surgery to prevent complications. Make sure that you speak with your doctor before undertaking any of the treatments for hernia as mentioned above.

Related Reading

Tips for Buying the Best Dog Food

Most of the dogs do not have a food fuss and may eat almost anything that you feed them. Dogs are not choosy at all when it comes to food and nutrition. Hence, it is important to make sure that the food that you are purchasing for your dog is healthy. The landscape of dog food has been developing by leaps and bounds in recent times. There is a wide variety of options to choose from in the online and offline market. Given the wide range of options that are available today, buying the best dog food might seem to be a confusing task indeed. All the commercial pet food that is available in the market today is regulated by the FDA. Therefore, most of the products do contain nutritious, healthy, and safe ingredients. But it does help to know certain basic factors you should look for while buying food for your dog. Prioritize on the nutritional guarantee The best dog food, which meets the dog’s needs adequately has a statement written on the label of the product, from the Association of American Feed Control Officials. Buy from some of the best dog food brands, such as Fromm Family Foods, Earthborn Holistic, Nature’s Variety Instinct, and The Honest Kitchen.

Different Types of Kitchen Cabinets Available for Your Home

The most important aspect when designing your kitchen is deciding on the type of cabinets. In addition to functionality, kitchen cabinets score on aesthetics as well. Once the layout is planned, you can go ahead with choosing the cabinets. If you’re remodeling your home or just the kitchen, what you need to consider are the types of cabinets that furnish your kitchen. Here are a few types of kitchen cabinets that you can choose from. Base cabinets These kitchen cabinets are mounted on the floor and they are placed after checking out the floor plan. A major part of your job in the kitchen is on these base cabinets, which hold and support the countertops. These base cabinets are combined to carve out kitchen islands. A number of base cabinets are fused/set against one another and installed on site. The base cabinets, in addition to supporting the countertops, serve as drawers to hold your cutlery and appliances. Wall cabinets Mounted on the walls, these cabinets can store everything, right from your cookware to cookbooks. In terms of design, they offer utmost flexibility. Wall cabinet kitchen is available in varying heights, multiple widths, and custom depth options. This customization helps you to fit in your stuff of varying shapes and sizes into the wall cabinets.

How to Pick the Right Dog Food for a Sensitive Stomach

In today’s world, where you are presented with over a dozen choices for every item you would purchase for your own kitchen, it is not surprising that you have an equal number of options for your dog’s food. However, choosing the perfect brand and formula for your dog out of a range of options in the market is not an easy job. Your pet depends on you and trusts you to make the right choice for them. Therefore, it is imperative that you do your research about the products available in the market, understand what your dog needs, know what might be your pet’s problems, and then make a sound decision. What is a sensitive stomach? Dogs are known to have voracious and large appetites. Keeping that in mind, it is normal to assume that they have strong stomachs. They can eat close to anything be it sweets, bakes, chewy gum, hard leather or even woolen socks for that matter! It always so happens that the strongest of them are prone to allergies and can develop a disorder which is medically translated as a sensitive stomach. This might be due to a sudden change in the food habits or even due an infection picked up from somewhere.

All You Need to Know about Cat Food

For cat owners, cat food is a hot topic. You need to think about it in different aspects. The best thing is to know which ingredients are good for cat food and which are harmful. If you are aware of this, you can get an idea about the quality of the cat food just by going through the label. It is always sensible to stick to one brand of cat food. However, you may also want to try and prepare cat food yourself. There are also various options for wet cat food as well. Cat’s love for fish is universal, so you can do without going for expensive cat food. Nevertheless, whether you buy it or prepare cat food at home, you need to ensure that the food contains enough nutrition and calories. You would need to have some idea about the ingredients that must be present in cat food and make a worthy selection for your cat. Basic ingredients present in good cat foods Cats need a variety of nutrients to stay healthy and active; they need various vitamins, minerals, fats, proteins, and oils. The following is a brief explanation of the basic ingredients that should be present in cat foods.