[Closed] Just back from double hernia operation

wait till you need to go poo .
I was off the bike for 3 months . Having read all the BUPA type ads of running in a week, squash in 2 blah blah I thought it would be a doddle.
Hurt like hell , felt very beaten up for a month .
Couldnt get in and out the car , tie shoe laces etc .
Beware Tramodol , and get some prunes in you . Now.

So I can sell my dyfi enduro entry then?

Get prunes and other high fibre stuff down you a.s.a.p. You DON'T want to have to try too hard to poo I kid thee not 😯

You'll be ok to do some easy road riding in 3-4 weeks, just spinning to get the legs back. I spent a week off-piste skiing in Canada 6 weeks after my op a few year ago, and although I worried about it constantly it was fine.

To give an alternative point of view, I was walking fine within 1 week and riding my bike within 4.

It is entirely dependent on how they fixed the problem, how good a job they did and how quickly you heal. You have to decide how comfortable you feel, basically if it hurts don't do it.

And second the prune, you want to keep everything as loose as possible down there for the moment!

[i]Lying in bed at home looking at my gleaming bike[/i]

you sleep in the garage?

...and put a dust sheet over the bike for now, you're just torturing yourself otherwise 😉

Had bike stolen from garage last year...now it lives inside until I secure garage up

Any of you boys have any numbness afterwards?...small area of right hip is very numb...left side perfect. Surgeon suspects a bit of nerve damage...may last a while

I'm another one who read the blurb saying you can wrestle alligators as you skip home from the hospital, but in reality could barely walk after 3 weeks.

Another vote for picolax...

Numbness all over my midriff and "happy places" for at least a week afterwards...

Ouch - I feel your pain.

I had a open bilateral inguinal hernia repair mid-June 2009.
Post-op my surgeon said I could ride gently to work after two and a bit weeks - if only for the reason that I had no other way of getting to the office.
I was told to take it gently and to stop if it hurt - I pushed up the hill for the first few days.
(I used a Brompton for the first week to reduce the need to lift my leg over the cross bar).

After three and a half weeks I went for a spin on my road bike. In hindsight I did too much - 30 hills with an 800ft climb. I got half-way and ached like hell but had no choice but to carry on to get home. I started MTBing after 6 weeks and had no problem with this other than a loss of mojo and pain if I slammed my saddle into the scars. Ouch!

I found the best way to recover was to do some gentle exercise and then rest for a couple of hours before doing a bit more. I slept a lot too!
Chatting a while later to a friend who's a physio and cyclist he reckoned I'd got the recovery process spot on - gentle exercise stops lesions from forming, which is a big risk and causes a lot of pain.

At the end of August I set off on a hilly 6-day cycle tour of Northumbria. I aimed at 40-60 miles a day which caused no problems. Lack of strength and stamina was a bigger problem than hernia pain. Normally I'd aim at 60-80 miles a day but that would have been too much having lost three months of hard cycling (by my standards).

Oh - and riding a fixie ached for several months post-op, but again I think it may have been helping the recovery process.

Hope this helps - good luck with your recovery!

Just to be clear, I was joking about actually taking Picolax, but something to keep you regular is DEFINITELY a good idea.

Hope the recovery goes well and don't be tempted to do too much too soon.

I love this forum...never a situation where you can't get a bit of sensible advice coupled with a large helping of piss take...chewing on dried apple rings and raisins now

Here's a thread from a while back that touched on a similar subject;

http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/riding-with-a-hernia

I may have someone interested in the Dyfi. Do you have an email to get in touch?

We refused to ride with my father for 4 weeks after his. He'd have been on a bike after 2 if we'd let him.

I had a single done and was back in the gym 2 days later. A week later the doctor told me to keep out of the gym for a month...

[i] Lying in bed at home looking at my gleaming bike wondering when I'm ever gonna be able to get on it again. Doubled up and struggling to walk above 0.5mph. [/i]
Please give this man no sympathy he only polishes his specialneeds bike 98% of the time!
Oh and I,ve sold your Dyfi entry see you in the bar 😆