Originally posted by Ripsnort
When in the hell did the term "Sports" Hernia come up? We used to call those "pulled groin muscle" or just plain Hernia. Does "Sports Hernia" just have a nice ring to it?
Yeah, it's a stupid term, a misnomer actually. The medical term for it is Athletic Pubalgia, and it is quite different from a normal hernia. I've been sidelined the whole year by one, had to have two surgeries on it to get it right (2nd one by the same guy who fixed McNabb).
What happens is the muscle and tendon in your groin tear apart from the pubic bone through twisting and torque on that part of the body. It's called a sports "hernia" because when you move a gap is created between the muscle and tendon. When you aren't moving everything is together though. The bad thing is it never really heals, and even if you rest it for a month or so, when you start playing again everything just comes apart again. The only way to fix it is to reattach the muscle and tendon to the bone and also graft additional muscle into the area for support. Scar tissue then builds up and acts as an anchor to hold it all together. 10-12 week recovery really, and the surgury hurts like hell lol.