Hospital Stay

The Hernia Clinic aims to make your stay for surgery as comfortable and stress free as possible.
Prior to your day of surgery we will have organised a short questionnaire for you to complete, detailing your medical history, medication, any allergies, etc. This can often be done over the phone. We shall ensure that all your concerns are addressed before your surgery.

Your Operation Day

You will be seen by the anaesthetist just before your surgery who will discuss any last minute concerns or questions. The surgeon will arrange consent for your procedure and mark the planned side for your operation.

There are 3 choices of anaesthetic for patients undergoing inguinal hernia repair:

Local Anaesthesia

After cooling the area (which reduces the pain from the injections), the area being operated on is ‘frozen’ with local anaesthetic. After 5 minutes or so, the area goes numb following which the operation can start. If you are very anxious, very short acting sedative drugs can also be used to allay anxiety and make the procedure more comfortable and less memorable for you!

Spinal Anaesthesia

A tiny injection into the back is followed by profound loss of sensation to the lower extremities, which lasts 2-4 hours. Sensation returns fully after this time. Sedative drugs can also be used with the spinal anaesthetic.

General Anaesthesia

Short acting drugs are used to put you to sleep and a long acting local anaesthetic injection is administered to provide post-operative pain relief. The procedure takes 30-45minutes and you will be groggy for 30 minutes or so after the operation. You should be able to go home about 3 hours after ‘coming round’ from the anaesthetic.

Whatever sort of anaesthetic you are having, you need to have 6 clear hours without food immediately before the operation. This includes chewing gum, and all drinks with the exception of water which can be drunk up to 2 hours before the operation.

Take all your normal medications on the day of the operation, except for diabetic patients who should not take their insulin or diabetic tablets on the morning of surgery. You will normally be scheduled first on the list if you are diabetic. If you take the oral contraceptive pill or certain drugs which thin the blood you may have already been told to stop taking these by your surgeon preoperatively.