The symptoms of a hernia may vary considerably. Some hernias produce no symptoms at all and are only discovered by a doctor during a routine examination.

Symptoms:

• Inguinal hernia may be noticed by the patient as a bulge that tends to get larger when he strains or coughs, and then tends to disappear when he lies down and relaxes.
• Internal hernias that occur within the abdominal cavity do not cause external bulges but may cause pain.
• Diaphragmatic hernias may cause discomfort, indigestion, heartburn, nausea, and vomiting.
• Symptoms of reducible hernia is lump in the groin or other abdominal wall area, the lump may ache but is not tender when touched. Lump increases in size when standing or when abdominal pressure is increased (as such in coughing).
• Symptoms of irreducible hernia is a painful enlargement of a previously reducible hernia, bowel obstruction, nausea and vomiting.
• In strangulated hernia, pain is always present followed quickly by tenderness and sometimes symptoms of bowel obstruction (nausea and vomiting).

Treatments:

• Reduceable hernia. Some hernias are reduceable, which means it will reduce spontaneously when a light pressure is applied to them.When a hernia is easily reduceable, it may be treated with the external support of a truss (a pad or tightly stretched material worn over a hernia to prevent it from enlarging and to provide support), but a truss does not cure the hernia, and eventually the hernia will gradually enlarge. That is why, most doctors advise surgery for reduceable hernias, and the use of a truss is generally reserved for elderly people and others in which surgery is risky or inadvisable.
• Irreduceable hernia. When a herniated tissue gets caught in the opening through which it protrudes, and it cannot slide back into place, it is called irreduceable or incarcerated hernia. An incarcerated hernia needs immediate medical attention. If the hernia is not treated right away, the blood supply to the protruding tissue may become interrupted, producing a strangulated hernia. If the hernia is strangulated, the surgical emergency is more acute because if a loop of the small intestine becomes gangrenous (death and decay of body tissue) it may tear, spilling its contents into the hernial sac and spreading the bacteria into the abdominal cavity.

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