how long did you have it before you went in? was it painful before the surgery and 6months holy crap? also did they say what your risk of having one again was
I'm not sure how long I had it. I looked down in the shower one day and noticed a small lump protruding from my abdomen. I pushed on it and it disappeared, then coughed and it poked back out. Before surgery, it wasn't painful at all. After surgery sucked, sore abdomen + pain killers = no bueno, even if you take stool softener.
The surgeon put mesh in my abdominal wall, to minimize the chance of a recurrence. The other method, which I don't know the medical term for, has a much quicker turnaround time, but they don't put the mesh in.
Also, I took about six months off because I wanted to make sure that I was fully healed before I started training again. I probably could have started sooner, but I knew I would go right back to lifting heavy and didn't want to go through that again.