Hi all,

I just found this forum, and I see that many good people put an effort into helping out others.

Hence, I was hoping that one of you knowledgeable people on hernias would be kind enough to answer a great worry of mine.

I am a 31yo male, and about three months ago I had a pretty large lymph node show up just above my penis. After having read about general lymph node conditions (I had a throat pain start at the exact same time, and sadly a brother of mine died of cancer) I was somewhat scared of the consequences in finding this lymph node.

I went to speak to my doctor, who told me not to worry too much. He gave me antibiotics, and in a couple of days the lymph node went away. However, the strange feeling of soreness further up my groin persisted. And after yet two more doctor visits, they finally diagnosed me with inguinal hernia. My doctor even said that the 'node' I had was in fact not a lymph node, but my gut falling out of the hernia.

I got the operation done, had two meshes put in, and took some time recover. The right side of my operations wound was swollen and very sore for some time, but after a good month or so, even this inflamation started subsiding.
Today, 6 weeks down the line, I feel the line beneath the wound where I was sewed, and do feel a bit of an uncomfortable feeling in this area still - but overall my post op phase has now slowly improved and diminished the pain and discomfort I had.

Now, as luck would have it, just as I was starting to recover from the ordeal, I started feeling a similar irritation on the side of my groin. And when I went to speak to a new inexperienced doctor and got her verdict of 'yet another hernia', I couldn't believe my bad luck. However, I had an ecogram done (is that what they are called?) but the radiologist found no hernia in the area. Instead, he said that I had 'a great presence of swollen lymph nodes in the inguinal area'. When I got home, I discovered how correct he was. I found no less than 8 lymph nodes of different sizes. Some of them are even slightly above the waistline. No major ones , though, and all of them feel moveable and non-firm.

And so, all my old fears of lymphoma/cancer flared up again considering my throat still hurts from time to time, the fact that I had tested negative on all STDs, and because some of my blood test results had turned out to be inconclusive in terms of cancer danger - meaning that the values were a bit too high, but the doctors explained that as a symptom of the infection I was going through (an infection they never proved medically)

Why am I not at the cancer site then, you may ask.
The thing is that I wanted to know if the prolonged swelling, pain and discomfort in connection with my hernia operations wound in my left groin side could be responsible for the current inflamation of several lymph nodes in both sides of my groin? Is this common?


Seeing as I now know how to recognize a lymph node, I am pretty certain the first pre-op node I had was really a swollen lymph node, and not just my gut falling out, as my doctor claimed. And the recurrence of inguinal lymph nodes really freightens me.
Last time I had an inguinal lymph node - before my hernia operation - it went away after a few days of taking antibiotics. This time around, however, four days of antibiotics have done nothing to diminish their size. Is this something to worry about?

Moreover, I would like to know if there is any known connection in some way between inguinal lymph nodes and inguinal hernias, either before or after an operation?

These are my worst fears playing tricks on me, and needless to say I am not in a good mental state, hence, I would be very grateful to anyone with the knowledge to shed some more light on my doubts.

All the best to all of you out there...

Andrés