Wait … can you get a hernia from wearing tight pants? | Well actually

OOn July 14, actor and singer Suki Waterhouse shared a tweet explaining his recent absence of X: “Suki, you never tweet again ‘Have you ever considered that I wore pants so tight 6 months ago that it caused hernia and I was too afraid to tell you.”

She followed with two photos: one shows her by wearing what is probably the criminal pants, and the other watch it in a hospital bed, connected to an IV. (There is also a vape resting on her hospital dress. It is not relevant for this story, just a fun detail.)

Like many rich texts, the position raises many questions. Like: can I remove leather pants? Did they leave the celebrities vaping in the hospital? And above all: can tight pants really cause hernia?

We asked the experts.

What is a hernia?

A hernia is a hole in the abdominal wall, explains Dr. Yewande Alimi, a bariatric surgeon and little invasive at the Medstar Georgetown University Hospital. The hole leads to a “projection of the fabrics of the abdomen,” she said. “Generally fatty, or sometimes the intestine.”

These resemble small bulges and often appear in areas where the abdominal wall tends to be lower: around the groin, the midline before the abdomen, through the diaphragm, in the navel or by a previous surgical incision.

The hernias are “very, very common,” explains Dr. Marcoandrea Giorgi, an associate professor of surgery at Brown University and bariatric surgeon at Brown Surgical Associates.

Symptoms vary. Some hernias are visible – bulging around your trunk “where you should not have it”, as the Cleveland Clinic says. They can appear during certain intense activities, such as exercise or sneezing, then retract at other times. They can be painful – acute pain or dull pain – or they may not feel anything at all. Other hernias are too deep to see from the outside, but you can feel pain or pressure.

The inguinal hernias, those that appear around the groin, are the most common – about 25% of men and 2% of women will develop them at some point in their lives, according to the National Library of Medicine in the United States. Giorgi believes that he personally treats around 100 inguinal hernias per year.

Hernies that only contain fat are often not very dangerous, explains Alimi. But “when the hernias contain intestines and are associated with pain, there is a good chance that these intestines can get stuck, which leads to a need for an emergency operation,” she said.

What causes a hernia?

Hernies can be present from birth – umbilical or navel hernia, for example – or they can develop over time following wear on the abdominal wall. Incisial hernias, those that appear by an old surgical incision, occur in around 15% of patients after surgery. Weight gain, pregnancy, intense exercise and cough or chronic constipation can all weaken the abdominal wall and lead to potential hernias, explains Alimi.

Children born prematurely or who have connective tissue disorders, cystic fibrosis, hip dysplasia or problems in their urinary or reproductive systems are more likely to be born with congenital hernias, according to the Cleveland Clinic.

Can you get a tight pants hernia?

“Absolutely not,” said Dr. Charlotte Horne, reconstructive surgeon of the metabolic and abdominal wall at Mayo Clinic. The tight clothes “could exert pressure on something that was already there, but the outer layer will not lead to the rupture of the layers of your abdominal wall”.

Giorgi says he has never heard of a hernia linked to tight pants. The only way that could be possible, he says, is that the pants were so tight that they exerted significant pressure on the upper abdomen. “It is as if you had a ball with water in it – if you are tightening a part of the ball, the other part will be more pressure,” he said. But even then, the ball will only jump if the plastic is already too thin, he says. In other words, wearing tight pants would only cause an existing hernia, to exert pressure on it and possibly lead to bulge, but that would not create a new one.

How do you treat hernias?

“Often people suffer from hernia disease for years before asking for an intervention,” said Horne.

If a hernia is neither painful nor particularly embarrassing, it is something with which we can potentially live. But most hernias never disappear, and experts recommend consulting a doctor to find the best action plan.

“Some patients I advise to wear a binder to prevent the hernia that comes out all the time,” explains Giorgi.

For painful or risk hernias causing intestinal blockages, surgery is the usual driving line.

“The aim of hernia surgery is to restore the integrity of the abdominal wall, which means to close the hole,” explains Horne. This is done by sleeping the hole up or repairing it closed using mesh prostheses. The complexity of the procedure depends on the severity of the hernia.

“Some of them can be carried out as an ambulatory procedure, but some require a stay in hospitalization,” explains Horne.

Although you cannot prevent congenital defects or surgical incision complications that may make you more likely to develop hernia, you can reduce pressure on your abdominal wall by maintaining healthy weight, eating fiber -rich foods and paying attention when you lift heavy objects.

Horne says she also recommends that people who do a lot of support and compression clothes to “keep things”.

So don’t throw away all your tight pants – unless you want to look like Gen Z.