Exercising Post-Takedown

I never have, and have never had an issue.

I'm 12 years out but I never used anything to prevent hernias. The first year I mostly did aerobic exercise which wouldn't have caused a problem anyway.

Sue

It all depends on you, your age, your body and what exercises or activities you do...Walking or jogging probably don't require it but anything that involves pushing or pulling, lifting or twisting might. The thing is that no one gets henias until they do. I had dozens of surgeries (litterally) and was extremely active, lifted weights, climbed flights of stairs with groceries (7 floor walk-up with no elevator at the time), exercised, moved furniture etc in my teens to 40's and nothing....then I had the new round of surgeries and out of nowhere..boom! Stairmaster 6 weeks post op: hernia (biggie), gardening 2 months post-op, another...ended up with 6 in all over 5 years and none of them were any fun to have or fix...so now I an a bit more careful (kindof), do less lifting or pulling out weeds and always where a belt when gardening or working out...
Sharon

Interesting... quite varied views. I guess it really just depends on the person and the exercise. I'll stick to aerobic stuff for now until at least week 6, I'm more of a runner anyway.

Just wanted to say I jogged both yesterday and today with no problems! I'm probably going to avoid weight training for awhile.

It may be worthwhile to take a flexible view of what constitutes weight training. Lighter weights (even substantially lighter weights) lower the risk considerably, and can be quite effective with different approaches (e.g. many reps, super-slow technique, etc.).

Hmm... I'm pretty small (4'10", 120 lbs). Maybe 3 lb weights, very slow? I do want to build my strength back up! Just nervous, but doing a lot better after the 2nd surgery!