Stomach Muscles

you have scar tissue under the incision site. i do also. i used to have a 23" waist. when i turned sideways, there was no bump or anything. it sucks! i had to c-sections, both a "little higher" than the dr. liked (he said this on my second c-section.)no amount of sit-ups, cardio or strength training have helped me. it's gone down some, but i think this is more due to the weight loss. but my stomach is still got the pooch and is also asymmetrical. if i feel on my stomach, i can feel the scar tissue. :(. the only other thing that i can think of is that sometimes when a person has stomach surgery those muscles separate and then sit-ups and crunches actually have a reverse effect. i don't remember what it's called, but if you lie on your back and lift up like you are doing a mini crunch and the stomach muscles above your belly button aren't close together than that's what it is. in which case, crunches have a reverse effect. good luck.

I sounds like trauma to the region....that was a BIG hernia...get a second opinion..

A friend of mine just gave birth to her 5th baby a couple of days ago, and we were just talking about stomach muscles. Her doctor had told her recently that because of the trauma to her stomach muscles, and specifically the transverse abs, she would probably have to see a physical therapist to correct the issue. He told her that regular exercises would not help and may actually exacerbate the problem. Not sure if this info is helpful to you, but I hope it is! Good luck to you.

I don't think stitching is going to make that difference.

What I do know is trauma around muscles effects those muscles. When I had my ACL reconstructed last month the muscles around it simply didn't respond the way the used to. There was no damage to those muscles they just weren't responding because of the surgery.

My therapy has been targeting those muscles to bring them back to normal. Taking that to you surgery perhaps there are specific things you can do to target the correct muscles. Sit ups or crunches are pretty limiting in target muscle groups.

The more children you have, the more likely your stomach muscles will have issues. My first I recovered from just fine. Got my waist back. She was only 7 lbs. Then baby #2 was huge (10 lbs 11 oz) and that really did a number on my belly muscles. I'm prego with #5 and am in good shape otherwise. I weigh around 117 lbs when not prego. But my belly has a perma pooch. I hate it! I don't always want to look three months prego. I have pretty bad muscle separation from a couple big babies. This baby appears big too.

Anyway, there's a book called "Lose Your Mummy Tummy" by Tupler. She has special exercises that get the belly muscles back in place. If you have a large finger spacing between your belly muscles (like I do) it might require surgery to fix it but no matter what it'll at least improve it.

I notice a few of you mention sit-ups, those actually make the mummy tummy worse! That would explain why they never helped. Crunches make it worse too. I just recently got the book and am almost 26 weeks prego, so I can't speak from experience but my friend has had great results. I highly recommend the book for any stomach muscle issues.

As for the lumps, not sure. Like someone else said, maybe scar tissue? For weird stuff like that, plastic surgery is always an option to repair issues.

If anything I wrote seems weird, I'm typing on my phone and can't reread it all. So hopefully it all came across right without my phone changing words and me not noticing! I highly recommend the book, though. It is great for post pregnancy. And on amazon there are reviews you can read.