What’s this lump in my abdomen?

Symptoms:

You have a lump in the right side of your abdomen which seems to go down into your scrotum, it’s getting bigger and is sometimes painful. You’ve noticed that your abdomen is swollen, when you lie down you can feel a lump which seems to pulse with each heartbeat.

You’re in your late 40s and your periods have been getting heavier and lasting longer, when you lie down you can feel an uneven lump in your lower abdomen.

It could be:

A hernia called an inguinal hernia where the contents of your abdomen are pushing through a weakness in the muscles of your abdominal wall.

An aneurism of the major blood vessel, the aorta, which supplies the lower half of your body and your limbs, where its wall balloons and weakens.

Fibroids, benign tumours of the muscle in the wall of the womb, you can have several and each can be the size of a tangerine.

Stop it:

You should have surgery to repair the abdominal muscles because if a piece of bowel gets trapped in the hernia it could cause an intestinal obstruction. So see your doctor asap.

This is very serious because the aorta may rupture, so see your doctor asap for tests and referral to a vascular surgeon. See your doctor for an abdominal examination and referral to a gynaecologist. There are modern treatments which don’t require removal of your uterus, explore them with your specialist.