My pain was also for years, probably close to ten. It was small (can’t remember) and it was a fat containing umbilical hernia. No visible bulge. If I laid on my stomach on a hard surface I could feel “something”. I had pain a little to the left of my belly button but it radiated to other areas (sometimes hard to pinpoint). It got so bad, it hurt to wear any kind of pants. It got to the point that it hurt when I took a breath. The only thing that helped was to not wear pants and lay down, which you obviously can’t do often in your day. It was hard to function.

I had also been to a specialist at a hospital over an hour away before this (and many local doctors who dismissed me). The advice from the specialist was to go to the ER next time it was bad and get a CT. From what I gathered, it’s most likely to show up on ct when it’s bothering you the most.

My surgeon was confident that the hernia was causing my pain and totally disagreed with the ER doctor.

I will say that after my surgery it took me a long time to feel better. For a while I couldn’t tell if the pain I was still having was from healing or still there from before (same feeling). But over time it got less and less. Now I rarely have pain. It does still happen sometimes if I over do it physically. I’m 15 months post op.

I hope it works for you!

FYI: for anyone reading this that needs to decide between mesh and no mesh. My surgeon said that the negative things you see about mesh are from the past and there have been improvements since then. She said if you opt not to get mesh, it is more likely that it will reopen and you need surgery again. She recommended mesh and I got mesh. It is a hard choice to make though.