What are the primary symptoms of a hernia?

Bulge: The cardinal sign of a hernia is a bulge in the soft tissue, usually in the groin or around the belly button or along an incision. It may or may not be painful. Sometimes the bulge can be intermittent (called reducible). The concern is that the hernia contents can get stuck and may require an emergency operation, so we generally like to fix them electively before that happens.

Swelling: Hernias occur when there is a weakness in the abdominal wall, there is swelling or a lump in the area, and there may be dull achy pain or heaviness. The lump usually goes away if you were to lie down. Hernias can turn serious, and that would result in severe generalized abdominal pain, distention of the abdomen, exquisite pain over the hernia and cause with vomiting.