Because hernias can reoccur, Dr. Michael Campbell, general surgeon at TriStar Greenview Regional Hospital, shares how to take care of your body after hernia surgery: Once treated, can your hernia come back? What, if anything, can be done to avoid the hernia from coming back? The most important things I recommend to my patients are: Try to get to an ideal body weight and lead an active lifestyle. Quit smoking. If you have a hernia, and you have a job or participate in activities that have repetitive lifting over and over again, you need to rest. The best hernia repairs cannot last a lifetime if someone continues to lift 50 pound objects over and over. I frequently have discussions with my patients about modifying their lives to help this repair last forever. Can you prevent a hernia in the first place? No. I can see ten patients - all doing the same job - and one of them has a hernia while nine of them do not. Some people have stronger muscles than others. If youre doing physical activity and you experience pain near your abdomen or groin region, youre probably straining yourself too much. Reduce movements that cause pain to prevent any type of hernia from occurring.