Q: My 69 years old diabetic father was having inguinal hernia in the left side of the abdomen for the last 10 years. Since he was not having any pain he did not get it operated and for the past few years the left scrotum had enlarged to the size of about quarter of a football. He was operated last week through an open surgery. After two days of surgery, the bulge in the scrotum remained the same and he was told that it was due to oedema and would gradually subside in a couple of months. After a couple of days, after he was discharged from hospital, he experienced frequent pain in the left scrotum region and was slightly relieved only after lying down. Also, the left side of the scrotum/abdomen continued to be hard and bulgy. Therefore he was taken to the operation theatre and from a syringe about half a glass of reddish fluid was removed from the left side of the bulging scrotum. He was told that the fluid was due to oedema and had been removed. Even after this procedure, my father reported bulge and pain in the left side of the scrotum. His weight is 63 kg and height is 163 cm. Why is the scrotum still bulged despite the operation? How long will it take to cure? Can it become normal? Please advise.

A:Haematoma or collection of blood in scrotum is not a uncommon happening after surgery such as hernia. This happens as the scrotum has lot of blood vessels and is elastic and is capable of accommodating large amount of blood. Do not worry if his pain has disappeared the haematoma would also get absorbed in due course of time. Mind you it would reduce in size but getting back to the normal size may take months/years. You should keep your father under the care of the surgeon who operated upon him.