The medical name for “small intestine gas” is “hernia”. Hernia is a common disease that can occur in both men and women, young and old, weak and healthy, and it is conservatively estimated that 2 to 3 million new hernia patients occur in China every year. There is no possibility of self-healing in adult hernia, so surgery is the only way to cure hernia therapeutically, but when contacting patients and families, we still found that there are many misconceptions, so it is necessary to correct them. Myth 1: Small intestinal gas is a minor disease, and it does not matter if it is treated early or late or even not treated. Why? Just look at the results and complications of hernia development. First, a hernia will only get bigger and bigger and cannot stay the same or shrink forever. The result of a big one not only affects life, but also the treatment. As the saying goes, “If you don’t patch a small hole, you will suffer from a big hole”, a hernia is like a hole in your clothes. We have come across many patients who, because of fear of surgery, did not come to surgery until their inguinal hernia was as big as a ball in the scrotum and seriously affected their lives, which turned an uncomplicated situation into a difficult and risky surgery. Second, there is also the possibility of acute complications if the hernia is not treated in time. Due to a certain cough, screen stool and other reasons of exertion that make too much intestinal segment protrude back into the abdominal cavity, resulting in acute intestinal obstruction, causing severe pain, which if not treated in time can eventually cause intestinal necrosis, perforation and even death from peritonitis. Therefore, small intestinal gas can never be said to be a minor disease, it is placed on the patient may explode at any time “mine”. Myth 2: You can cure small intestine gas without surgery You can often see some small advertisements about treatment of hernia without surgery, such as hernia support, umbilical paste, Chinese medicine, injection, etc. These means can really cure small intestine gas. Can these means really cure small intestine gas? Of course, the answer is no. To say that it can be cured without surgery is to take advantage of people’s fear of surgery. Patients who have worn a hernia belt know that it is uncomfortable to press on the body and the local tissues become thinner after a long time, and eventually the hernia will come out from the side. There are also individual patients who wear unreasonable hernia straps that cause direct pressure on the intestinal canal causing intestinal adhesions and adding a lot of trouble to the surgery. Umbilical patch and Chinese medicine may slow down the development of the hernia to some extent, but they cannot block the defect at the root. The most frightening thing is the injection of sclerosing agent, which cannot plug the hole, but also has great harm. Sclerosing agent on the intestinal canal can lead to intestinal necrosis and perforation, and damage to the spermatic cord can cause testicular atrophy and affect fertility, and there are reports of serious complications due to sclerosing agent treatment every year nationwide. Therefore, the Hernia and Abdominal Wall Surgery Group of the Chinese Society of Surgery specifically points out that sclerotherapy should be prohibited and that the fundamental method of hernia treatment is surgery. Myth 3: Older patients are not suitable for surgery Older people are a high incidence group of hernia, and the older they are, the higher the incidence. The older the patient is, the greater the risk of surgery and the more fearful they are of surgery, which is common. However, most hernia surgeries, especially the most common inguinal hernia surgery, is a minor surgery in the surgical field, and most of them can be tolerated as long as there are no serious systemic diseases, and we have operated on some patients in their 90s. Therefore, it is crucial for the elderly to have a good pre-operative evaluation and pre- and post-operative management. Nowadays, people are living longer and want to have a better quality of life. Keeping a hernia on the body and avoiding surgery definitely affects the quality of life. At present, surgical techniques and medical materials have developed rapidly, and the hernia repair surgery we perform is a tension-free repair surgery with a patch, just like a “patch” for our clothes. The efficacy is also very certain, with a recurrence rate of less than 1%, which is one tenth of that of tension surgery in the past, and a very low complication rate. Therefore, we should abandon the above misconceptions and have confidence in the surgical treatment of hernia, so that small bowel gas will no longer be a burden to your life.