News Feed Discussions Had my surgery done finally – Shouldice Reply To: Had my surgery done finally – Shouldice

  • Watchful

    Member
    December 9, 2022 at 2:00 pm

    Chuck,

    Would I do it differently? I can’t answer that yet. I really have to wait for further recovery. If I absolutely had to answer that question now, then my answer would be that I would pick a different way of fixing it because of the nature of my particular case. This wasn’t known all that well at the time I made the decision, though.

    If I were in your situation, I would first try to get the best diagnosis, and then decide if and how to do surgery. Maybe go to Dr. Krpata or Dr. Towfigh for diagnosis. Dr. Kang might be good for that too, but if he doesn’t find a hernia, where does that leave you? Maybe others could diagnose what’s causing the pain even in that case.

    I don’t think you really made a mistake with your choice of procedure. Maybe the choice of surgeon – I don’t know. The vast majority do fine with lap mesh and even open mesh as you mentioned.

    Dr. Kang is a reasonable choice if your case is a good fit for his procedure, and it may very well be. Also, he’s a very experienced surgeon. The part I don’t quite see is why you put what he does in a different category than other tissue repairs. His technique for direct hernias is a variation on Shouldice/Bassini as I understand it. Not quite as extensive, but similar in principle. It’s not exempt from recurrence or from pain. Have you read Alan’s account of his recent surgery with him? Very similar to what happened to me at Shouldice in terms of the pain.