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Dr. Towfigh makes a very firm statement that “If you have mesh removal after a hernia repair with mesh, you will have a hernia recurrence. Scar tissue alone is not strong enough to keep the hernia from recurring (except in some cases related to mesh removal due to infection).”
But, as far as I’ve seen, there is no evidence supporting that statement. Just like there is no registry for mesh repairs, there is no registry or followup for mesh removal. If the statement is true then there should be as many “repair after removal” stories as there are removal stories. There might be anecdotes among friendly surgeons, but there are no studies focused on the probability of hernia recurrence after mesh removal.
Sorry Dr. Towfigh. If you have evidence please present it. It should even be presented professionally, at a SAGES or AHS conference. If what you say is true then every surgeon who removes mesh should be firmly stating to their patients that they “will have a recurrence”, so that they can plan for the future repair. Dr. Belyansky has not done this in ajm22’s case.
Besides that, what would the repair be? More mesh? If that is the only possibility then the patient has to relive the possible horror of chronic mesh pain. If the recommended repair after mesh removal is a pure tissue repair then that begs the question of why not pure tissue in the first place.
Whenever a person takes a deep dive in to what’s going on in the hernia repair field the question of “why are we using so much mesh?” keeps forming. Mesh removal is mainstream now and the lawsuits keep growing. It must feel like you’re living in an insane world.