News Feed Discussions Nine years of mesh removal – laparoscopic versus robotic Reply To: Nine years of mesh removal – laparoscopic versus robotic

  • ajm222

    Member
    March 12, 2023 at 8:48 am

    It’s definitely interesting that all surgeons I’ve spoken to, when asked about the risks of mesh and what they’ve seen, will say that either it’s under 1% and almost negligible, or they will tell you routinely they’ve NEVER seen a mesh complication or chronic pain in their 20 years of experience or whatever. Which is patently absurd. Meanwhile, I spoke to about 6 close friends that had hernia repairs over the years, and 50% have had issues of one kind or another – either chronic pain, a repeat surgery to fix a problem that was a nightmare, or ongoing issues of a more minor nature. I’ve also spoke to others who, when I tell them my problems, say ‘oh, yeah, my boyfriend had hernia surgery and it’s been an ongoing nightmare’ – or my own PCP who had a patient that developed chronic pain after repair and it never got better.

    It’s my belief that people get these repairs, have problems, go back to their surgeon who then dismisses them 2-3 times or more by saying give it time or there’s really nothing you can do, before the patient realizes they’ve hit a roadblock and then they go elsewhere for help. Then the surgeon dismisses all the follow-ups and decides that because the person finally stopped coming, they healed or their problems were minor enough to disregard. They then tell future patients they’ve never seen any issues. Meanwhile, the tracking of the outcomes is admittedly bad. It’s mostly just a black hole.

    I really think the problems are much more widespread. Maybe it’s ‘only’ 10-15%. But it’s certainly not 1% from what I’ve seen. It’s anecdata as I have not competed any true medical studies, but I’ve been speaking to lots of people for years now. And as has been said many times, if it’s only 10%, that’s close to 100k people per year just in this country. Year after year after year.

    • This reply was modified 1 year ago by  ajm222.