Reply To: Watchful….did you consider this repair?

[Watchful]

Chuck,

I considered it briefly, but didn’t do much research on it because I didn’t have a surgeon who would do this. Reinhorn wasn’t taking patients from outside New England at the time. He probably still doesn’t.

I remember reading somewhere that this surgery has its own set of non-trivial risks and potential complications, but I didn’t go deep into it.

One of the things I didn’t realize while researching was that in the rare cases (2% or so) where they do mesh for inguinal hernias at Shouldice, their preferred technique is posterior mesh (like Kugel), not anterior (like Lichtenstein). I learned that only when I was there.