Reply To: Non Mesh Repair Questions

[drkang]

In Korea, everything is fast, so I am also accustomed to it. (joking!)

It is somewhat difficult also for me to give you correct answers to all of your questions, because I don’t have perfect knowledge or experience.
So I am afraid that there could be some incorrect answer.

1) As far as I know, the wound strength reaches maximal point in 6 weeks after operation, which is about 80% of preinjury level.
So I usually recommend my patient to return to full nornal activity including exercise in 3 weeks after repair, as our musle has surplus strength to ordinary activity.
You can find some reference at the following address. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4174176/

2) I am afraid that I have no idea about US hernia surgeons.

3) I do two different type of operation respectively, according to the type of inguinal hernia – indirect or direct.
For indirect inguinal hernia, I just close the hernia opening. It is somewhat similar to Marcy operation.
And for direct hernia, my technique is a bit similar to Shouldice in one aspect, and to Desarda in another aspect, but as a whole, it is done with much smaller incision and much stronger than those two operations, I think.

4) For femoral hernia, I just close the hernia opening with continuous nonabsorbable suture as I told you before, which is very simple procedure.

5) I think any suture material is OK for inguinal hernia. It depends on surgeon’s preference. But for femoral or umbilical or epigastric hernia, of which hernia opening is very tight and dense, non-absorbable suture material must be used.

6) I don’t think the symptoms you have now are not related to femoral hernia. The symptoms of femoral hernia are buldging(which is like cystic ball) and sometimes pain. I don’t know of any other symptoms besides.

7) Sorry, I don’t know about stem cell therapy or tissue regeneration. But I think that kind of treatment is not necessary, as tissue repair can show excellent result if it is done properly.

8) As I told you at previous answer, I don’t think there is anything to help you in the matter of femoral hernia thing. But one good news is that femoral hernia seldom occur in men. Actually so far I had just one male femoral hernia patient who is US citizen. It is just one out of more than 10,000 hernia repairs. And another good news is, as I told you, non mesh femoral hernia repair is very simple and secure.
Don’t worry too much about femoral hernia occurence.

Thank you!