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Two other ways of looking at the mesh VS non mesh dilemma.
1) it’s not only about whether something will go wrong if you get implanted with mesh but that if it does your really screwed. You have a permanent device intertwined in your body that isn’t meant to come out. You will face a medical community that will pass you off as you try to figure out what is causing you your pain. And eventually you may be faced with having to roll the dice on getting the mesh removed. So it’s much more than what’s the odds of something going wrong. To me it’s more the magnitude associated with something going wrong and not just the odds. I know people who have had mesh and are doing fine and have done fine for many years.to me that’s not the point.
2) i really believe the modern day surgeon has it all wrong when they quote statistics or reference pure tissue repairs-they always quote low recurrence as the primary benefit of going with mesh. But if you google the shouldice hospital in Toronto you will see that their method has a less than 1% recurrence rate which blows away the 3% quoted recurrence rates with mesh. Their chronic pain results are also less than 1%. This not only blows away mesh but destroys it in terms of chronic pain which can be as high as 15-30% with mesh.
so what’s the takeaway, what’s the read between the lines: pure tissue repair is superior to mesh repair in the hands of surgeons who specialize in pure tissue repairs. And there lies the rub-there are very few who do this specialty in the US. They are not trained anymore on how to do them and they certainly don’t practice it often.
I also think most surgeons who use mesh and will do a pure tissue repair white the higher recurrence rate Bc they aren’t confident enough that they can do a good job tissue repair.
Again the stats from the shouldice hospital closes the debate on mesh VS mom mesh. And anyone who quotes mesh as better really means mesh is better then getting a pure tissue repair from someone not qualified.
personally if I could do it all over again I’d probably travel to the shouldice hospital and have my repair done there. Why play with fire. I did and I got burned.
if you choose either method make sure whoever you pick is the best at doing either procedure.