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An example of how dangerous overly invasive groin procedures & repairs are.
Hey everyone.
I’ve posted here plenty of times before and I haven’t gotten any better but I’m making this post to visually show how dangerous an overly invasive groin surgery can be with hopes that it helps someone else avoid procedures like this and getting their lives ruined. For reference I was a professional dancer signed to the biggest dance agency in LA before I had Dr. Brown’s sports hernia ”repair” performed on me.
This https://i.ibb.co/MMZNWLZ/Before-Surgery-With-Mesh.jpg was me a few months before my surgery with Dr. Brown. At that point I had a non-adhesive goretex mesh in my right-side external oblique from a previous surgery. As you can see on the picture I had excellent core tissue health despite having groin pain. My main issues were that I couldnt fully flex my lower abs around the mesh which was a mechanical issue that led me to develop a 1 inch overuse tear in my left external oblique. I also still had my original symptoms of chronic pain near the pubic joint that just wouldnt go away. I was in chronic pain but I was still able to push through & perform/function.
When I finally accepted that I couldnt perform at my 100% until I got the issues in my groin figured out, I reached out to Dr. Brown after finding him on these forums. I trusted what his website said – that he worked with professional athletes & that he knew what he was doing. I even drove 13 hours in a single day by myself to go meet him.
This https://i.ibb.co/123DC2J/Image-Sentto-Dr-Brown.jpg is the original picture I sent him to show where my pain was. The two red circles were approximately the most sensitive points of pain, and the green line was showing where the mesh border ended. The rest of my core was fine aside from some tightness here and there.
After chatting with Dr. Brown I decided to take a small break from dance to have surgery to remove the mesh, repair my inguinal floor on the right side that was showing weakness & repair my left external oblique overuse tear. I even declined a contract to perform at the Grammy Awards the weekend before my scheduled surgery. At the time I thought it was a small sacrifice for many years of performances to come once I would be healthy.
I had 2 questions and 1 request before I agreed to surgery.
1. Will your procedure affect my core health, function or appearance. This was very important to me as my entire career depended on this. He answered no.2. Will this procedure affect my sexual function or genitalia in any way. He answered no.
3. Can you please only cut the minimum amount of tissues required. Do not cut into healthy tissues or do an overly invasive surgery I need a normal core to go back to my career & perform.
He laughed & said don’t worry I won’t hurt you.He told me that it would take me up to 3 months to be able to perform at a high level again which seemed reasonable to me.
15 months later this https://i.ibb.co/CKbhxB1/After-Surgery.jpg is what I look like now and how I’ve looked since the surgery was performed on me.
Since his procedure;
– My entire core has collapsed.
– I don’t have an external right-side oblique. its completely weak/limp all the way to the ribcage.
– My latissimus dorsi muscle on that side completely released & has been weak/limp since as well because the external oblique is so impaired.
– The right side of my rectus has collapsed/cant flex/holds no strength
– My linea alba is bulging at the sternum when I try to flex.
– Theres a gap under my ribcage on the right
– There is permanent weakness in my core tissues all the way to the ribcage causing breathing discomfort, ribs shifting, loose intercostal muscles, ribcage rotation/misalignment
– Both my testicles feel & look like theyre about to fall off. At first I thought this was just a temporary side-effect of surgery but it turns out its permanent weakness because of his procedure.
– There is zero strength/elasticity in my groin
– I have severe ejaculatory weakness due to the above mentioned weaknesses
– Inguinal ligament and groin on both sides completely useless & weak
^ this is causing hip misalignment, gait problems, hip problems, knee problems.
– Constant belly/core bulging
– Erectile problemsAll of those issues on top of my physique being permanently aesthetically altered & dysfunctional. And all of that took a measly 1.5 hours. Thats it. Thats how short it took for this man to inflict this much damage to me.
I lost my career, my friends, my sex life, any type of comfort. I can’t go for a walk comfortably, can’t go for a run, cant do any sports, can’t workout, have no muscle activation. All that for an overuse injury ”repair”
Every specialist I’ve seen since looks at me with pity. I’m being told that what was performed on me was overly invasive & damaging. That he couldve just removed the mesh on the surface since it hadn’t adhered to any tissue and it just slid right out, repaired the floor & closed up the oblique without all the reconfiguration. Physios cannot do anything since the muscles don’t work anymore the way they’ve been separated & sutured on top of each other. My entire body is falling apart because of how dysfunctional my core is now. I’m being told that I was harmed by a doctor. That its tragic because I’m so young & was a professional dancer/athlete working with some of the biggest names & projects.
On top of that – I STILL HAVE MY ORIGINAL INJURY that both Dr. Brown & my first surgeon missed which was an overuse tear of the rectus abdominus at the pubic joint. And I knew it was a possibility that that would be the main issue, but I never thought Dr. Brown’s procedure would destroy me to the point where I can’t even address that anymore because of the permanent damage & severe core weakness/dysfunction I have since Dr. Brown’s procedure.
How can a patient walk out of a procedure 100x worse than when he walked in and be left with 15+ permanent issues/weaknesses?
I was never told that he would cut into my spermatic cord tissues on both sides.
I was never told that he would debride & free my inguinal ligament
I was never told that he would create flaps of my external oblique & then not close it back together but superpose the flaps ontop of each other & create an additional attachment to my inguinal ligament.Dr. Brown tried to blame my outcome on the fact that I had a non-adhesive goretex mesh in my right external oblique. Sadly for him, he performed the exact same procedure on my left groin (that had never had a previous procedure and had flawless core health/function – just some chronic pain from a small tear) and I have most of the same severe issues & weaknesses on that side as well. It’s not the fact that I Had a mesh. It’s his procedure. And even if he thought that I would end like this because I Had a mesh, then he should’ve not performed the procedure. He should’ve told me that it wasn’t safe for me. Every doctor I’ve consulted since agrees on this.
I cannot begin to tell you all how taxing this has been on me & my entire family. They’ve seen me work towards my dreams for 12 years and then lose it all in 1.5 hours. I can barely function day to day all I’m trying to do is survive. I have issues & discomfort every living second no matter what I do. I can’t even go play with my little nephew to the park for 45 minutes comfortably.
If you have groin issues – please make sure you get several opinions. Please make sure you get EVERY SINGLE STEP explained to you ahead of the procedure, show them to a different surgeon, a physio to see if they even make sense and have them put them down in writing. I would pay any amount of money to go back to the pain I had before Dr. Brown’s procedure because even though I had pain, I still had hope. I had a normal body. Now the hope is unfortunately gone.
There is no reason why my life was completely ruined like this and from the bottom of my heart I hope that I’m the last person that this happens to and that this helps someone else before they end like me.
These procedures are not safe, they are extremely damaging & dangerous and will leave you with permanent issues for the remainder of your life.
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6 Replies
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@andrew1982 thanks! Has she been following up your case, or you are with another doctor now?
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In London with muschaweck.
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@andrew1982 If I may ask, where did you get the surgery? In Germany? Under Muschaweck herself or with another doctor? In case ping me privately if there is a privacy issue with my questions…
I ask as at one point I also considered that procedure…
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Hi Peter. I’ve got about 90% the exact same problems as you after my Muschaweck surgery. No strength at all on right side after GFN resection. I’m the same person that has posted in the Facebook group. It will be 2 years on Monday that my life was ruined and my daughters turned upside down. I’ve seen everyone but no one can even diagnose let alone suggest a fix. I wish you all the best.
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I feel your grief and wish this never happened. I also appreciate Igor’s response, for he summed it well fairly and with kind regard. You should know though that though you wrote considerately, it is still quite technical. Simply to understand better I hope you don’t me asking for clarification. You stated,
>>That he couldve just removed the mesh on the surface since it hadn’t >>adhered to any tissue and it just slid right out, repaired the >>floor; closed up the oblique without all the reconfiguration.
How can these other specialists say so? Mesh repairs have been variously pointed out here at HT are fraught with difficulty; they can get enmeshed with surrounding tissue and other internal constituents. Are they only going by your external bodily before and after photos? (I am not deminishing them; only that I cannot see how anyone by just these photos could say the mesh could just simply be slid out.
Another point inviting clarification is this:
Sadly for him, he performed the exact same procedure on my left groin (that had never had a previous procedure and had flawless core health/function – just some chronic pain from a small tear).I can only deduce that you are saying that the surgeon performed a “mesh repair” on the left side as well—-yet there was no mesh to remove. Besides it being of course immense medical error, how is it that specialists can say the identical procedure was performed on the left side? The surgeon removed imaginary mesh and then “repaired” the tissue damaged in the “repair”? How can such be ascertained by those whom you consulted with?
My best to you that you find relief.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 3 months ago by pinto.
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This reply was modified 3 years, 3 months ago by
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Peter,
Have you talked to Dr Meyers in Philadelphia yet? I spoke to those people by telephone and they seem very knowledgable. They seem to appreciate the complexity of the core muscles and what it takes to repair them.
Perhaps it’s time to get an attorney.
These doctors don’t really know what they’re going to find when they open you up. It may be unreasonable for them to tell you what they’re going to do before the surgery. To a degree we put our trust in them. I can see how you would have chosen Dr Brown. He has been given many accolades on this website. On the other hand, most of those were straightforward repairs.
Igor
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