Excruciating pain 48 hours post-op

[DrBrown]

Dear Kevin b
I am glad that you are on the road to recovery. I am especially glad that your nerve pain is better. That can be very difficult to treat.
Regards.
Bill Brown MD

[Good intentions]

Good luck kevin b. Sorry for the distraction with my long posts.

Your description doesn’t read like a run-of-the-mill “sports hernia”, it looks more like an abdominal muscle tear, with an incidental hernia. I’m not a doctor though.

Still, and always, a good idea to get a copy of your medical records. The surgery report is probably interesting reading.

[kevin b]

Hi everyone.

thanks so much for your comments and for asking how I was doing. Sorry I haven’t posted. A lot happened after my original post.

– I developed a deep vein blood clot in my left leg and was admitted to the hospital (2 days post op)
– I couldn’t urinate and they finally put in a catheter (3 days post op). They drained 1600ml of urine out my bladder once the catheter was in, which was the record for all my nurses. Yeesh that was painful.
– The nerve pain I described previously continued through the week, to the point that I couldn’t even move or get out of bed. At it’s worst early Sunday morning (5 days post-op) the nurses were in the the room just trying to give me pain meds and make me comfortable and my wife was just praying for me because the nerve pain kept firing even when I laid still in bed in the middle of the night.
– FINALLY… late morning Sunday, right before the pain management team at the hospital was about to take me for a nerve block (consulted with at the hospital at the request of my surgeon)… miraculously, the crazy nerve pain stopped. I was able to (very very slowly) start walking! I’m not sure how much of the improvement was due to the meds – but the mixture of meds I was on when the improvement came (and I’m still on it since) is Tramadol, Robaxin, Lyrica, and Tylenol. Plus eliquis for the blood clot.

SOOO… Here we are now, 9 days post-op, I’m back home from a 4 night hospital stay, taking lots of meds and still with a catheter, but things are improving each day. I’m walking with less pain (still a decent amount from the inguinal hernia surgery and muscles that were repaired). But I expected a decently long recovery from all that. So that’s ok. Catheter should come out tomorrow, if all goes well. And 2 wk post-op follow-up with my surgeon is on Monday.

Sorry for the very long story. It’ has been a very dramatic week. I’m so thankful that the nerve pain went away. I’m so grateful that I ended up one of the greatest hospitals in the HUGE Houston, TX med center. I was thankful to be near such a great hospital system. This is where my surgeon operates.

THANKS EVERYONE here! Thanks especially to [USER=”2580″]DrBrown[/USER] and [USER=”935″]drtowfigh[/USER] for all your input. Hearing from doctors who cared and were knowledgeable meant so much during a very dark week.

[Good intentions]

quote DrBrown:

I wish it was not true, but some doctors think more about money than the patient.
Bill Brown MD

It might be that the effect of the device makers pushing their products as truly better for the patient is most significant. There are too many surgeons involved, I think, to believe that they all became mesh proponents for the money. I have worked in some very large corporations and I can see the hand of the executives focusing on market share and sales. From their perch they don’t see people, they see consumers. They have spun this web and captured a whole generation of surgeons.

I posted a link to some Ethicon videos and one of them has Dr. Kercher suggesting that surgeons who learned anatomy over 10 years ago don’t really understand where the significant structures are to do a proper laparoscopic surgery. Indirectly implying that older surgeons are behind the times.

And laparoscopy is tailor made to promote mesh usage, with less scarring, and faster short-term healing. Also making the mesh harder to remove by implanting it over more difficult to access area. .

Add in the failure of the FDA and other organizations to regulate the industry and it really is a master plan for market dominance. There is no business incentive to acknowledge that a suture repair might be better than a mesh repair. Much more money is made on a piece of mesh than a few feet of suture. The medical device makers control the industry now and don’t really have to do anything to keep it.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/opioid-epidemic-did-the-fda-ignite-the-crisis-60-minutes/

[Jnomesh]

Kevin B. Make sure if possible that you have someone you can trust (a family member is best) to be a public advocate for you.
This is very important as when we are in pain and in combination with the many doctors and tests one sees and has in the ER can be overwhelming.

[dog]

Yep Totally Agree ! And we treat doctors in America almost like God..But God can cure ..those doctors can only barely menage the symptoms..

[DrBrown]

I wish it was not true, but some doctors think more about money than the patient.
Bill Brown MD

[WasInTN]

quote drtowfigh:

For the record, insurance payment to the physician is not linked to whether complications or other treatment is resolved or completed.

This looks correct to me. The medical field is not like going to car mechanic where if the mechanic makes a mistake, he will refund or refix the issue. Medical field is rather, like virginity, Once you pay for it, it is gone for good. But you can sue your surgeon of course for wrong practices. The problem is to prove he made a mistake and make him admit that he made a mistake.

A few months or years ago I drove my kid to urgent care and the diagnosis was he had ear infection but the kid kept saying something else as symptom. Nobody – the urgent care physician assistants or the PCP we visited next day, would listen to me or the kid. Antibiotic was given and when I asked these people to check the kid’s ears, I was told, “yes we checked.”

So reckless and horrible. I still had to pay and the kid got better after 3 days of sleeping and drinking Gatorade. The lesson learned is….

God cures you, doctors take your money.

[dog]

Dear Dr Brown,

Not every surgeons like you who truly care ! Most of them wont just dollars ..and loosing interest to people once they already received the payment. After my amazing experience with you ..it is truly unbelievable or me to see how many people asking us questions instead of simply call to doctor.

Just for everyone here.

Every morning when i woke up ..it was text from Dr.Brown asking me about my recovery….i respond by sending photos and questions….
Did you hear about this doctor practise before ? ..I didn’t before dr.Brown.

Recovery is as important process as surgery ..Having doctor on your side 24/7 meticulously guiding you via process is critical

Doctors like Dr Brown change the world.

[DrBrown]

Dear Kevin b.
Please keep us updated about your recovery.
Work with your surgeon to determine the source of your pain. Your surgeon will want a good result for you and will first determine the cause of the pain and then put together a treatment plan.
Regards.
Bill Brown MD
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[drtowfigh]

For the record, insurance payment to the physician is not linked to whether complications or other treatment is resolved or completed.

[USER=”2803″]kevin b[/USER] Hope you get better. Sounds like you had urinary retention and a deep venous thrombosis. Both are serious and I’m glad you’re getting the right attention. The cord-related pain should resolve within hours to days. If it does not, then it’s important to figure out the cause early, especially if it’s severe.

[Good intentions]

Hello kevin b. I recommend getting a copy of your surgery notes so that you know more about the details and can pass them on to any doctors you might choose to talk to in the future. You said that a hernia was found but did not say what type. “Inguinal” covers several.

Was the clot related to the “hernia” surgery? That might be a clue. Also, “sports hernias” are not real hernias. You might have had a misdiagnosis from the start.

Also, to be cynical, remember that his partners will also be somewhat liable for any errors that your surgeon made, if any are found. Did they explain how you got a blood clot? If they do not have immediate answers, consider getting a second opinion, using your surgery notes. You need those notes anyway, for the future. Many facilities only keep them for a few years.

My last bit of cynicism – If you used insurance to pay for your procedure the clinic will not get reimbursed until the complications are resolved. So there is incentive to make you feel “right” quickly. I think that the reimbursement period is measured in a term of a few months.

Good luck.

[kevin b]

Thanks for your replies everyone. I’ve actually ended up hospitalized due to a blood clot in my left leg. Once I got in, I couldn’t urinate, so they had to catheterize me as well. Strangely, the only time the nerve pain seemed slightly better was when my bladder was very full (1600mg of urine!).

Sadly, I haven’t gotten to speak with my surgeon. He’s out of town for the week. His partners are discussing the issue. They tried a lidocaine patch, but not drugs seem to touch it.

[USER=”2580″]DrBrown[/USER] the pain feels deeper within the skin (in the region of what I guess is the spermatic cord). If the issue is an injury to the cord, is there a way forward to address it? What steps forward would you suggest?

thanks for any help you can offer. I’m very grateful.

[Chaunce1234]

I’m sorry you’re going through this, hopefully your situation has improved a bit since your post yesterday. I wonder if it’s possible that inflammation from the surgery is pushing on a nerve?

Please keep us updated on your case and progress, and let us know what you hear from your surgeon.

[DrBrown]

Dear Kevin B.
If the pain feels like it is in the skin, then it is probably the result of an injury to the ilioinguinal nerve.
If the pain is deep, then it could be related sutures placed in the bone or the spermatic cord.
Contact your surgeon.
Regards.
Bill Brown MD

[Momof4]

The pinching/burning you describe sounds like a nerve issue, possibly entrapment or nerve injury. It can cause severe burning and the medications you mention won’t help nerve pain. It is not normal to feel this after surgery and you should seek help from your doctor. Hope you can get it resolved quickly. I have been suffering with burning nerve pain/injury over a year and it is very difficult to deal with. Best wishes!