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Hernia Mesh Pain Treatment: Steroid Injections
I had laparoscopic, mesh repair for an inguinal hernia in 2002. Recently, I’ve had some discomfort in the groin area and was diagnosed with hernia mesh-related pain….specifically, hardening of the mesh. The doctor’s recommendation (Dr Brown, Fremont, CA — he’s been mentioned several times on this forum as a sports hernia specialist) was to receive a steroid injection/series of steroid injections to address the pain. According to Dr Brown, his patients experienced a very high success rate of eliminating the hernia mesh-related pain from the steroid (lidocaine) injections; however, he cautioned that it may take a total of three to four injections to provide long-term relief.
Curious to know if anyone on this forum has gone through a similar “steroid injection protocol” for pain as a result of hernia mesh hardening, hernia mesh scarring or hernia mesh scarring/nerve entrapment and what their experience was.
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2 Replies
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I had bilateral laparoscopic mesh repair for inguinal hernias. This is the first time I’ve had a problem. I’ve been doing physical therapy for the mesh pain for the the last 10 months, but it hasn’t made a difference. As you highlighted, the steroid injections are probably the final conservative treatment measure to try before considering mesh removal.
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Hello Greg. I don’t have actual experience with the steroid treatment for pain relief but I have read about it. It seems to be one of the older “standard” options for treating mesh related pain, and many other types of chronic pain, or injuries that need to heal quickly. I think that the actual steroid is cortisone based, and lidocaine is a pain reliever that is injected along with it. Cortisone injections are often used in professional sports to get athletes back on the field quickly. They promote healing. In your case, it seems like there would need to be some sort of physical therapy involved to get the hard body, the mesh, away from whatever it is irritating. Otherwise, why would it be a long term solution?
Can I ask the details of your original repair? I’m guessing that it was an open surgery? 16 years is a pretty good run for a repair. Has it been a good 16 years? I’ve been collecting stories to try to find these types of experience, in a thread called “Successful, good “mesh” stories”.
Dr. Brown seems to be very knowledgeable and experienced. Worst case, you would probably suffer some immediate pain and discomfort from the procedure itself but it wouldn’t work in the long-term. I think that the risk of creating more damage is slim. I believe that, big-picture wise, it’s one of the treatments attempted before taking more drastic measures.
Good luck.
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