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I had removal surgery today! Inguinal hernia with LG bard 3d max
Today I went in fully prepared to have the mesh removed, a new mesh put in to repair the defect, and to leave without my inguinal nerve intact.
Turns out it wasnt the actual mesh! When the surgeon got in there for exploratory (original surgeon refused to see me!) He found that 2 of the tacks used to adhere the mesh had unravelled and were stabbing me repeatedly for the last year.
I attached the photo of the tacks. The surgeon took some great photos of the tack completely sticking out of my tissues while still adhered. They have been a source of tremendous agony for the past year!
I would like to show this to the original surgeon, and 4 surgeons since, who told me to go to pain management and live with the pain. I will definitely be reporting this to the medical board, and would like to have a discussion with my former medical group who refused to do anything about this situation. Something so minor caused me to lose my job and suffer unnecessarily for over a year! I am so relieved this is over…at least for now. (We’ll see how I feel once the incision heals! ) I was giving up hope and now I have hope again!
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3 Replies
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Good Intentions- those are very interesting thoughts I will discuss with my surgeon at follow up. I am curious why tacks were used, because like you said, the 3d max is not supposed to need tack fixation. And I am surprised they missed this on the MRI- it was pretty large and seemed obvious…but who knows why they did not see it.
Momof4- thank you for the encouragement. It was definitely challenging being made to feel I was crazy and it was all in my head. This has been such a journey and to find it was something so simple is definitely doing a number on my mind.
I am just hoping this did the trick! Looking forward to getting back to my life and moving forward!
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TooMuchPain, so glad that you have hope for recovery. If it doesn’t turn out to be the resolution to your pain, don’t lose hope but seek out another opinion. I think you should definitely share the results with your previous doctors, they can learn from your case and hopefully help future patients without disregarding their concerns and suffering. Telling someone to go to pain management and live with the pain is an unacceptable response, but I believe it happens because I was told similar things. Sounds like you were able to get past that and find a solution. I was able to do the same. Some people may not be able to do that and I feel sad for them. It is bad enough to be suffering with so much pain, but to be disregarded makes it even worse! Thank goodness there are some doctors that REALLY LISTEN and believe the patient, and are willing to think outside the box for solutions. Thank you to Dr. Towfigh for being one of those doctors!
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That’s great that it looks like you found a solution. It’s interesting that two tacks were used for Bard’s 3-D Max product. Their sales literature touts the fact that it “eliminates the need for fixation”. One of the major pushes for its development was to avoid the very problem that you ended up with. It’s supposed to fit the space so well that it doesn’t need tacks. And certainly not metal tacks, the mesh is supposed to be incorporated in to the tissue. If a tack was used to hold the mesh it would be an absorbable tack, I believe.
It might be that the metal tacks were used to attach the hernia sac to surrounding tissue after it was pulled back in. Apparently that’s common. But I thought that they normally used the pubic bone. It looks more like your original surgeon just got lost in what he was doing and didn’t even confirm proper tack placement. Or worse, lost them and didn’t take the time to get them out. That stretched tack looks like an instrument error to me, not from the mesh pulling on it. Like he pulled the tacker away before it was clipped. It should have shown up on your MRI too, I think. It’s metal.
I’m not a medical doctor though, so maybe stretched and misplaced tacks are commonly left inside the patient.
Good luck.
https://www.crbard.com/Davol/en-US/products/All-Products/3dmax-mesh
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