I’m considering hernia surgery w Brian Jacobs or Yuri Novitsky in NYC – experience?

[Arkj93]

Dr Novitsky is fairly active on Twitter and if you look him up by name you should be able to find his posts. He actually posts a fair amount about mesh removals and it appears he also will perform different types of tissue repair at the patient’s request. He also seems to be active in discussions with other surgeons. He was recommended to me by a local surgeon in my area as one of the top hernia doctors in the Northeast. I would even go see him if it were more convenient but right now I am sticking with Dr Earle in MA who I have a consultation with coming up this week. I wish you luck in your search to find the right doctor.

[Jnomesh]

I’ had a consult with dr. Jacobs however it concerned pain issues from a previous hernia repair with mesh from another surgeon.
i can tell you he was very thorough and took his time to piece everything. He spent a good hour with me and my wife.
he was the first surgeon to feel it was the mesh inside of me causing my issues.
Tue only drawback in my opinion was that at times he could be a little over confident borderline on being kind of cocky for lack of a better word.
He also is private and does not take insurance.
From my visit with him although he is effortlessly a proponent of mesh he can do a pure tissue repair of requested.
i know you are seeing him for a first time repair and not mesh removal but it I thought I’d give yuh any feedback I know of
Concerning Yuri I have heard he is very good as well-he is anit plug and patch meshes but overall a proponent of mesh.
unlike Jacobs I have heard of people who have gone to see him about mesh issues and he usually doesn’t recognize it’s the mesh unless it’s a plug and patch repair.
i think this is important bc if something feels wrong with the mesh surgery you want your surgeon to be someone who st the very least can recognize it might be the mesh.
ask a lot of questions including what type of mesh they use-research it.
ask to speak to other patients to see how they are doing etc.
best of luck

[localCivilian]

[USER=”2029″]Good intentions[/USER] Also to add that’s interesting, Dr. Novitisky had mesh problems himself. He had a bowel obstruction. But it was because of the metal spiral tacks that were used for fixation. He tweeted one time about it and has a study on it as well. It seems like he mainly focuses on ventral hernias.

[Good intentions]

Both are interesting surgeons, who remove mesh, but also use it for hernia repair. They both have significant involvement at the big surgery meetings, and in the hernia repair societies, and are well-known there.

You will most likely be offered a mesh-based repair by both. Almost certainly laparoscopic, probably robotic. Quiz them on their success rate, in real percentages, don’t accept “most” or “majority” as answers, including length of time that they stay in touch with their patients, and percentages of chronic pain after many years. Reasonable questions for any hernia repair surgeon to address.

Good luck. I think that you’ll find that most of the surgeons that you talk to don’t really know if their patients are doing well, years after their surgeries. It will be difficult to get direct information about the main issue of chronic pain or discomfort.

Don’t overlook the difficulty in fixing the results of each type of surgery if things don’t go well. Even within the mesh repair category, some methods and materials are easier to fix than others. The more they use the harder it is to get out.