News Feed Discussions Mesh Removal Update and Bilateral Muschaweck Repair

  • Mesh Removal Update and Bilateral Muschaweck Repair

    Posted by Herminius on October 24, 2023 at 8:47 am

    Hi, hopefully this post will be helpful to someone. You can look up my previous posts for more background information on my symptoms and surgery.

    Today is 3 months out from having Covidien Progrip Mesh removal at the Cleveland Clinic with Dr. Krpata. Despite the painful recovery I was glad from the moment I woke up after surgery and I still am now. The terrible feeling of a foreign body is gone, as well as the poking, cutting, burning sensation it caused, as well as the not insignifcant mental agony it engendered. My fears about getting surgery (that I would be weakened and bed bound) did not come true, I am strong, active and healthy- just with residual pain in the area, not insignificant, but a worthy trade, and damage to my left ball sack, which hangs low and swollen and uncomfortable.

    Today I underwent another surgery in Münich by Dr. Muschaweck to repair the pain that I wanted repaired a year and a half ago after I hurt myself in a soccer game and which ofcourse was never ameliorated by mesh, or its removal. I don’t know how the surgery went, I haven’t spoken to the doctor yet, but if there is anyone interested i’ll post an update when I know more.
    If there is anyone who has undergone sports hernia surgery with Dr. Muschaweck, I would be glad to hear your story.

    Thanks,

    • This discussion was modified 1 year, 1 month ago by  Herminius.
    Oceanic replied 1 year, 1 month ago 4 Members · 5 Replies
  • 5 Replies
  • Oceanic

    Member
    October 31, 2023 at 3:37 am

    Hope you make a swift recovery, you’re a braver Man than Me letting a 75 year old operate on You

  • CursedGroin

    Member
    October 26, 2023 at 2:12 pm

    Yes please, keep us updated !
    Good Luck for your recovery.
    I hope this will mark the end of your hernia journey

  • Herminius

    Member
    October 25, 2023 at 10:45 pm

    My original hernia repair was indeed by a general surgeon. I had pain on both sides but he only found a small indirect hernia on the left and he did what he knew: he threw in a 10×15 patch of mesh.
    The mesh didn’t address my original pain (on both sides) and added a lot more pain in the location of the mesh.
    After spending a year focused on solving this new, more urgent pain, I got a mesh removal with Dr. Krpata, then turned my attention to the original pain. That pain, unlike the pain from the mesh, didn’t turn my world upside down every day, but it was very bothersome and prevented me from resuming my previously normal athletic activities.
    I turned to Dr. Muschaweck because supposedly she is the best in the world at addressing the type of problem I was experiencing. Even if I didn’t live in Germany I would have flown here and paid for treatment with her, luckily I am blessed to be in a position to do that, but even if it were extremely difficult for me financially, this was my last hope and I would only have ever gone to her, based on her reputation.
    Dr. Muschaweck is not going to be everyone’s cup of tea: she is very short tempered and no-nonsense, and doesn’t take time to make sure you are comfortable with everything (my wife loved her). She told me that my mesh cannot be removed (until she understood after a while that it had already been, which I guess means she would not remove the mesh). She claimed that I have a defect (described to me as both a hole and a bulge) on either side that she could fix (close) with her “minimal repair technique, and that while doing so she would look at the genital branch of the genital femoral nerve, and cut a small portion of it out if it looked damaged. (She says it is obvious when a nerve is damaged, and that not removing it guarantees chronic pain). Surgery is done under local anesthesia, and she says full recovery takes 14 days (as in a patient could be back to playing their sport professionaly). She recommends getting up and walking vigorously the day of surgery!
    The surgery went as she expected- she removed a section of nerve on each side and performed her “Muschaweck” repair. I did wake up near the end of surgery which was not pleasant. Also, it has been two days since surgery and I can only hobble very slowly to the bathroom. I am in a lot of pain, so I can’t tell if anything has been helped yet. But I’ll respond again in two plus weeks. This was my last hope so hopefullly it worked!

  • CursedGroin

    Member
    October 24, 2023 at 7:51 pm

    Hi Herminius

    Thanks for sharing your story. Glad to hear you are better!

    I have similarities to you in my story : dull pain after lap mesh implantation for inguinal/sports hernia repair. I went to Muschaweck last week to see my options. She said that the implanted mesh dislocated and that she could observe a small bulge in my inguinal canal, thanks to dynamic ultrasound. This bulge is compressing the genitofemoral nerve, which results in pain.
    She said that the mesh does not need to be removed since it is not the problem itself but that I needed minimal repair to fix the reoccurence. So I would be pleased to hear about your recovery.

    Did she cut the GNF nerve during the procedure? Why did you choose her over Conze or Meyers ?

    • This reply was modified 1 year, 1 month ago by  CursedGroin.
  • Good intentions

    Member
    October 24, 2023 at 10:04 am

    Thanks for following up Herminius. It’s useful to know who is still out there solving these problems. Good to see that Dr. Muschaweck is still active.

    I looked up one of your original threads to fill in the story and linked it below. Could you describe how you ended up with what looks like bilateral mesh implantation after suffering what was apparently a common sports injury? Was the surgeon that implanted the mesh a common general surgeon or a member of a hernia repair specialist organization? This urge to use mesh as a fix-all for any type of groin pain seems to be an epidemic.

    Also, if you have the time and patience maybe you could describe what Dr. Muschaweck found. You have traveled an interesting path that could be important to any of us that are physically active and trusting the medical community to have the right solution ready for common injuries. In today’s world it’s up to the individual to find the right solution. Ironically, “Dr. Google” is a necessity today.

    https://herniatalk.com/forums/topic/last-minute-advice/#post-36549

    Last Minute Advice

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