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Need help/advice…2 months post op-Robotic femoral and inguinal repair
Hello! New member here …I have been reading a lot and hope someone in this group might have some advice for me. Kind of a long story but I will try to keep it short 🙂
I am a 39 year old mother of 4 and started experiencing pelvic pain back in 2013. GYN was clueless as to what the cause was and tried several different meds, had 2 lap procedures to check for endometriosis. Wanted to do a hysterectomy at 34 and I said no thanks. Decided to start “playing doctor” at the end of 2015 to figure out what was going on. Pulled copies of my reports from all of the imaging studies I had done since 2013-every report indicated that I had pelvic congestion syndrome. I questioned my GYN and she said that she had never heard of it (as you can imagine my frustration was very high at this point). I researched and sought out an Interventional Radiologist who treats PCS and ended up having a pelvic embolization in Janurary 2017. He said it was the worst case he has ever seen and actually ran out of coils during the embolization. Started seeing a new GYN shortly after. Pelvic pain was better for about a month after the procedure and I went back to the IR doc and had a MRI which showed a few collateral vessels forming but nothing else major. New GYN did a laparoscopy in March 2017 to check and see what was causing the pain…nothing really showed up other than an ovarian cyst (normal size for a cyst).
Pain continued and I pushed through. In October 2017 I had a sharp, stabbing pain in my left groin area. Wasn’t sure if it was my ovary or what! Pain went on for 5 days straight and once it started shooting down my inner thigh I knew something was going on. I researched and found a vascular doc who specializes in Pelvic Congestion Syndrome and she is awesome! After reviewing all of my images (I save every CD with imaging and reports) she said the only thing the IR doc didn’t check for was compression of the vein above (for PCS). Mentioned that is called May-Thurner Syndrome. I did not have any of the other symptoms of it though. No DVT ever, no crazy edema in my left leg. I am not overweight and exercise regularly (well I try to but the pain has been bad lately). Vascular Doc said that she thinks I have a femoral hernia (what? no bulge, etc). I went to 4 different surgeons after having 2 ultrasounds that confirmed that I in fact do have a femoral hernia….the first 3 had never heard of PCS and wasn’t sure if that was the cause of my pain or if it was the hernia. Regardless….I had a femoral hernia that I was told had to be fixed before it strangulates! The 4th surgeon agreed and said I have to fix it. Scheduled the surgery for March 7th 2018. Ended up in the ER on the 4th with minor swelling in my left leg and my vascular doc came to see me (after only meeting her 1 time-I thought that was great) and she said that she has to check for compression before I have the hernia surgery because if I do have May Thurner Syndrome and she doesn’t fix it then I will clot everywhere. Moved the IVUS procedure to the 7th (intra vascular ultrasound) and the hernia surgery till the 8th assuming it will be a quick check and the surgeons discussed.
IVUS on the 7th indicated that I barely had any blood flow in my right and left iliac veins as well as my IVC. Ended up having to get 3 large wallstents placed in my veins and stay in the hospital. Was very painful. Was put on Plavix and baby aspirin and am still on it (ugh). Hernia surgery had to be pushed out 6 weeks because of the high risk for clotting.
Groin and leg pain was getting so much worse while healing from the stent placement. Hernia surgery was on May 2nd 2018. Stopped the Plavix for a week as directed…Surgeon performed a robotic lap procedure and placed a large 3D Max Light mesh over the direct, indirect, femoral and obturator spaces with sutures. Had to spray Arista to stop the oozing I was having inside and then closed me up. Had severe pain and stayed in the hospital for the night.
3 weeks post op was in a lot of pain – CT showed hematomas and fluid collection that was possibly the start of infection. Nobody really seemed concerned and nothing else has been ordered.
Was feeling pretty good after the 6 week mark which was awesome! Few weeks ago I noticed that my BM are changing…have the urge and can’t go. After I do finally go I am in pain. I started feeling sharp pains in my left groin last week (July 4th) and brushed it off hoping it would just go away. I now have the pain in my thigh again and when I stand up or walk around it won’t go away. Only thing that makes it feel better is if I lay down and ice my groin. My surgeon has not gotten back to me and I am going to see my PCP tomorrow and would like to have him order imaging to check the area. Really hoping that MRI is best because I just had a CT at end of May.
Given my weird history and having coils, stents and now mesh implanted in me…it is hard knowing what the next step should be. I am hoping maybe someone in this group has had similar issues after having femoral hernia surgery and can offer some advice?! I don’t want to ignore these symptoms for too long. My body is telling me that something isn’t right but I don’t know what I should be doing. My hernia surgeon just refers me back to my vascular doctor because she doesn’t think anything is wrong with the repair and my vascular surgeon has done 3 ultrasound now all showing the stents are in the right place and blood is flowing perfectly.
My apologies for the really long short version of my story. Appreciate any insight you all have to offer. Best wishes to you all!
Event:Starts2018-07-10 18:00 (GMT)Ends2018-07-11 07:59 (GMT) -
5 Replies
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Have you been checked for hernia recurrence? It may be unlikely, but it’s always a possibility and that’s often the first thing that will be checked for.
It may be worth returning to the hernia surgeon and seeing what their experience is with treating and managing post-op pain. It’s always possible there’s an irritated nerve or scar tissue is irritating something too. Sometimes nerve block injections and NSAID (anti-inflammatory) courses can be helpful.
Anyway, best of luck and keep us updated on your case.
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Soooo Sorry to hear it !!! Tryingly unbelievable what some doctors are doing to us! They offer us cure witch worse than disease.What are they thinking before offering those surgeries ? ..I think if even once they themselves were suffering the way those patients did after their work , they would think twice before make a cut .
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Here is the summary I pulled from your first post. It’s not clear which side had the mesh impanted. I count at least four lap procedures, and six total surgeries. Not clear if they were all lap. Each surgery will create its own scar tissue, which takes quite a while for the body to resupply with blood vessels and nerves.
“39 year old mother of 4 and started experiencing pelvic pain back in 2013.
had 2 lap procedures to check for endometriosis.
every report indicated that I had pelvic congestion syndrome….Interventional Radiologist who treats PCS and ended up having a pelvic embolization in Janurary 2017. He said it was the worst case he has ever seen and actually ran out of coils during the embolization.
New GYN did a laparoscopy in March 2017 to check and see what was causing the pain…nothing really showed up other than an ovarian cyst (normal size for a cyst).
October 2017 I had a sharp, stabbing pain in my left groin area. ..Pain went on for 5 days straight and once it started shooting down my inner thigh I knew something was going on.
Regardless….I had a femoral hernia that I was told had to be fixed before it strangulates!
Ended up in the ER on the (March?) 4th with minor swelling in my left leg
IVUS on the (March?) 7th indicated that I barely had any blood flow in my right and left iliac veins as well as my IVC. Ended up having to get 3 large wallstents placed in my veins and stay in the hospital.
Groin and leg pain was getting so much worse while healing from the stent placement. Hernia surgery was on May 2nd 2018. Stopped the Plavix for a week as directed…Surgeon performed a robotic lap procedure and placed a large 3D Max Light mesh over the direct, indirect, femoral and obturator spaces with sutures. Had to spray Arista to stop the oozing I was having inside and then closed me up. Had severe pain and stayed in the hospital for the night.
Was feeling pretty good after the 6 week mark which was awesome! Few weeks ago I noticed that my BM are changing…have the urge and can’t go. After I do finally go I am in pain. I started feeling sharp pains in my left groin last week (July 4th) and brushed it off hoping it would just go away. I now have the pain in my thigh again and when I stand up or walk around it won’t go away.”
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Hello tship. I took your story and broke it down to the actions with dates just to get a better feel for everything that has happened to you. It looks like you’ve had quite a bit of surgery, and also have a high amount of foreign material inside, the stents and the mesh. Basically, your insides are like a battlezone where the fight has been going on for quite a while. Probably lots of scar tissue taking up space and pulling on various other parts as it restructures itself.
It looks like it’s been 10 weeks since the 3D Max implantation. What sort of exercise have you been doing? I found that just hiking or walking was a good way to get fluids flowing after mesh implantation. After mesh removal I found that once I could start running again, that that was very helpful in normalizing my screwed-up abdomen. In both cases it helped with pain and soreness and also helped with digestion and bowel movements. Sometimes, it was counterintuitive, where I thought that rest would help but after 2-3 days of no change a good long hike or run helped instead. You might try easing in to more activity and seeing what happens.
Since it has been 10 weeks, any changes from now forward will probably be slow. The mesh is locked in to place, aside from slow migration. It might pull free in areas but the bulk of it will not move much.
Keeping a daily log of your activities and the body’s response can help you figure out any positive cause-effect relationships. Even if you decide to have more surgery you’ll want to be in good physical shape, so workng through the pain, if it doesn’t get worse, will still be beneficial, I think. Not a doctor, just my own experience. Good luck. I’ll post my edit of your first post next.
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Hi I just wanted to weigh in-i don’t have the pre hernia issues that you had and I am male but I did want you to know that I had the 3D maxx mesh used in my inguinal hernia surgery and it ended up folding over upon itself and after years folded up into a rock hard ball. If you google the 3D maxx mesh you will find a lot of issiues with it. It is concave in nature thus the “3D” and this makes it prone to folding over or clamshelling on itself. If you had a hematoma post surgery in the area of the mesh it could put added pressure on the mesh and possibly cause it to fold over. I have been in touch with Men and women who had this type of mesh removed and it was found to be folded over. It is very difficult to see the mesh on a cat scan Bc even though it’s folded over it can still appear to be in the proper place. After many surgeons and radiologists deemed everything to be fine with my mesh I sent the same CD scan to dr. Igor Belyanski in MD and he found that the mesh was bent and had slightly shifted. I was in immense pain and had it removed (not s easy or simple surgery) when he got in there the mesh was much worse then showed up in the CT scan. I believe mine folded very early after my initial operation.l and got worse over the years-I exercises too. for years I was in pain but it didn’t stop me from living life. Then 6 years later after my initial surgery I experienced pain like never before and then the frustrating search to see what was wrong with me. Finally after about a half a year I found dr. Belyanski and find iut the mesh was the issue.
I’m certainly not saying this is what is going on with you but anytime o come across someone having pain who had the 3D maxx her is mesh implanted I feel I have a obligation to share my story.
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