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Recurrence After Shoulder Repair?
Hi all – I (M 37) had a small inguinal hernia repaired at the Shouldice Hospital back in 2017 (no mesh). Since then, I’ve generally had no issues until recently. A little while ago, I developed a cold and had a cough for about 5 weeks afterward. During that time, the area of my repair became sore and now just feels a bit off. It gets tweaked when I pick up my toddler or move in certain ways and just generally aches.
<font face=”inherit”>The problem is </font>that I can’t tell if it’s a recurrence.<font face=”inherit”> It’s hard to tell if there is a new lump because I’ve had a lump in the area of the repair ever since the surgery. At first I thought it was just the “healing ridge” still needing to die down, but when it hadn’t gone away</font> a year after the surgery, I decided to see a doctor. So i<font face=”inherit”>n 2018, I saw Dr. Chen at UCLA. He actually seemed intrigued by the fact I had gotten the Shouldice repair and even called a couple of his interns in to look at me. He explained that the lump I had post-surgery was the result of the abdominal tissue having been stretched as part of the repair and therefore being thinner. So basically the fat/organs were pressing up against a thinner material, causing it to bulge out. He cautioned me against lifting things like refrigerators and couches and indicated that if it </font>were to<font face=”inherit”> </font>recur<font face=”inherit”>, I’d have to get a mesh repair. He didn’t seem to have </font>positive<font face=”inherit”> things to say </font>about<font face=”inherit”> pure tissue repairs.</font>
I live in Philadelphia now and I’m not familiar with any good hernia surgeons in the area. Is my best bet to just find a decent hernia surgeon to find out if there has been a recurrence? Can the Shouldice method be used to repair a recurrence of a prior pure tissue repair?
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5 Replies
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I haven’t called Shouldice about it. Now my cough has subsided, I’m going to just wait and see how it feels. It has felt slightly better over the past couple days. Hopefully that’s a good sign.
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Sorry to hear that. Assuming it’s not obvious if you have a recurrence, you need to go to a top place to diagnose. A really good surgeon (like Dr. Chen) may be able to feel it with a physical exam. Expect this to be painful if they truly make an effort. Most surgeons won’t. You can also get a dynamic ultrasound or MRI done. These show recurrences. Again, there are very few places that know how to do this.
If you have a recurrence, the best way to fix it is most likely laparoscopic or robotic mesh.
If the symptoms don’t bother you too much, I wouldn’t do further surgery unless it starts bothering you too much. No harm in trying to have it diagnosed, though.
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I assume you never talked to the Shouldice Hosp about it?
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I can’t tell whether the bulge has gotten bigger or changed shape or if I’m just over analyzing it. I wasn’t in the habit of looking at it very frequently. Mostly it is just sore and I get sharp twinges of pain with certain movements. I think I just need to have a surgeon check it out.
I’m not limited to PA. I’m willing to travel for the right doctor. Would love some suggestions.
As for my post’s formatting, I have no idea what happened. I did not copy anything from anywhere else. I just typed it up in the text box. I’ll edit it to clean it up.
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Did the bulge get bigger? Does it change in shape and size? Or do you just have new soreness?
Are you limited to Pennsylvania or can you travel to other states, like New York? There are well-known surgeons in New York.
Did you copy the bulk of your description from somehwere else? This forum has problems with text copied and pasted in to the Reply box at times. All of the odd characters and font description words in your post are a sign that you pasted it in.
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