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What I learned after 5 years and 2 botched surgeries that ruined my life.
I’ve been thinking of posting this for a while now. I don’t really sleep or do anything since Dr. Brown butchered me and I keep thinking about what I should’ve done different, known better etc. It genuinely keeps me up at night – every night. I figured maybe I would post this to help new patients with groin issues so that they can learn from my mistakes and maybe not end up butchered, disfigured and ”functionally disabled” like me. I’m way past saving but hopefully it can help someone else.
1. Whatever your injury is (hernia or sports hernia) – you need multiple opinions. It sucks, it costs a lot, its a lot of travelling and spending but you cannot cheap out. You only got 1 shot to do this correctly and you want to exhaust all your options before agreeing to a potentially life-changing procedure.
2. You need to learn absolutely everything you can about the groin. Study the terminology, the anatomy, the different procedures that exist. Everything. You need to understand what a doctor is about to do to you and if it doesn’t make sense to you – no matter how they sell it – do not agree to it.
3. Every single one of your symptoms is valid and relevant. The overwhelming majority of doctors in this space (from my own experience) want a simple solution. They will willingly ignore some of your symptoms and brush them off as irrelevant – or say they can’t explain them to skew the consultation and diagnostic towards the procedure they offer to close the sale and move on. Do not let any doctor talk you out of your symptoms. You know your body, you know what wasn’t there before and you’re not making any of it up. You are not crazy. The challenge is to find the root of them and the right doctor will take on the challenge. If they cannot explain it or refuse to work on it – find another doctor. The symptoms are a puzzle that needs to be solved.
4. If you agree to any procedure – make them write down every single step that is about to be done to you and do not let them deviate from that. There are countless stories of patients on this forum and others who woke up to missing nerves, psoas releases, relaxing cuts, and other horrors they did not consent to. Make them write down every single step they’re about to perform and explain it to you and sign on it. I’m not saying it’ll necessarily protect you because if they do those steps you are screwed either way but It will give you a little safety net.
5. Run away from any doctor that is quick to suggest nerve removal. For some reason in the past few years nerves have become the lazy man’s answer to everything. If you have pain anywhere in your body a nerve is sending those pain signals. It does not mean the nerve is damaged or entrapped and it certainly does not mean it needs removal. None of the groin nerves are purely sensory – they all have crucial functions and cannot be removed without consequences. I’m not sure why doctors keep pushing this narrative that the nerves can be removed and that they’re just sensory – its a lie. Nerve removal should be the very last thing they do – not the first. From my experience the only doctor that understands this is Dr. Meyers in Philadelphia who has apparently at one point said he would leave a piece of mesh scarred on a nerve rather than removing the nerve and would try to work around that – thats how important those nerves are to your groin and core health.
6. This is not meant to be insulting – but every single doctor in this space is in it for the money. They hire marketing agencies. They buy reviews. They arrange press articles to feature them. I get it – we’re all working to feed our families. But these are people’s lives. Be very careful and make sure you thoroughly research the doctor you are about to trust with your body. If you can find previous patients – reach out to them. The doctor that butchered me and permanently harmed me was on this forum daily poaching patients, had a fake account pretending to be a ”previous patient” that kept replying to everyone to assure them how good he was and was presenting himself in a light that didn’t match his in-person treatment of patients. He arranged to have an article written about him by a local newspaper. He pretended that he dealt with players from the NBA, NFL, NHL and MLB. None of it was true. He also hid the fact that 2 of his patients committed suicide and several others were seriously harmed or disabled following his procedure and kept performing the same stupid procedure over and over again. I’m one of those people now and have been for the past 2 years. Please don’t end up like me.
7. There is a narrative that doctors in this space have been using online and that personally got me. The whole ”get it fixed before it gets worse” is completely b.s. Both surgeries I got were to ”get it fixed before it gets worse” and both of them caused 1000x more damage than I could have ever imagined. They both cut endlessly into perfectly healthy tissues – destroying everything to repair it? It didn’t make sense. But its one of my biggest regrets. Your mindset should not be ”get it fixed before it gets worse” it should be ”let me try everything I possibly can to avoid surgery and if I can’t then only as a last resort go get surgery and make sure its as minimal as possible”.
8. I do not think Mesh is the devil its made out to be. After what Dr. Brown did to me – I struggle to believe there is a safe tissue repair out there. He operated on my left groin that had no previous surgery, no mesh, no nothing. I was extremely conditioned and had incredible core tension. He had diagnosed me with partial tearing of the external aponeurosis fibers – something very simple to fix and very superficial. Instead he performed an incredibly invasive direct hernia procedure despite having no hernia and it ruined my life. I was the perfect canvas for him to prove that his surgery was safe and worked. Personally I would be very careful with tissue repairs if I were new to these forums/groin injuries.
I think that covers all of it pretty much. I’m sorry for writing a lot and sorry if some of it is repetitive. I cannot find meaning in my life right now and I don’t know how to accept and overcome how ruined my body and life is going to be for the rest of my life so I do a lot of thinking about what went wrong – over and and over again. I sincerely hope this helps some new people take their injuries more seriously. I do believe its possible to have a successful surgery with a caring doctor but this is a very very very very dangerous space and you need to treat it as such.
Good luck everyone I wish you health.
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