ajm222
Forum Replies Created
-
Hey Mitch – is your pain and discomfort mostly gone, or are you just able to deal with it better now?
-
Hey Lucas –
I know Dr. Belyansky avoids cutting nerves at all cost, but for mesh placed openly it really needs to be removed openly. And open mesh removal typically requires at least one nerve being cut, sometimes more, as I understand it. The surgeons will tell you that they cut the nerves high up enough that it only involves sensory function (i.e. at worst it should just make things numb). But clearly there are many patients that continue to have pain or report functional issues. I don’t myself understand the discrepancy, and perhaps even the surgeons themselves aren’t sure. But there are also many that have good results from neurectomy, some on this very forum. I’ve seen people post after removal and neurectomy who claim they are happy and feel they have their life back. So it’s not all doom and gloom.
Probably best to try and consult with as many of these surgeons as possible and see what they say. I would definitely recommend any of the surgeons on this list save for Petersen.
Maybe you can describe your pain. I continued to have quite a bit of soreness myself for about that long, and it mostly went away by 2 years amazingly. I think some of it had become psychosomatic for me, and a centralized sort of pain perhaps caused by obsessing about it. Doesn’t mean the pain wasn’t entirely real, but possibly there wasn’t necessarily a structural reason for it. Can’t be sure, though. Pain is a complicated thing, involving both mind and body. And my pain was soreness. Sharp and shooting nerve pain may be different. I now have almost no pain or soreness. The only issues remaining for me are tightness in the groin and hip that are distracting, and a strange feeling when laying on my back.
Hope that helps. You have lots of options, and results with a highly experienced surgeon are usually very good (80% or higher see improvement if not complete recovery). Stay strong.
Feel free to reach out.
-
Sounds like you’d say removal based on discomfort or tightness and foreign body sensation but very little to no pain might not be wise. Is that fair?
-
my understanding is that if you had your mesh inserted via open method, it would need to be removed that way. removing mesh in an open fashion usually results in at least some nerves having to be cut. not typically the case if mesh was placed and removed laparoscopically or robotically as the mesh is behind the muscle and away from the major nerves. people seem to have a variety of different experiences when it comes to nerves being cut. for some it’s great, and for others it can be very bad.
nerve involvement and nerve pain typically i think manifests as sharp, shooting type pains. mesh pain or discomfort from scar tissue i think is more deep soreness and tightness.
-
my pleasure. i’m not sure exactly what the surgeons are suggesting regarding the spermatic cord or what might actually be going on. but i do know that as scar tissue grows it’s possible to have issues later on in recovery. scar tissue formation and scar tissue “remodeling” over time as your body heals and continues dealing with the mesh and the scarring means changes can take place over longer periods of time. most people with problems have them from the beginning, some develop issues after the first few months. and there are the occasional patients who are fine for years and then something happens and they start having issues. it seems unpredictable. again, “most” people are fine and stay that way, even if they have some bumps in the road along the way. i think you’ll just have to keep an eye on it. if things continue to improve, i would expect you’ll be just fine. but if they stay the same or get worse, then it might be time to find a real expert who deals with patients that have mesh complications or who also does lots of mesh removal and has seen a lot of complications.
i myself have had some testicular pain on and off. as mentioned before, it seems to get worse when i am stressed or if i worry specifically about mesh-related pain. so it feels for me some of it might have an emotional or psychological component. i also did have a vasectomy years before the mesh, and i’ve been told that that surgery can also occasionally cause problems on and off. it’s so hard to know for sure. and i think mine has just generally gotten better over time. the fact that it hasn’t gotten worse to me is a good sign. i also had a lipoma removed from the spermatic cord at the time of the mesh surgery as well, so that could play a part. having a lipoma on the spermatic cord is a very common thing with hernia patients.
-
Hey there,
I have had a number of issues that come and go related to my repair. The good news is that after 2 1/2 years, I don’t have much pain. I still can feel pain in the area of the repair from time to time depending on what I am doing and my level of attention to it, but it’s not a constant thing at all, and any pain is very mild. The only issue I currently deal with is just a tightness and discomfort that basically reminds me that I have something in there that’s likely pulling and tugging on things without a lot of give. It doesn’t really stop me from doing anything, but I notice it daily. Which is why I am still considering removal.
But I also know removal is no joke, and without a lot of pain I am really on the fence. Dr. Belyansky has agreed to remove mine, and I would hope the result would be good because I only have one side to remove, and it was put in robotically and would be taken out robotically, and I don’t have any nerve pain. But he’s also said things like ‘if it were a member of my family, I would probably urge you to not do it’ etc etc. Meanwhile, other removal surgeons (and even at times Dr. B.) have said that removal is safe with appropriate risks. My original hope for removal was that it could be taken out and I would be so relieved like many folks I’ve talked to, and the scar tissue would be enough to hold things in and I would never have to worry about this ever again. But I also know there are no guarantees.
So long story short I am doing fine and still wrestling with this decision. I would on the one hand love to go up one day and have this thing removed and then no longer have a foreign body sensation and the pulling and tightness, but on the other hand I’m terrified of the chance of making anything worse. It could go great, or it could go terrible. Likelihood is the former, but it’s a risk and I just can’t decide what to do.
Anyway, the general trajectory in my case has been towards less and less pain. And speaking of your issue, it sounds like many others who have done a particular movement and then had some pain. That actually never happened to me. My issues have always been consistent. But it seems for many that something like that typically resolves with time and rest as long as it wasn’t a recurrence. Probably just tearing of some scar tissue or something. I would give it a couple weeks and see if you see improvement. The involvement of the testicles and testicular pain is of course a concern, but doesn’t necessarily mean anything different. But I really don’t know. Something could have been pulled on and it’s just healing. And hopefully it heals without any additional issues or nerve entrapment, etc. I would assume the former and not get too worried unless it persists or gets worse.
I would for now assume that everything will be just fine. It usually is. I think it’s normal, especially in the first couple years, to have things like this when exercising where some young scar tissue maybe gets torn and then it heals just fine. Listen to your body. Take it easy for a bit (though keep active). And hopefully you go back to not having any issues at all. Usually if you give it a few weeks you’ll be fine.
And there is also definitely something to be said about the worry. When I worry about my issues, they really start to bother me. If I relax, most of them go away or subside to the point they aren’t really bothering me too much. It’s like the stress causes subconscious tightening of muscles in the area of focus and that of course results in soreness. It’s like making a fist. You can hold a tight fist for a moment and not feel any pain. But if you try and hold that tight fist for an hour or several hours, it becomes very sore. I think sometimes we get really obsessed with something which causes us to tighten our muscles (as a protective mechanism) but then that constant strain leads to pain which then causes us to stress and tighten even more, if that makes sense. So I would also try and relax and think positively and see if that helps. If that’s part of the issue and you can break that cycle, you might realize that’s all it was and feel back to normal.
Anyway, keep us posted.
-
Yes, the progrip mesh has lots and lots of little hooks on it that help it stay in place (like velcro), the idea being that surgeons can avoid using tacks when installing it, which are often a source of pain. over a year to 18 months the little hooks do dissolve.
-
It’s my understanding that with robotic surgery, having mesh no longer presents a major issue for surgeons. That’s just to address the question of whether or not you can have prostate surgery if you’ve had a mesh repair. It used to apparently present a real challenge.
Also, I’ll add that I’ve had two surgeons tell me that if you have any issue with laparoscopic mesh surgery, and for example need it removed, you can still have an open tissue repair later without issue.
-
That’s great to hear! Congrats! I’ve read so many bad things about neurectomy but I guess it really depends on the situation. Hope your pain continues to improve over time.
-
i think you need to be approved as a member first before being able to see the posts. they’re private groups. you can join and then search for ‘biologic mesh’. the groups i know of are:
Hernia Mesh Complications Support Group
Mesh Removal Patients. (Hernia and Pelvic) -
I know it’s expensive, but it might be worth having a consult with Dr. Towfigh about this. She’s made statements before suggesting things like this can be fixed or improved. Not sure how (gofundme perhaps), and I am sure the cost could be prohibitive, but ultimately if the quality of your life has been ruined by the surgeries, I don’t think any potential expense should be considered in an effort to get better. Orchiectomy, if it worked, should be considered because you really don’t need two testicles to function normally. But I’m not sure how successful that is in a situation like this at fixing the problem. But I think she might be able to offer some guidance, and also perhaps recommend some doctors closer to you that might be able to help.
-
That’s what I thought, too. And I might be wrong. Just seemed to be the trend I was noticing on FB.
-
don’t have anything super helpful to add, but i keep seeing so many people on these hernia complications facebook pages who have had infections and other issues saying they had biomesh. it’s like they’re all getting infected and having problems. probably just a poor sample as most who would get biomesh in the first place are likely those who are prone to complications and infections in the first place and/or have already had multiple surgeries. and I don’t know all the specifics behind each one. but i think infection and re-herniation are common issues with biomesh. happy to be corrected on that.
-
Ah, so the one surgeon cut two nerves, but he wasn’t the removal surgeon. But the removal surgeon cut another nerve (the genitofemoral), possibly to help whatever pain was caused by the other surgeon? Is that right?
-
Ah thanks. That doesn’t seem like something that would cause problems on its own.
-
What did you say your surgical history was again? I know you had a laparoscopic mesh repair and a robotic removal but can’t recall the other surgery.
-
did you ever get any clarification about specifically what happened? is it thought that in fact a nerve was cut, leading to the increased pain? or is it uncertain?
-
i’ve definitely read a lot of those stories. it’s certainly a concern. usually that seems to happen to folks who have their meshed removed by someone who isn’t really a removal specialist or expert, or have a very complicated case. but not always. i think in your case you may have gone to one of the best if my assumptions are correct, and your situation wasn’t especially complicated. so as you say, anything can happen. it’s a risky surgery even in the best hands it seems.
-
that’s very good to know. most of the removal stories i hear from folks who had it done by very experienced surgeons usually note improvement, with certain aspects sometimes staying the same (though often eventually even those things start getting better over much longer time periods). not often a worsening of their condition.
-
Just out of curiosity, has this pain lessened even a little in the last three months or more, or is it basically still the same?