ajm222
Forum Replies Created
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Thank you, Dr. I’ll certainly be keeping an eye on it. I know Dr. Belyansky suggested hernias that were originally indirect seem less likely to reherniate after removal, at least for the 3-5 years he’s been kind of tracking this. I did assume there was a decent chance someday I’d get another hernia there. Would be nice just to have at least a few years where I don’t have to think about all this. Then I can consider an open tissue repair if needed.
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Hour and a half I think?
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thanks, mitch. will be sure to keep you posted on my progress. hope you continue to feel good as well. will be interested to see over time if your issues continue to improve. i believe mine did to some degree over the years. but after three years i was worried they would never fully resolve. some folks would probably not have been much bothered with my particular set of symptoms, but i was. finally decided i had to take the chance to see if there would be improvement with removal. and i had grown somewhat worried about having the mesh long-term regardless (though much of this could have simply been reading too many bad stories on the internet admittedly). still not out of the woods and won’t really know for sure where I land for many months i think. but i do believe some of the symptoms were definitely the mesh, while others might have been caused by other things. the latter will be clearer with time.
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So I believe what he meant was not that running caused the hernia itself, but perhaps theoretically could have caused some of the groin pain and discomfort I was feeling. I think he was just trying to consider possibilities for the discomfort in my unique case where it was more mild to moderate and was never super obvious that it was 100% the mesh causing 100% of the issues I was having. And I absolutely have had pain and discomfort in the groin from running, similar to the issues I’d had as a soccer player as well. I think he was just saying, after I brought up exercise and I asked what was ok to do now, that as we get older even jogging becomes harder and harder on the body, and that something a little easier on the muscles and joints like biking or swimming or walking would potentially be better. So he didn’t say I couldn’t run, and he wasn’t suggesting the running was the reason for my hernia. Just that it might have caused some of the groin discomfort (for example with sports hernia, which isn’t actually a hernia) and could be harder on the body as we age and there were better alternatives, particularly if you’ve had issues and recently gone through surgery.
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Yes, as mentioned, being worse off is always possible and a serious concern for anyone undergoing mesh removal. The statistics favor improvement, but the details are all very important and each case is unique, and there are no guarantees regardless.
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Yes, at the moment I’m happy I had it done. We’ll see long term how it plays out. I think if you go in with terrible nerve pain and major issues, you can notice big improvement immediately, assuming nothing from the surgery makes anything worse, which is possible. But total recovery from this surgery takes a long time. I do think I had immediate improvement in some respects. But healing the whole area will take a while. I know Dr. Brown has said many times that healing from this is a long process. And I’ve spoken with several removal patients that have seen improvement continue for many months or even years. Really depends on what your issues are.
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I don’t know for sure, but I know most of the studies I’ve seen actually report less and less pain and discomfort the longer you go out. one of course wonders if some of this is just people getting used to whatever pain and discomfort they have and reporting as being less over time, or if it really does subside. one study showed resolution of even the worst issues by ten years out for those they followed. but following facebook forums, i’ve also seen a surprising number of people who were fine for years and then started having issues much later – 3, 10, 20 years after surgery. hard thing to gauge.
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Have you ever been tested for my sort of connective tissue disorder?
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He did mention his mesh and said he’d never get a tissue repair again now that mesh is available. But he didn’t say anything about how it felt. One just assumes he’s happy with it. He has it on both sides. Originally had tissue repairs on both sides that held for decades.
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So the study I referenced wasn’t done by Shouldice specifically – he just mentioned it was a study out of Canada.
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i’d also have to suspect that ‘chronic’ pain with tissue repair would more likely resolve after 3, 6 or 12 months than chronic pain caused by mesh.
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watching the latest HerniaTalk discussion with Edward Felix was interesting. he mentioned that I think it was Shouldice that indicated 23% or so incidence of some sort of chronic pain for tissue repairs, which along with recurrence was one reason for trying to find a better alternative. i need to go back and listen again and make sure it was Shouldice. of course he made it sound like complications from mesh were infinitesimally small. he has mesh in both sides. apparently he had two tissue repairs originally and they lasted decades, and then had them both redone with mesh. of course, i think mesh and tissue repairs, if done correctly, both should be expected to last decades but both could/would eventually fail along long enough time horizons and for different reasons – tissue because the tissue and stitching stretches and gets weaker, and mesh perhaps for that reason plus degredation of the mesh and shrinkage or folding, which could arguably be more dangerous. one could also argue he hasn’t had issues with his own mesh because he’s older. i really think it’s very rare for those over 60 or so to have discomfort from mesh based upon the way the body changes in terms of pain sensation and sensitivity past a certain age. i do however know of folks over 60 who had had mesh complications – seroma and infection and those sorts of things. plus systemic issues, which are supposedly even more rare but you wouldn’t think that if you’re part of all the mesh facebook groups.
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I think this is a good place for surgeons to chime in with cases they’ve seen where pure tissue repairs caused chronic discomfort, as they are the ones claiming it happens. It does feel like it’s overestimated, just like problems with mesh are likely underestimated.
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Wow, very timely. Thanks for posting. And good to see you back.
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Absolutely true
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It also sounds like you may have just had another operation on that side within the last couple months? Maybe it’s obvious to you the discomfort is the same discomfort you’ve been dealing with all this time. But I wonder if maybe you need a couple more months more of recovery to be sure.
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Very sorry to hear this.
The only thing I can say is that I’ve heard that strange pains can come and go for quite a while. One and a half to two years.
What types of strange sensations are you having at the moment? And what was the strengthening operation? I assume the area felt weaker after removal?
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great points. yeah, it’s all so interesting, and there’s so much we don’t really know when it comes to pain. and there’s a lot we don’t know when it comes to implants and the immune system as well. makes all this very tough when it comes to deciding what to do when medical care is needed. we certainly are victims of the times in which we live. there could be a fantastic hernia solution several decades from now. or we could have lived several hundred years ago and having a hernia would mean just wearing a hernia belt and hoping it only worsened slowly throughout the rest of your life.
and what you say about surgery is also true in my experience. you’re never quite the same after. maybe not appreciably worse, but maybe so. but definitely not the same, no matter how minor the surgery.
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Thank you very much, @drbrown – just hoping my unusual symptoms improve without adding anything new. Any improvement at all would be great. I can handle a little residual issues if the foreign body type sensations go away. I don’t have nerve pain really, so hoping this doesn’t add any. Soreness on and off depending upon position and what I’m doing, and some tightness and fullness on my right side. Just feels off.
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Thank you, Dr. Brown