Johnso

William:

In addition to travel insurance I believe what you will need is referred to as Medical Tourism Insurance. It covers complications arising from the planned medical treatment.

johnso

Ian:

On Hernia Talk Live #85: “Hernia Surgery and the COVID Pandemic” Dr. Towfigh mentioned she will be making her paper on Mesh Implant Illness and mesh removal available on her website after it is published. I assume she is referring to her Beverly Hills Hernia Center website. Hopefully she will provide a link on this forum when the paper is…[Read more]

Good intentions:

It looks like the article is there now. Here is a link:

https://www.generalsurgerynews.com/In-the-News/Article/11-21/Hernia-Mesh-and-Litigation-Where-Things-Stand/65227

William

I don’t have Netflix so I can’t help you with the title of the documentary that Alphey is referring to.

I assume you have watched the BBC’s documentaries on surgical mesh but you may not have seen CTV’s W5 documentary “Mesh Misgivings”. It originally aired in 2017 and was updated in 2018 after the tragic death of Chrissy Brajcic. I…[Read more]

William:

Here is a link I found wrt stainless steel sutures. Nickel is listed and I believe it is generally used in the manufacturing of stainless steel. I don’t know what percentage of nickel is in the sutures used at Shouldice.

Stainless Steel Sutures

I believe most surgeons doing…[Read more]

William:

Dr Towfigh did a Hernia Talk Live Session with Dr. Spencer Netto from the Shouldice Clinic last year. Here is the link:

If you are interested it is worth a listen to hear what they do with the cremasteric muscle, the nerves and why they still use stainless steel sutures.

On the internet I…[Read more]

Dr. Towfigh:

Thank you for letting me know. I realize more research needs to be done.

My preference is a tissue repair but I may not be a suitable candidate. For more than 30 years I have been dealing with chronic IBS and my hernia may too large. Eventually I will follow your advice and get a second opinion so I can avoid any plugs or bilayer…[Read more]

Katherine:

Out of curiosity when you first posted earlier this year I decided to do a search for surgeons in Texas that do hernia repairs and found Dr. Echo’s website. At the time if I recall correctly his website mentioned that he does the Shouldice repair just as Eu’s link indicates. It is interesting that he did not mention this repair to you…[Read more]

Dr. Towfigh:

Hopefully the work/research that you and others are doing on “implant illness” will result in a reliable screening process that can identify individuals who are at risk of developing this illness. I have a few autoimmune disorders, psoriasis and alopecia areata and few other conditions that makes me wonder if I am at a higher ris…[Read more]

Dr. Towfigh:

For me the question you received about neurodegenerative disorders hits close to home. I know two people whose lives were changed after hip replacement surgery. At the time both were in their 80’s and prior to surgery they had mild memory issues. I don’t like using the term dementia. After surgery they both had severe memory iss…[Read more]

Thank you for another interesting and informative HerniaTalk LIVE. Enjoy your “break” when you take it.

Mark:

When I was first referred to a surgeon to have my umbilical hernia looked at the surgeon stuck one of his fingers into the hernia I assume to determine the size of the defect. Based on this the surgeon told me he would repair the hernia with sutures under general anesthetic but because my hernia was asymptomatic I could take the watchful…[Read more]

Good intentions:

Thank you for providing the link to this talk. I have watched some of the videos available on SAGES Youtube channel but I had not watched this one. When this was presented in April 2019 Dr. Bendavid was still alive. He died on September 30, 2019. He was in Hamburg for the 41st EHS congress and scheduled to give a talk on femoral…[Read more]

Dr Towfigh:

Thank you for the advice. It confirms and reinforces my need to do what I can to avoid a plug and patch repair and any other repair that is no longer recommended such as the bilayer Prolene Hernia System. When it comes to medical treatment I am extremely cautious. I had a life altering but not life threatening reaction to a treatment…[Read more]

Katherine:

I have had 2 routine colonoscopies since I was diagnosed with a left sided inguinal hernia. I had some concerns before the second colonoscopy because my hernia was larger. I did not have any complications from the procedures and they did not affect my hernia. For me the procedures were similar to the colonoscopy I had before I…[Read more]