Chaunce123
Forum Replies Created
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Have I messed up my hernia surgery?
I hope you don’t mind me chiming in on this since I am not a doctor, but it’s wonderful to hear a success story like this as a fellow patient. Many of us can relate to continual misdiagnosis and pain, and know the frustrations and dread that goes along with it. It’s good to hear you had the initial success, and hopefully this newer discomfort you have now is a quickly passing experience.
Is your current pain all the time, constant? Or does it only occur after specific movements? Does it only occur with specific exercises? Does the pain respond well to anything?
Does your current discomfort and pain feel like that same hernia feeling again? If so, perhaps a hernia recurred. Recurrence is rare, but it’s always a possibility with any hernia.
Also, scar tissue builds up around any injury or surgical repair site, and scar tissue can tear, and then it remodels over time. My understanding is that this scar tissue remodeling process basically happens constantly any time it is torn or adjusted, then it eventually settles. If you are actively exercising a region with scar tissue, this tearing/remodeling process is perhaps more likely? If so, it could be painful or aggravating as the process sorts itself out. A question suited for the doctors, certainly.
Finally, and this may not be relevant whatsoever to your case, but from what I have learned from my own journey. You have previously experienced a period of long term pain. A side effect of long term pain is that the patients body starts guarding the areas that hurt, whether intentionally or not, and this guarding can impact other mechanics of the body. So, theoretically, if you had pain in your groin or pelvis before, you may have adjusted your gait, posture, stance, activities, to accommodate that in an attempt to prevent aggravating the initial condition (the hernia). This could make it more likely to experience a strain, cramp, tightness, etc, in related regions, if they became tighter, weaker, or stronger to accommodate the guarded injury. It sounds like you are actively doing physical therapy which I would suspect is a good thing, though from personal experience having unrelated issues resolved with physical therapy, sometimes physical therapy is painful before it feels better again.
I hope any of this is helpful, if not, I’ll shut up now 😉 Anyway, check up with your doctors, they know best!
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Finding no-mesh inguinal hernia surgeons on west coast?
I am just a patient seeking info and have done a bit of research on groin injuries and hernias, so I am glad if any information I have gathered is helpful to others. This is one of the best forums on the web, being able to talk to doctors directly is invaluable!
Dr Towfigh, can you share some of your specifics on tissue repair? Do you have specific requirements or limitations for the patients you do the tissue repair for?
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Diagnosing
This may be helpful, specifics to sports hernias.
MRI and Ultrasound sequences demonstrating the sports hernia injury
http://sportsmedicineimaging.com/topics/sports-hernia/
On this page it says the difference in surgery is there is “no hernia sac” with a sports hernia since it is just a torn muscle just as Dr Towfigh mentioned (ANATOMICAL SURGICAL PHOTOS< BE FOREWARNED)
Radiology interpreted by an expert with a positive exam appears to be how the diagnosis is made
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Finding no-mesh inguinal hernia surgeons on west coast?
Doctors I have found regarding the original tissue repair type on this side of the country is follows:
– Dr David Johnson in Palm Springs CA used to work at Shouldice, so one would assume he still does a Shouldice repair if requested?
– Dr Shirin Towfigh in Beverly Hills CA has mentioned on these forums she does a tissue repair in some situations. Perhaps Dr Towfigh can offer her thoughts on this?
– Dr Kevin Petersen in Las Vegas NV advertises on the internet as a no mesh doctor and is mentioned frequently on web forums
– Dr William Brown in Fremont CA does a no mesh repair for inguinal hernias and for sports hernias and is frequently mentioned on web forums
Elsewhere you have Dr Grischkan in Ohio, Dr Tomas in Florida, Dr Meyers in Philadelphia, and Shouldice in Toronto.
Surely there are others too, but who and where is anyones guess. Many are retiring or have retired. The one person I knew who got a no mesh repair somewhat recently had their doctor retire almost immediately after, but they said they only did no mesh on fit patients and only used mesh on obese patients. THEORY: that may be why the tissue repair is becoming much less common, as people are mostly obese now. Shouldice makes you lose weight for example, they will not operate on an obese patient. There are famous sports clinics in Philadelphia and in Germany that are similar, it appears they do tissue repairs on fit patients only.
The questions you want to know of the doctor if you go this route are this:
– Are you eligible for the tissue repair?
– Do you recommend this repair FOR YOUR SPECIFIC CASE and why?
– What is your overall EXPERIENCE with the tissue no mesh repair?
– What are your complications with this repair?
– What is your rate of chronic pain? What is the severity for the patient?
– What is your rate of recurrence?
You don’t want to get a no mesh repair from someone who has only done one once but is willing to try it out on you, you want one from someone who has done many of them, someone who knows the anatomy because its very complex (just look at a medical textbook yourself, most things make sense and are identifiable and then you get to the groin section and suddenly none of it looks like anything and none makes sense, the inguinal region is very complicated) and preferably you want someone who DOES many of them on a regular basis.
If you know of another regular tissue hernia doctor in your area you should add them to the list.
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Autoimmune Watch wait or fix
Is this a documented phenomena that patients with autoimmune issues have mesh rejection? Is that for all autoimmune disorders or very specific ones?
You’re located in the midwest it sounds like which makes you fairly close to two well known hernia tissue repair clinics that are commonly mentioned on the forums:
Dr Grischkan in Ohio, who does a tissue repair or a Gore-Tex repair
Shouldice Clinic in Toronto, which almost exclusively does a tissue repair
Personally if I had the choice and was in that general area I would go to Shouldice in Canada, they are a well oiled machine, their success rates are impressively high and it’s rare to hear a complaint. Though I am not a doctor, so what do I know?