Gardner
Forum Replies Created
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Bowel issues with Hernia pain
I have suffered from constipation/IBS-C for years and years, it had gotten much worse right before my hernia “popped out” 3 years ago and it continues to be an aggravating factor in inguinal mesh pain. Not fun. My advice/rule of thumb is to never let the bowel contents rest in the sigmoid colon for more than one day. Make sure it moves and try to get it soft.
In the US, there is a stool softener Sodium Docusate that seems to work. It is not allowed to be sold in Germany for some reason, so while I was there, they prescribed me the probiotic Mutaflor (Escherria Coli) as a stool softener. E. Coli is not legal in the US, so I could not bring it with me here. But in small amounts, it did appear to get the bowels moving gently.
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top hwrnia in wisvonsin
These are good questions to think about and to ask. 25%-30%? Wow, I did not know that. Is this an official/RCT finding?
With regards to my original repair, it was done by the head of surgery at one of Harvard’s teaching hospitals. I wanted someone with the most experience and best recommendations. I know it is sad that the outcome was not what I expected, but what can you do about it, aside from moving on?
With regards to Dr. Greenberg’s experience in removing mesh items through TAPP, he has done a few removals. I do not remember how many. You can read a testimony of one successful surgery by him here:
I did share the Ultrasound .gif file on this website, I did not receive any particular comments with regards to the ultrasound. Perhaps, the ultrasound imagery is too non-specific.
You mentioned Germany – yes, I did go to Germany this summer and talked to a surgeon (not the one in Munich). He said there is nothing anyone can do for me now except wait – if the bulge that I have is a recurrent hernia, it will eventually get bigger and will become self-evident. If the bulge that I have is calcified mesh – it will eventually get firmer and will be more visible on the scans. If the bulge that I have is some kind of an inguinal mass (lipoma), it will get bigger and will become more self-evident with time.
Or, I could go under the knife with exploratory and then find out what this bulge is.
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top hwrnia in wisvonsin
I had good experience with Dr. Greenberg in Madison so far. Of course, UW Health as a hospital is not Shouldice (they do surgeries other than only hernia repair) but Dr. Greenberg is way above his peers in the state comparatively. Few points to add here:
– Unlike so many other surgeons out there, he agrees that mesh causes problems more often than not and that mesh removal (especially mesh plugs) is a warranted procedure.
– He is against the use of tacks in securing mesh in pre-peritoneal surgery.
– In evaluating my chronic groin pain, he questioned the judgment of the original surgeon who put a mesh AND a plug into the body of 6ft1 tall 195 lb man (myself). He believes in avoiding mesh plugs in the inguinal ring by all means possible. Mesh patch AND a plug is just too much mesh to handle.
– The original surgeon who repaired my inguinal indirect hernia was one of Dr. Greenberg’s teachers in Boston. Questioning your own teacher is what I’d call independent thinking.
– He is very clear about explaining the drawbacks and benefits of mesh removal. Many surgeons who remove mesh do not talk about the effects of mesh removal on vas deferens. Mesh removal could be a zero-sum game, where your pain is gone but so is your fertility.
Yes, of course, I am a bit discouraged that I still do not have a clear diagnosis for the re-grown lump in my inguinal ring and groin pain. But he is not keen on jumping to conclusions too quickly (which is professional, I think) – after two ultrasounds and an MRI, there is still no clear indication of what my lump is. Among hypotheses are: scar tissue growth around the plug, or lipoma regrowth, or small recurrence. Without an exploratory laparoscopic (which I do not want), there is probably no way to know for sure.
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Recurrent Inguinal Hernia vs. Malgaigne’s Bulge vs. Preperitoneal Lipoma regrowth
Thank you so much!
The MRI radiologist did not find a hernia but the Ultrasound radiologist did diagnose this as a recurrent hernia.
The surgeon whom I am seeing at our research Hernia Center disagrees – from looking at the videos it does not appear that the pre peritoneal fat “bulge” enters into inguinal canal. It is pushing against the posterior wall of the canal in the area of the deep internal ring – so where the plug is.
The most up to date hypothesis on the source of the lump is that the lump is actually the mesh plug felt under my skin. The most up to date hypothesis on the source of my pain in the hip and inguinal area is the scarification of the mesh plug pushing on the nerve that has regrown after neurectomy.
Have you ever seen patients who present with the feeling of the bulge that just turns out to be as simple as a mesh plug pushed by fat? Is this common?
The plan is to proceed with conservative measures and if that fails – laparoscopic removal of the plug is in order.
Anyway, I will refer this website to my surgeon, who may know about it already through friends at UCLA. I really appreciate that this forum exists: not for the purpose of obtaining the diagnoses, but for theoretical discussions about various nuanced problems of hernialogy that cannot be answered by “regular” general surgeons.
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Recurrent Inguinal Hernia vs. Malgaigne’s Bulge vs. Preperitoneal Lipoma regrowth
I could not attach the video to the message but I can send it via Google Docs here –
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6VD41DUDgAZZVZHNnNrRTVKU3M/view?usp=sharing
Hopefully, it works.