Good intentions
Forum Replies Created
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I would find an older surgeon with lots of experience, as you suggested, an expert. The Onflex device is one of the more complex hernia repair devices and since you’ve had two surgeries already things are probably pretty messy down there. I don’t think that you want somebody with little experience giving it their “best shot”. The Kugel device is not part of the Onflex device portfolio. So that’s confusing. I’ve linked the Bard page below, and another about the Onflex device.
I think that you’ll have to do some internet research. You might also need mesh removal if the current device is causing the problem. Was the original balled-up mesh removed? If you don’t have all of your medical records it would be worthwhile to get them. There might be important details about the two procedures that you’ll want for the next surgeon.
Good luck. Wish I could be of more help.
https://www.crbard.com/Davol/product-search?pg=2&devicetype=hernia+repair+%26+fixation
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Here is a good place to start, use the search tool below. Can you travel? Supply more detail and there might be more specific information. It’s not really clear what you mean by “fail”, or even what type of hernia you had repaired.
There many different types of repair materials, and methods, and several different types of hernia. Information about yourself, the activities that caused the problem, and the repair itself will all help in finding an appropriate doctor. Good luck.
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Hi msp. Your story did not come through.
Good luck.
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If you’re still having problems it would be worthwhile to get a copy of your medical records. The facility where the surgery was done should have them, with information about the mesh including lot or serial numbers.
Without more information there are really too many possibilities to guess. Seriously, the combination of hernia types, and types of mesh, and the quantity the surgeon implants, plus the number and type of fixations, is huge. It’s more than just laparoscopy and “mesh”. It really is. Even the surgeons tend to oversimplify the complexity.
Good luck.
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Here is the summary I pulled from your first post. It’s not clear which side had the mesh impanted. I count at least four lap procedures, and six total surgeries. Not clear if they were all lap. Each surgery will create its own scar tissue, which takes quite a while for the body to resupply with blood vessels and nerves.
“39 year old mother of 4 and started experiencing pelvic pain back in 2013.
had 2 lap procedures to check for endometriosis.
every report indicated that I had pelvic congestion syndrome….Interventional Radiologist who treats PCS and ended up having a pelvic embolization in Janurary 2017. He said it was the worst case he has ever seen and actually ran out of coils during the embolization.
New GYN did a laparoscopy in March 2017 to check and see what was causing the pain…nothing really showed up other than an ovarian cyst (normal size for a cyst).
October 2017 I had a sharp, stabbing pain in my left groin area. ..Pain went on for 5 days straight and once it started shooting down my inner thigh I knew something was going on.
Regardless….I had a femoral hernia that I was told had to be fixed before it strangulates!
Ended up in the ER on the (March?) 4th with minor swelling in my left leg
IVUS on the (March?) 7th indicated that I barely had any blood flow in my right and left iliac veins as well as my IVC. Ended up having to get 3 large wallstents placed in my veins and stay in the hospital.
Groin and leg pain was getting so much worse while healing from the stent placement. Hernia surgery was on May 2nd 2018. Stopped the Plavix for a week as directed…Surgeon performed a robotic lap procedure and placed a large 3D Max Light mesh over the direct, indirect, femoral and obturator spaces with sutures. Had to spray Arista to stop the oozing I was having inside and then closed me up. Had severe pain and stayed in the hospital for the night.
Was feeling pretty good after the 6 week mark which was awesome! Few weeks ago I noticed that my BM are changing…have the urge and can’t go. After I do finally go I am in pain. I started feeling sharp pains in my left groin last week (July 4th) and brushed it off hoping it would just go away. I now have the pain in my thigh again and when I stand up or walk around it won’t go away.”
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Hello tship. I took your story and broke it down to the actions with dates just to get a better feel for everything that has happened to you. It looks like you’ve had quite a bit of surgery, and also have a high amount of foreign material inside, the stents and the mesh. Basically, your insides are like a battlezone where the fight has been going on for quite a while. Probably lots of scar tissue taking up space and pulling on various other parts as it restructures itself.
It looks like it’s been 10 weeks since the 3D Max implantation. What sort of exercise have you been doing? I found that just hiking or walking was a good way to get fluids flowing after mesh implantation. After mesh removal I found that once I could start running again, that that was very helpful in normalizing my screwed-up abdomen. In both cases it helped with pain and soreness and also helped with digestion and bowel movements. Sometimes, it was counterintuitive, where I thought that rest would help but after 2-3 days of no change a good long hike or run helped instead. You might try easing in to more activity and seeing what happens.
Since it has been 10 weeks, any changes from now forward will probably be slow. The mesh is locked in to place, aside from slow migration. It might pull free in areas but the bulk of it will not move much.
Keeping a daily log of your activities and the body’s response can help you figure out any positive cause-effect relationships. Even if you decide to have more surgery you’ll want to be in good physical shape, so workng through the pain, if it doesn’t get worse, will still be beneficial, I think. Not a doctor, just my own experience. Good luck. I’ll post my edit of your first post next.
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Your diagnosis is for a herniated disc, in your backbone, not the type of hernia this site is focused on. This site’s focus is about abdominal and inguinal hernias.
You might try one of the bodybuilding sites, they have a lot of heavy lifters, with assorted problems. Good luck.
Still, somebody might have a suggestion so check back occasionally.
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Dr. Towfigh’s practice page has some comments about biologic meshes. Click on “Biologic Mesh” if it doesn’t show up.
http://www.beverlyhillsherniacenter.com/hernia-surgery/hernia-mesh/#1472502219863-73f0cc8a-cd8e
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quote Wolfshole:After having a laparoscopic surgery with a mesh two weeks ago on the left side, I experience scrotum pain. My left testicle is swollen, although it’s not blue anymore.
Does anyone have a similar experience? Does the pain subside?
Can you give more detail? There are many many different types of mesh, and procedures, and types of hernia. It is very common for the scrotum to be swollen and discolored after hernia repair.
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When you talked to Shouldice did you get beyond the front desk or did you talk to a surgeon? Preferably the highly experienced one. At big institutions there is often a basic set of questions that are asked for screening purposes, by the support staff. You’d think the doctor with 20+ years would have offered more.
I’m not sure that Dr. Towfigh is very active on reading the daily posts. But I think that she does check her messages. You can click on her name in any of her posts and there will be an option to send a message. You can also contact her practice, via the link on the “Hernia Surgeons” page.
Good luck. Keep pressing forward.
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I would find an “old head” hernia repair surgeon, a surgeon who has lots of experience with open mesh repairs and also removes mesh if it’s a problem. I think that there are essentially two classes of hernia repair surgeons – those who follow the guidelines and instructions and training to the letter but don’t know what to do when there are problems, and those who really understand how things work and what they’re doing with the mesh when they make the repair. It’s that way in many fields. Profession as opposed to expertise.
It might be that you had mesh shrinkage that is pulling on surrounding tissue. Can you give more detail on the material used? Heavy/light, plug, one of the odd unique designs? And type of hernia, direct or indirect. There might be a clue there. After seven weeks the healing should be pretty far along.
Don’t spend too much time trying to stay inside your insurance system either. Your choices will be limited. Post your general location and somebody might have a good surgeon in mind. Good luck.
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“Sports hernia” is one of those misnomers, like “tennis elbow”. Even athletic pubalgia is misleading. Good luck. The info about the onset of the problem is probably a good clue for the right surgeon.
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I think that you need to find a surgeon with expertise in infections and mesh removal. Dr. Towfigh is one, at the Beverly Hills Hernia Center. She is at the bottom of the page I linked below and is the administrator of the site. Many surgeons are stuck doing things exactly by their insurance programs’ protocols, even in Canada I imagine. They have to fight to get special cases like yours done properly.
There are other surgeons in the states. Can you travel?
https://www.herniatalk.com/surgeons
Click “Biologic Mesh” on this page – http://www.beverlyhillsherniacenter.com/hernia-surgery/hernia-mesh/#1472502219863-73f0cc8a-cd8e
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Another person on the same forum had open repair with mesh 8 years ago and said he is also very happy with it. Said it was “perfect”. Another weight lifter.
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Somebody on another forum just reported that they were happy with open repair using mesh, after 19 months. Body builder/weight lifter. They would choose the same path if they had to do it again.
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I would ask the surgeon who is planning the exploration what they are looking for and what they will do if they find it. That’s not very clear. Will a second surgery be required or will they fix it right away. If you had laparoscopic implantation for the first repair and you have open surgery for exploration then you will have scarring from both sides. I think that some of the pain from open surgery is from the incisions themselves. You might end adding pain on top of pain. There are laparoscopic methods of exploration.
Also, I keep saying this, but it’s very important to keep track of the details, of your surgery and of what, exactly, causes the pain. If you just tell people that you had a hernia repaired and it hurts that could mean so many different things that nobody can give you good advice. Write all of the details down and keep them in a file. Copy and paste them in to your communications. If people can’t find your old posts then you’re starting from scratch on each new thread.
Good luck.
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quote Orchard212:At the end of March, I had robotic repair of bilateral inguinal hernias with mesh.
The surgery and recovery went fine. Nearly 8 weeks after surgery, while walking, I experienced the same pain that I had prior to surgery on my right side. Since then, the pain has been almost constant while walking and sometimes more pronounced than it was prior to surgery.
My questions are, is it too soon after surgery to consider that my right side hernia was not fixed or has reoccurred? If not, should I see the surgeon about the pain or the sports doctor who originally diagnosed me, or possibly a hernia specialist?
Can you give more detail on the type of mesh used for the repair. There are so many possibilities.
Are you saying that pain goes away when you’re inactive? It’s only there while walking?
You should certainly tell your original surgeon about the problem so that he/she knows, for future reference at least. It’s hard to give advice on which type of doctor you should see, since levels of expertise can vary even within a specialty. A hernia “specialist” could mean high volume or high quality.
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Hello routern7. I just tried to post in your other thread but it came up as “Unapproved”. Hopefully Dr. Towfigh will fix it soon. Good luck. Keep track of what specifically causes your pain. It’s important.
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You’re in a tough spot routern7. After one and a half years the mesh will have much tissue ingrowth and with your activity level will have shrunk to about 60-70% of its original size. It will be stiffer now and won’t conform to the shape of the body around it if it moves. Nothing at all like when it was implanted. So if you did pull some mesh free it will now be like a stiff piece of plastic free to poke and rub on the nerves and tissue around it.
The problem you might have with exploratory surgery is that it will look like healthy tissue, especially since you have reduced your activity level to compensate for the pain. The inflammation will heal up and by the eye it will look like “normal” mesh with healthy tissue surrounding it.
If you can feel the mesh poking you in certain areas as you move and you feel that it is what is causing the nerve irritation and pain, that can be used as a reason for having it removed. But you have to become an expert about your own body and be able to describe it well. If you had been in a car accident and a piece of stiff plastic had penetrated your abdomen it would be an easy decision for a doctor to remove the offending object. It’s just very hard for people to realize that the soft pliable material they implanted has morphed in to a stiff irritating foreign object.
Good luck. Keep track of what actions, specifically, cause the pain, and use very descriptive words for what the pain feels like. It can be difficult but it’s necessary for the doctors to make that decision with you to remove the material, if there is no other recourse. But, as I found, nobody can decide for you.
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quote UhOh!:Not to hijack this thread, but a related question: Is it true that ease of manual reducibility and tendency to spontaneous self-reduce upon lying supine can determine the type (between direct and indirect) and if so, how accurate are these indicators?
I know that my hernia had what seem to be the classic signs of a direct hernia – a peaked bump medial to the groin when standing, that disappears when lying down. I haven’t see a clear explanation of what, exactly, is stretching or tearing and/or why a bump forms there. I assume though that the “tear” extends across or in to the inguinal canal. The image of a round hole is probably incorrect, it’s probably a longitudinal or oblong defect. Some of the omentum and intestine is pressing directly outward, visibly, and some is pressing in to the canal, where the spermatic cord is. While I was trying to live with my hernia, at times my right testicle would get pretty screwed up as the spermatic cord got pinched.