Salt Lake City, UTElaine H. (not her real name) has had a terrible time since a Kugel Mesh hernia patch was used to repair her hernia. She has suffered through serious infections and repeated surgeries to try to repair all the problems she has encountered. Even now, after so many surgeries, she still has serious pain and still has some of the Kugel Mesh patch in her abdomen.
"I am just tired of being cut open and tired of being in pain," Elaine says. "I got an infection from the mesh after my first surgery. I was deathly ill. The doctor said that I had triple streptococcus.
"I have had several surgeries to fix the harm from having the Kugel Mesh patch implanted. They've put the mesh in and removed it and put it in again and removed it. It's been a crazy ordeal and there is a lot of pain involved with it.
"The mesh improperly attached to my colon. I had to have surgery to take out the mesh. The doctor took out as much of the mesh as he could, but there is still some in there because it had hooked to my pelvis area. When the doctor took the mesh out it ripped my colon and the doctor said he wouldn't go back in again because I'm too messed up inside. I've had repeated surgeries and I keep getting hernias. I think it could be because of the mesh.
"One doctor sliced my stomach open and said to squeeze it when I'm in the shower, which I did, until I got a blockage and had to have this last surgery. I also saw another doctor because my stomach opened up. It costs me money to go to these doctors all the time. Even now, it's hurting like crazy. My stomach just hangs down. I go to bed sick because my stomach hurts so much. I've seen a lot of doctors for this and I ended up in the emergency room with an intestinal blockage.
"For my last surgery, the doctor said he would take some of my intestine out, but instead he took out as much mesh as he could. There's still a lot of mesh in there, though. "The pain has been constant and, for a while, I was waiting for God to take me, but I guess that was just the infection. It felt like my insides were burning up. I was just completely inflamed and I had a hole in me that just stank. Even after that, it still hurts."
The thing about a faulty hernia repair patch is that it can cause problems for so many of your internal systems. If the patch adheres to your intestines or your stomach, causes internal fistula or gets infected and causes inflammation, you can have severe pain in your abdominal area. That pain can greatly decrease your quality of life and prevent you from carrying on with day-to-day activities. Furthermore, such problems can require second, third and even fourth surgeries. Those surgeries cost money and require long recovery times—and there is no guarantee that the surgeries will stop your pain. Many people like Elaine have found that they have just as much pain following those surgeries as they did before—pain they never expected to have when they went in for their hernia repair surgeries.