The Your Turn Forum provides a space where people can post questions about mesh and medical device related issues and get advice and support from the Mesh News Desk community.
Hernia Mesh Advocacy- Overcoming a Health Crisis and Holding Manufacturers Accountable
Jane Akre
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September 26, 2020
Image: Bruce Rosenberg, The Meshoma Foundation
Mesh Medical Device News Desk, September 2020~ Bruce Rosenberg is a patient advocate and hernia mesh expert. He has been living with his own hernia mesh injuries for more than a decade and as a social worker by training, now advises others on doctors and treatments through his nonprofit The Meshoma Foundation.
Rosenberg is not a doctor and you should always confer with medical professionals before undergoing any procedures. Mesh News Desk will occasionally pose questions from readers to Bruce who will answer them here.
Q: "Mesh should be banned as soon as possible. And for now, shouldn’t we need to develop a muscle softening agent to lose adhesion and coherence to remove hernia meshes?" ~ Jack
A: "No, it is not possible to stop the permanent adhesion of mesh, and you would not want this to happen. By design, mesh MUST adhere to adjacent tissue or it will ball up into meshoma, fluid could collect around it and the body would try to push the foreign body out causing migration. Mesh has pores/holes that tissue grows into to better hold it, it does not just stick to your tissue. You cannot add anything that will cause it to separate, it must be excised/cut out which is very invasive and very injurious. Nerve and other injuries can result. Most pain that mesh patients feel is caused by nerve damage that occurred at the time of implantation. Mesh can further irritate an injured nerve due to the inflammatory response. This inflammatory response is supposed to occur so that the mesh can adhere to you via ingrowth of tissue into the pores of the device. Coated meshes are only coated on one side to protect your bowel, to hold your bowel in place until the outer facing side can adhere well enough while fixation devices such as sutures, staples, fibrin glue, or tacks keep it in place. Patients who feel pain may also have an impingement entrapment of the nerve by a fixation device.
"Before seeking mesh removal you must identify if your pain or other problems are truly due to the mesh or is it primarily a nerve injury. Nerve injuries don’t always manifest as pain, the symptom could be weakness/fatigue, or an infection can cause symptoms also." ~ Bruce Rosenberg
