Can This Be Right ?

[lolapergola]

There's an article in yesterdays Daily Mail about the Mesh operations ,and the problems people have had with them .It's normally used in urinary incontinence in women .Called TVT op or the TOT op .This article is on 2 women who had mesh used whilst correcting bowel problems .There are several parts in the article which I found hard to swallow " she did not know this was a procedure generally performed on elderly people with limited life expectancy " is one .It isn't .It isn't just for old people and it doesn't shorten your life as it seems to imply. Another is how one woman regularly has 8 inches of intestine "drop out of the hole in her stomach " .Is that possible ? I was told if your intestines dropped out , you'd go into shock .I mean a stoma is a surgical creation , it's not a gaping hole which this article implies .Imagine reading that and being pre op !!
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/arti ... -need.html
any thoughts ?
L.

[oliveoyl]

Hello lolapergola (with your little cat feet),

I read the article. Thank you for the link. When they say the intestine fell out through the hole in her stomach, they must have been talking about a prolapse. If you think of the stoma as the cuff of a sleeve pulled back over itself and stitched to the wall of the abdomen, then a prolapse can be thought of as the rest of the sleeve rolling out past that cuff. Prolapse of the intestine really does happen. I have read about people with stomas lying down and letting the intestine gradually "roll" back in through the stoma. Some ostomy belts have a flap that you fasten over your stoma to prevent a prolapse.

Of course there is no "hole in your stomach." The journalist who wrote the article perhaps did not want to do the research to learn about what a stoma actually is, or how it actually is created. Of course it would terrify those reading it who might be afraid to get an ostomy in the first place. The editor of the paper or whoever is ultimately responsible for the content that finally goes out in the paper, wasn't doing their job properly. Terrible. Another lesson to always do your research about what a surgical procedure actually does.

It is a very frightening article. We are all afraid at the thought of being at the mercy of a doctor who is not the best, or who doesn't really care what happens to a patient.