recurring hernia

[debbieshields]

I've had my colostomy for about 10 years. I've had 3 peristomal / parastomal hernia repairs, about every 2 years or so, all at Stanford hospital. The hernia recurred again more than a year ago, and after a year of stalling and refusing to answer my questions, my surgeon referred to to a new surgeon. When I asked him what he would do to prevent recurrence, he said he would do a standard mesh repair and expected it to fail and that I would need another surgery in 2 years. I had recently heard of the Sugarbaker technique, but the Stanford doctors refused to even discuss it. My primary referred me to a surgeon at Mills-Peninsula hospital in Burlingame, CA. He said they use Sugarbaker for almost all of their peristomal hernia repairs, and their recurrence rate is approaching zero. I had the surgery 6 weeks ago, laparoscopic, and am recovering well. I hope that this will be my last repair.

[sassie]

best of luck debbie.... my doc just sewed mine together hopeing that works as well..

[debbieshields]

Can you tell me exactly what he sewed together?

[sassie]

Not really , I asked how are you going to fix the hernia because i read mesh fails all the time, His reply was "i'm going to sew it together "...

[BellyButt]

Debbie,

Your old hernia doctor must be retired in place and refuse to learn anything new. There is so much papers out there about the Sugarbaker method for repair. I had mine done about 1.5 years ago and it looks like new on the CAT-scans.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3580038/

You will be good! Congrats to your permanent repair.

Best of luck!

[steiconi]

Mesh worked fine for me for several years, until I had another surgery and it had to be removed for fear of contamination.

Got another hernia in a different spot, it was repaired with mesh, last year at the Mayo Clinic.
Now I have yet another hernia, where they took out the mesh from the first. Sigh.