A hernia is a relatively common condition that can affect over 1 million Georgia residents and other people around the country in any given year. However, just because the condition is common, it does not mean that it shouldn’t’ get fixed. If simply allowing the hernia to stay put isn’t an option, a doctor will likely have to do surgery, and this surgery may involve the use of mesh.
To review, a hernia develops when a person has a weakness in his or her muscle lining the abdomen. As a result of the weakness, some organs can herniate, or swell out, of that weakness in the lining, much like food can protrude or even spill out of a bag that has a weak spot in it.
When doctors repair hernias, they often use mesh since the thought right now is that it will reduce the chance that the hernia will recur, which is unfortunately a fairly common event even after corrective surgery. However, as is the case with vaginal mesh, there have been problems reported with the product, and many types of this mesh have been recalled from the market.
Specifically, patients have reported that some mesh shrank or even moved from one part of their body to another. Both of these types of events can cause a patient serious complications. More generally, medical problems like infections, bowel or obstructions or even perforations, that is, tiny cuts, in an organ have been associated with the use of mesh.
While using mesh to some extent is a risk that one takes on in order to get the benefit of having a hernia fixed long-term, in many cases, the reality is that the manufacturer of this mesh simply put a dangerous and unreliable product on the market. In these sorts of cases, it is possible for patients to get compensation through a medical product liability lawsuit.