I read this FINALLY found out what VICRYL MESH

The Intrepid Art Collector By Hunter, Lisa (Google Affiliate Ad)LADIES--if you have pain and try to get answers--GOOD LUCK! Book-Auction Records, Volume 2 by Anonymous [Paperback] (Google Affiliate Ad) I can tell you how to lower

The Health Costs so we can be healthy -- The ability to be treated in ONE Place without multiple MRI's,  Etc. 

And without Judgement from 20 Dr's and 50 or so others you encounter. 

DID you watch Mitt--my Fav--LOL  & OBAMA debate?  Boring.  I listened to the boring

YES I SAID BORING debate they used Cleveland Clinic as A Medical Model of Efficiency.

OK!  As long as you HAVE NOT NOT NOT---Did I say not? Ever have FM-Fibromyalgia

 Or Chronic Fatigue Anywhere in your records.

They will SCHEDULE YOU, TAKE  your money-- Than say after waiting 45

Minutes--- WE do not see FIBROMYALGIA PAIENTS-- I blogged this before about Trigeminal Nerve.

Any way after searching & serching i found this article from A SISTER IN PAIN!

"After surgery in a local hospital in Erie to rebuild her vagina and to have a sling implanted to hold up her descending bladder and urethra. The doctor used layers of porcine (pig) graft mesh interspersed with layers of her own skin held in place with zero Vicryl, a type of Synthetic suture in a transvaginal surgery, through the vagina.

Blanks later found from her medical records that she had been implanted with the Monarc Subfascial Hammock, made by medical device maker, American Medical Systems, which had been placed in her  through vaginal incisions using a Monarc stainless steel needle to thread the Prolene mesh graft under the urethra.  Prolene is the commercial name for a type of petroleum-based plastic called polypropylene.

Blanks now says it was odd that she was treated for incontinence since she had not complained of that condition to her doctor, even though it  appeared in her medical records that she had.

After spending less than one week in the hospital Mary was sent home. The first thing she noticed was she couldn’t walk. “About seven or eight weeks later I was still so sick and in so much pain,” she tells MDND.

“I wasn’t urinating, I felt like I wasn’t emptying. I felt like I was still full and I was so tired all the time,” says Mary today. And the pain continued.

But Mary sensed a suspicion. “She kind of treated me like I was seeking drugs and I knew it but what could I do? I’m in her hands now. I said, ‘Look, please help me.’ Toward the end I was just peeing on myself. She told me it was part of growing old. I told her I couldn’t have sex. She said that comes with old age. I was 55-years-old! I wasn’t asking her for drugs, I was asking her to help me.”

Succession of Doctors

As often happens to women implanted with synthetic mesh for incontinence or prolapse and looking for answers – Mary Blanks began asking questions to a succession of doctors. Home

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Suffering in Silence: Mary Blanks Not Silent Anymore About Transvaginal Mesh Sling

Apr 22nd, 2012 | By Jane Akre | Category: Patient Profiles

Mary Blanks

“I’m a pretty smart cookie. I’ve tested genius, but trust me I’m at half capacity.”

So says 58-year-old Mary Blanks of Erie, Pennsylvania. The Methodist pastor was namedMinority Business Woman of the Year for Northwestern Pennsylvania in 1990 as the entrepreneur behind her chain of beauty supply stores,Blanks Beauty & Barber Supplies and for her role as pastor at the church she and her husband, Joe, built.

She closed those stores in 2004, the same year she had her surgery.

Mary says her health problems began several years ago when her bladder totally fell through her vagina, something called pelvic organ prolapse (POP), a common occurrence following a hysterectomy. Her doctor sent her to a urogynecologist who said Blanks would have to have a sling implanted to hold up her bladder as well as a total rebuild of her vagina which was compromised during the hysterectomy.

Mary is no stranger to research. Online she found women saying they were in pain from the corrective surgery.

‘Don’t worry,’ said her doctor, ‘what’s on the Internet is always the worst.’

“That made sense to me,” says Blanks. Assured by her doctor, in October 2004 she had surgery in a local hospital in Erie to rebuild her vagina and to have a sling implanted to hold up her descending bladder and urethra. The doctor used layers of porcine (pig) graft mesh interspersed with layers of her own skin held in place with zero vicryl, a type of synthetic suture in a transvaginal surgery, through the vagina.

Blanks later found from her medical records that she had been implanted with the Monarc Subfascial Hammock, made by medical device maker, American Medical Systems, which had been placed in her  through vaginal incisions using a Monarc stainless steel needle to thread the Prolene mesh graft under the urethra.  Prolene is the commercial name for a type of petroleum-based plastic called polypropylene.

Blanks now says it was odd that she was treated for incontinence since she had not complained of that condition to her doctor, even though it  appeared in her medical records that she had.

After spending less than one week in the hospital Mary was sent home. The first thing she noticed was she couldn’t walk. “About seven or eight weeks later I was still so sick and in so much pain,” she tells MDND.

“I wasn’t urinating, I felt like I wasn’t emptying. I felt like I was still full and I was so tired all the time,” says Mary today. And the pain continued.

When she returned to her urogynecologist and complained she was tired and in so much pain she couldn’t walk, she was given Elmiron to relieve bladder pain to be taken three times a day for the rest of her life. Her general practitioner gave her B6 and B12 shots for the fatigue.

Mary Blanks, Woman of the Year 1990

Then there was a strange turn of event.

In October 2006 after her third time visiting the urogynecologist whom she describes as “the most loving, sweetest, good-looking doctor you’d ever want to meet,” the doctor committed suicide, leaving behind a practice of Ob-Gyn specialists and a family.

Mary’s records disappeared. It wouldn’t be until March of 2012 that she finally located her medical records which had been placed in storage.

Blanks returned to her family doctor still in pain – pain in her legs, her back, her stomach and throwing up.  “It felt like somebody had kicked me between my legs,” she says. But Blanks says he also learned to adjust, and even began another business, J & M Beauty Services, as she went back and forth to the doctors.

As her family doctor was retiring, she now went to his daughter.  The young woman commented on how good Mary looked.

“Every time,” Blanks says. “I’m in a business suit, that’s how I go to doctors.”

But Mary sensed a suspicion. “She kind of treated me like I was seeking drugs and I knew it but what could I do? I’m in her hands now. I said, ‘Look, please help me.’ Toward the end I was just peeing on myself. She told me it was part of growing old. I told her I couldn’t have sex. She said that comes with old age. I was 55-years-old! I wasn’t asking her for drugs, I was asking her to help me.”

Succession of Doctors

As often happens to women implanted with synthetic mesh for incontinence or prolapse and looking for answers – Mary Blanks began asking questions to a succession of doctors.

Her general practitioner (GP) told her to wear a pad and take the antibiotic, Bactrum every day. A trip to the Cleveland Clinic and she received a PAP smear and even though she complained about pelvic pain, Blanks said she never had a pelvic exam. Instead she was sent to a gastrointestinal doctor who swore she had suffered acid reflux disease for 20 years and put her on Nexium. She had a colonoscopy. She was prescribed Cymbalta to treat anxiety. Blanks went to the emergency room for pain and Blanks said every time she pointed to her right side and her pelvis and lower back and legs but never received a pelvic exam.

“I think this metal thing is coming loose inside of me,” Blanks told doctors believing she had been implanted with a metal medical device.

“It was all tied together. They were pretty much saying you must be crazy in so many words. Every time they checked me above and gave me pain meds and sent me home and said nothing was wrong with me. Pretty soon I believed I was crazy. They were blaming everything on fibromyalgia but that is different, it’s a whole other pain. I’ve learned to deal with that,” she says.

Mary & Joe Blanks

Blanks says she asked her GP who prescribed Cymbalta, “I’m in unbearable pain and I can handle pain, trust me. I’m one of those people who is okay with pain. You deal with it. I have a high tolerance for pain. I came out of her office I was in so much pain, begging her for something. My daughter went in and begged her to help me. Nothing. She said I’d be alright if I just took the Cymbalta and gave it a few days.”

Searching for Answers

Mary started connecting the dots. She asked for her medical records to see what the original doctor had done to her. Blanks is not the picture of health. She had suffered a heart attack. She had a metal knee implanted two years ago. She’s treated for fibromyalgia. But nowhere in the records did it clearly say she had been implanted with transvaginal synthetic surgical mesh.

By October 2011, Mary endured another trip to the ER then the hospital. This time she was throwing up and couldn’t stop. Her husband said she couldn’t keep it up. There she received a plethora of diagnosis – Blanks was told she had a growth on her ovary and it looked like cancer. Then her problem was diagnosed as a blood clot on her ovary. Then they said the growth was on her liver, but she needn’t worry.  Blanks says she kept asking for a pelvic check since that’s where her pain was emanating from but doctors kept looking above the waist.

Blanks was assigned a hospitalist, a doctor who works inside the hospital. She warns, “You are not going to believe this.”

“I had been talking to the nurses. I’m a nice person and I like to talk to people. I has just got done saying I just didn’t understand why I can’t get someone to help me.  Now you got to listen to me you are not going to believe me. I have a witness.

“I’m bent over in pain, I don’t know what they had me on and I’m still in pain. He said, ‘Look before we get started let me get you straight right now.’ I said excuse me? He said, ‘Let me get you straight right now. You said nobody would help you. I’ve given you pain medicine,’“ Blanks says she was told by the hospitalist.

“I said, ‘Sir, I’m not looking for pain medicine, I’m looking for some type of diagnosis to find out what’s wrong with me.’  I now know he was trying to bully me. I was confused. You know I’ve been nice to everybody.

“ ‘I don’t care how much pain you’re in,’ she says he said. By now I’m crying. ‘I don’t know what you’re crying about. I lift weights. You don’t mess with me, I’m a bad motherf*……’

Learn More:

AMS YouTube video on placing the Monarc subfascial hammock- Warning- this may be disturbing to watch!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LtPE9-vUz8

Miklos & Moore explain Subfascial Hammock
http://www.miklosandmoore.com/pdf/TOT.pdf

FDA October 2008- Medical Device Alert and Notice, October 20, 2008 – This was the first FDA Public Health Notification about complications associated with surgical mesh used to treat pelvic organ prolapse (POP) and stress urinary incontinence (SUI).
http://www.fda.gov/MedicalDevices/Safety/AlertsandNotices/PublicHealthNotifications/ucm061976.htm

FDA July 2011- Alerts and Notice, July 13, 2011 – This was the second notice – FDA Safety Communication: UPDATE  on Serious Complications Associated with Transvaginal Placement of Surgical mesh for Pelvic Organ Prolapse.  This is a much more strongly worded caution about surgical mesh questioning whether benefit is worth the risk, but falls short of a recall. See symptoms the FDA has received from its adverse event database here.
http://www.fda.gov/MedicalDevices/Safety/AlertsandNotices/ucm262435.htm

Mary Blanks- AMS Monarc Subfascial Hammock sling made of  polypropylene. Blanks has notyet successfully reported to the FDA’s MAUDE database though she says she has made several tries over the phone, but gets cut off before the call is completed. She says she will continue to try.