(Transvaginal Mesh Victims News )Steve Thomas’ editorial related to the need for transvaginal mesh victims to receive just compensation for their injuries is a true but shallow statement. Transvaginal mesh patients deserve much more. They deserve the opportunity to benefit from the state of the art therapies available to provide the best medical solution to their individual mesh-induced disability. Transvaginal mesh patients deserve individualized damage assessment by way of a comprehensive life care plan provided by knowledgeable medical professionals which provides for all necessary and appropriate care that improves a patient’s psychosocial welfare, decreases the risk of medical complications, and improve function.
As a physician I am disappointed with how the medical community has responded to the transvaginal mesh debacle. As an attorney I am hopeful the legal community can do a better job; by exposing the transvaginal mesh debacle as well as get the patients just compensation through mesh implant lawsuits.
The medical community has been slow to recognize the centers of excellence related to mesh related complications. Patients with neurologic dysfunction and complex pain syndromes must be managed at a center of excellence that offers the full arsenal of medical procedures available to manage mesh related pain and associated complications. A comprehensive center must provide the necessary procedures including obturator and pudendal nerve neurolysis, urodynamic testing, MRI imaging of the pudendal nerve, pelvic floor physical therapy, diagnostic and therapeutic blocks to the pudendal nerve and its branches, botox injections, ketamine infusion, and neuromodulation. Without the full arsenal of interventions, mesh related treatments will remain inadequate and suboptimal. Too often transvaginal mesh patients have portions of the mesh removed making subsequent procedures more difficulty. Too often are transvaginal mesh patients with pudendal neuralgia or dysfunction of its terminal branches being misdiagnosed at places other than a center of excellence.
As an attorney I also have some concerns regarding how the legal community is managing the transvaginal mesh debacle. At a recent conference I heard little regarding the individual damage assessment that each and every patient deserves. I heard the terms that lumped patients in different categories based upon injuries, which is an oversimplified approach to a complex problem. Each woman’s injuries are unique with key functions of the pelvis affected in uniquely different ways. Sexual, urinary excretion, bowel evacuation, and physical mobility are all effected and at differing degrees. Pudendal neuralgia may involve the main trunk of the nerve, or any of the three branches; all of which cause unique problems. Obturator neuralgia may be as debilitating as pudendal neuralgia. Besides the physical problems, each transvaginal mesh patient will have unique psychological issues that must be identified and addressed. Every transvaginal mesh patient with a significant pain syndrome must obtain the benefit of a life care plan to provide all the necessary and appropriate care into the future to decrease the risk of medical complications and improve the psychosocial wellbeing of these unfortunate patients.
I encourage women to demand more of their medical providers and search out the best care. I encourage women to demand more from their legal representative to obtain individualized damages after obtaining maximum medical improvement as declared by a leader in the field of urogynecology.
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