The awful toll: Ruined sex lives, suspicion – and even suicide
FIONA WILSON’S story is particularly devastating. The mother of two from Dumfries had the mesh surgery in 2011 following the birth of her second daughter a year earlier.
The damage caused destroyed her physical relationship with her husband. Convinced she was having an affair, he left her and committed suicide.
‘The hardest part is not being believed by my husband or the medical profession,’ says Fiona, 47, who finally had the mesh material removed a year ago, but has been left with bowel and nerve damage.
‘All the doctors kept saying the problems were nothing to do with the mesh.’
The pain means she can work only part-time in an office because she can’t sit for more than three hours. Her life with her daughters, aged ten and seven, has also been affected.
‘I can’t walk far with my girls, or do gardening or anything else at all physical.
‘ I’ve been left with two children without a daddy and they haven’t had a true mummy either because of what’s happened to me.’
Denise Davis, 52, from Gorsley, Herefordshire, a mother of two, says at her lowest ebb she
considered suicide because of the pain which started after she had the mesh implanted in 2010 for incontinence.
‘I’ve been told I’ve got posttraumatic stress disorder,’ says Denise. The family building business, which she runs with husband Alan, has suffered because of her pain and fragility. And efforts to remove the mesh have made no difference.
‘I can’t walk or sit down and I definitely can’t have sex,’ she says. ‘I’m just left taking big doses of painkillers every day and mourning the life I used to have.’