Joan’s story
The mesh caused such intense pain, I did think about suicide to end the nightmare
Care assistant Joan Macdonald was left in such pain that she was unable to walk after a mesh implant.
Initially told her pain was not caused by the implant, she finally managed to persuade doctors that removal surgery should be attempted.
But despite hopes that the op had been successful, she was still left in pain and was devastated when a scan from a private clinic showed more than half of the device was still inside her.
Joan, 53, from Inverness, said: “Right from the start, the mesh implant caused such rippling pain I couldn’t even walk up the stairs and found my legs collapsing underneath me.
“Despite repeated trips to specialists, I was told I simply needed a hysterectomy and that would sort my problems out. “They did that and, of course, nothing changed.
“Finally, after being driven to think about taking my own life rather than live in this nightmare, was told I could get a mesh removal.”
Her Aberdeen-based surgeon Mohamed Abdel-fattah, who once ran a controversial study which offered a trip to a Rio de Janeiro conference to the doctor who managed to recruit the most patients to a mesh trial, declined to comment on individual patients yesterday.
However, he said that full removal would only ever be carried out in Edinburgh or Glasgow and said he would be happy to discuss her surgery with
IJoan, who says she got the impression her mesh had been removed after the operation in 2014.
It quickly became apparent the procedure had not eased her suffering.
She said: “I was still in agony and I even had to self-catheterise. I felt worse than before.” In December, she sought a scan at a private health provider in England and was shocked to be told at least 60% of the TVT-O device was still inside her. She said: “The specialist told me only a small part in the middle had been snipped away and the remaining mesh was still causing me the same level of pain on both the left and right side of my groin. “This is why we need Dr Veronikis to come here and get this stuff out of us. I’m begging our Health Secretary to do the right thing and get him here to help us. “Our surgeons are trying their best, but they don’t have Dr Veronikis’ experience.”