Chamber and committees

Martin O'Neill submission of 1 September 2021

PE1865/QQQ: Suspend all surgical mesh and fixation devices

I had submitted my plea supporting the purposed petition raised by Roseanna Clarkin petition number: PE1865 in the banning of mesh and all its fixations when I was implanted with mesh.

I must add further to the reasons of why it should be banned, even though I have had removal of this mesh.

I am now 7 weeks post op.

I’ll never be the old me prior to mesh.

But I am in some ways better.

I cannot feel the mesh poking into my internal organs when I sit for the loo.

I can’t feel it gripping at my body trying to rip me apart.

I can feel the numbness it’s left behind.

I can feel every single night day minute second the bone pain that just does not and has not gone away since the day it was implanted.

The spasmodic issues I have unfortunately look like they are here to stay, however time, time may grant me that horror to leave.

The mesh twisting me. Pulling at my internals, my movement got worse over 7 years due to the mesh shrinking.

I could feel this.

Fused to two separate parts of my body, shrinking whilst being anchored in at both ends the mesh raged its onslaught of pain and infection.

I felt this torment everyday.

I’m still mesh afflicted due to the device being left so long in my body that pain and damage is permanent.

BUT I have hope. It’s out! There is at least a possibility of me doing something with life rather than taking pills that don’t allow basic functioning, coupled with pain that still doesn’t stop sleepless nights and an overwhelming sense of wanting to die than live in that horror of pain that mesh causes.

I am slowly after mesh explanting recovering what remains of my life.

I can move, a little better.

I can bend, a little better.

I am starting to walk, a little better.

All under the guise of still debilitating chronic pain and spasmodic issues, however just less, a little less.

The thing is, I can’t feel the mesh!

I can’t feel it’s torment.

I can’t feel its hell burning.

It’s a little more like smouldering than burning.

It’s a little like ash than fire. It’s walkable, bearable but it still hurts.

Life has hope now.

It has a possibility.

Mesh removal is the only way to give patients the best chance of recovering and to rebuild the best possible life left for the patient.

Help us try and take something back by banning mesh and looking at it with fresh eyes so this doesn’t happen to another soul.

This torment can be avoided.