For Women: Some Useful Information about the Bladder

Common to almost a quarter of the adult women population in the United States, there are still many who are confused about bladder prolapse. The bladder is a hollow organ belonging to the pelvic region.   Its main function is retaining urine to make voiding controllable.  The bladder, with all the neighboring organs like the urethra, uterus, and rectum, is held in place by the connective tissues that line walls of the vagina.  These connective tissues spread across the vaginal wall.  With age, these tissues stretch and shatter prompting the pelvic organs to be dislocated. This condition is called pelvic organ prolapse.

When the bladder falls into the front wall of the vagina (this condition is called bladder prolapse), symptoms occur such as pain in the pelvis or lower back and during sexual intercourse, urinary problems like stress incontinence and incomplete urination, and the development of infections. Women who have had their uterus removed, and those who have had multiple childbirths are most possible to acquire pelvic organ prolapse. Women after menopause are prone to this as well.  In menopause, there is a lower production of the hormone estrogen.  Since estrogen helps with the production of collagen in the body, lower estrogen level also means low collagen level.   When the body’s collagen level is down, pelvic tissues sag and crash. 

For this condition, treatment options are only few.  Vaginal mesh implantation is one of these.  As most women would say, it is the modern treatment for Pelvic Organ Prolapse and Stress Urinary Incontinence.   But, it has been associated with harmful after effects that are hard to correct if not permanent.  These adverse events include mesh erosion, pain, bleeding, recurrence of prolapse, problems with urination, pelvic organ perforation, and infections.

These negative effects of vaginal mesh prompted recipients of this medical device to file lawsuits against mesh manufacturers across the United States.  There are thousands of lawsuits filed, and there's a great chance this number will increase because there are still many mesh manufacturers producing these medical devices.  Because of these increasing number of vaginal mesh lawsuits, recipients and producers of these deadly medical devices are both requesting the Judicial Panel for a multidistrict litigation of defective vaginal mesh lawsuits. 

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) actively reacted on these issues by providing the public with safety information on the risks posed by the use of these meshes.  However, there are still many doctors performing vaginal mesh implantation to repair prolapsed pelvic organs like the bladder, uterus, rectum, and urethra; these have caused the increase of vaginal mesh lawsuit in the United States. The most common forms of these are urethral and bladder prolapse.

References:

http://www.emedicinehealth.com/prolapsed_bladder/page5_em.htm#Exams and Tests
http://bladder-problems.org/prolapsed-bladder-and-the-fixes/
http://www.cigna.com/individualandfamilies/health-and-well-being/hw/medical-topics/pelvic-organ-prolapse-tv1000.html

Lawyers for Vaginal Mesh Malfunction

Pelvic Organ Prolapse and Stress Urinary Incontinence are two urogynecologic procedures wherein vaginal mesh is used.    When pelvic organs collapse into the vaginal wall, the condition of Pelvic Organ Prolapse (POP) has occurred which causes tremendous physical pain and swelling of the female genitalia.    Stress Urinary Incontinence occurs when a woman’s sphincter muscle and the pelvic muscles fails to support her bladder and urethra disabling her from control over her urinary cycle.  Surgical mesh is placed on the affected area to support the vaginal wall in POP and to reinforce the bladder and urethra in SUI.    Materials for surgical mesh are categorized as non-absorbable synthetic, absorbable synthetic, biologic materials and composite materials.   However, for urogynecologic procedures, vaginal mesh may be composed only of non-absorbable synthetic materials or absorbable synthetic. 

Cases of vaginal mesh complications have been closely monitored by the US Food and Drug Administration.   It subsequently reclassified the vaginal mesh injury as “high risk” after they issued a warning of a five-fold increase of affected women, as their records showed over 1,000 reported mesh malfunctions.   Frequent consequences of vaginal mesh injuries include vaginal mesh erosion, infection, dyspareunia, urinary problems, and recurrence of prolapsed or incontinence.  The FDA sent out an alert in the medical sector for transvaginal placement of surgical mesh, recognizing the serious consequence it may produce. 

Reports for vaginal mesh injuries counted at 1,503 in 2008-2010 according to the FDA.   About 70,000 women were noted by the FDA as recipients of vaginal mesh from POP surgeries during that time.    Various injured women eventually filed lawsuits and complaints as a result.   Vaginal mesh makers, including Boston Scientific Corp. and Johnson & Johnson, are now facing litigation amounting over 600 from diverse claimants as the FDA reports. 

A demand for Vaginal Mesh Lawyers became apparent as more and more women come out to claim compensation for the terrible fate they had endured out of vaginal mesh implants.    As embarrassment and besmirched womanhood pushed countless of distressed patients, lawyer-client relationships had a new meaning.    Aimed at prosecuting unscrupulous manufacturers, a Vaginal Mesh Lawyer shares the cause with countless of American women for utter disregard of product quality and efficiency.    Vaginal Mesh Lawyers became a fountain of comfort, relief and hope for helpless women in the middle of this nightmare as the battle for monetary compensation.   They became a channel for justice and vindication and a mouthpiece to victims who are silenced by this unfortunate event. 

REFERENCES:
businessweek.com/magazine/the-next-medical-device-controversy-vaginal-mesh-09152011.html

bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-20/j-j-vaginal-mesh-approved-by-fda-based-on-older-recalled-device.html
google2.fda.gov/search?q=cache:JmJWnkb8i_UJ:www.fda.gov/downloads/MedicalDevices/Safety/AlertsandNotices/UCM262760.pdf+vaginal+mesh&client=FDAgov&site=FDAgov&lr=&proxystylesheet=FDAgov&output=xml_no_dtd&ie=UTF-8&access=p&oe=UTF-8
fda.gov/medicaldevices/safety/alertsandnotices/publichealthnotifications/ucm061976.htm