A new study is just the latest to confirm that there is an autoimmune response some women experience after a vaginal mesh implant.

It further dispels the notion many doctors believe that vaginal mesh adverse side effects are psychological in nature and just in a woman’s head.

For years, doctors have told women with vaginal mesh adverse side effects that the pain is in their head. Emerging research confirms the pain is in the pelvis and is a real physical response to their vaginal mesh.

Few studies have focused on the body’s response to a vaginal mesh implant.

This recently published research from McGee Women’s Hospital at the University of Pittsburgh found the body elicits an autoimmune inflammatory response to the placement of vaginal mesh as the body fights the perceived foreign invader.

Twenty-seven women underwent mesh removal or excision due to pain or mesh exposure or erosion into the vagina. The explanted mesh was compared to 30 vaginal biopsy specimens from women who did not have a vaginal mesh implant.

The women who were experiencing vaginal mesh adverse side effects had an elevated inflammatory response to the vaginal mesh medical device.

Researchers found the excised vaginal mesh had higher levels of macrophages, a type of white blood cell that responds to a foreign body.

An M1 is a macrophage that is proinflammatory leading to chronic inflammation and a ultimately a potential for tissue damage. A M2 macrophage remodels tissue which, if it is ongoing, can result infibrosis and encapsulating of the mesh.

Fibrosis is essentially scar tissue formation that causes mesh to harden, become rigid and entrap nerves. Fibrosis causes chronic inflammation and that in turn can result in the vaginal mesh shrinking up to 50 percent.

Mesh removed because it was eroding into the vagina had an 88.4 percent greater response and higher number of macrophages and vaginal mesh degradation. Mesh removed because of pain had a higher number of M2 cells and was consistent with fibrosis.

This bodily response can go on for years, researchers discovered. The study is published in the August 2016 issue of the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology.

Other Possible Vaginal Mesh Adverse Side Effects

Additionally, it is believed that the surgical design of vaginal mesh devices inhibits surrounding tissue from receiving nutrients and oxygen, thereby causing impaired healing. These other possible vaginal mesh adverse side effects include:

• Mesh erosion through the vaginal tissue
• Exposure of extrusion of mesh
• Painful sexual intercourse
• Perforation or puncture of the bladder, intestines and bowels, as well as blood vessels around the vaginal wall
• Recurrent Pelvic Organ Prolapse
• Recurrent Stress Urinary Incontinence
• Urinary problems
• Vaginal bleeding

None of these discoveries about vaginal mesh adverse side effects were made prior to it being approved for market because mesh manufactures were not required by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to do any clinical trials.

Instead vaginal mesh was allowed to be put on the market to treat pelvic organ prolapse or stress urinary incontinence with marketing promises and little to no actual research ton adverse side effects. Doctors and marketers considered accurate placement of the vaginal mesh all that was necessary to call it a success.

However, this recent study and tens of thousands of lawsuits filed by injured women and their loved ones suggest that the medical device may lead to permanent vaginal mesh adverse side effects, even when they are removed or partially removed.