According to the Mayo Clinic, a number of treatment options for urinary incontinence are available, depending on the severity and underlying cause of the condition. Doctors may eventually recommend a combination of treatments.
But in most cases, doctors will recommend the least invasive approaches first.
Any surgical procedure carries inherent risks. And in the case of urinary incontinence, at least one surgical treatment allegedly causes far greater problems than the condition it’s meant to treat.
Transvaginal mesh implants, marketed as a treatment for urinary incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse, have generated widespread lawsuits over their tendency to fail and cause health problems. The most common reported problem is the vaginal mesh eroding and sticking through the walls of the bladder and vagina, causing severe pain.
In the first of about 11,000 lawsuits against vaginal mesh manufacturers to go to trial, a New Jersey jury recently awarded $11.1 million to a woman who received a mesh implant manufactured by Johnson & Johnson’s Ethicon subsidiary. (more…)
A report on News Channel 4 out of Oklahoma tells the story of a woman who received a vaginal mesh implant in the belief that it was the most advanced, minimally invasive technique available to cure her urinary incontinence.
An American plaintiff awarded $11.1 million in court because of her injuries from a vaginal mesh implant is lending her support to women seeking similar legal redress in Scotland and the U.K., according to a story in the Scots paper Daily Record.
A story in the Daily Record out of Scotland deals with the plight of Scots women injured after receiving vaginal mesh implants. Hundreds may be “suffering horrendous health problems” from the devices, which are implanted to treat urinary incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse.
Bloomberg reports that Denmark-based vaginal mesh manufacturer Coloplast’s stock dropped the most in almost four years over concerns about lawsuits that patients injured by the implants have filed.
A column by local physician Christie Iverson, MD, in the Bismarck Tribune out of North Dakota describes pelvic organ prolapse. Iverson writes that the condition is basically what happens when a woman’s pelvic floor weakens and the vaginal walls protrude, or a weakened uterus descends into the vaginal canal.
A judge recently ordered Johnson & Johnson’s Ethicon division to pay Irish health care products manufacturer Covidien $176.5 million in damages over a patent dispute, Bloomberg reports.
Urinary incontinence can have a number of causes, according to the Mayo Clinic. They run the gamut from temporary causes, such as medication or overhydration; to relatively minor conditions such as urinary tract infection; to relatively serious causes such as bladder cancer.
CTV Network out of Canada reports on a Manitoba woman who is staging a protest about the vaginal mesh device she had implanted during a hysterectomy in January, 2012.
Members of a New Jersey jury that awarded a total of $11.1 million to a woman who received a vaginal mesh implant manufactured by Johnson & Johnson’s Ethicon subsidiary did not find a design defect, according to a lawyer for the plaintiff. But they did rule that the company failed to warn the plaintiff’s doctor of the hazards, and that patient brochures fraudulently misrepresented the procedure.