NHS patients are being left in chronic pain and unable to work after having hernias repaired with mesh. Surgeons are no longer trained in mesh-free repairs and many do not know how to remove implants, doctors have warned.

Below is a story which is in the iNews August 2025 and speaks to members of Sling The Mesh and also three healthcare professionals who speak of the problems with hernia mesh implants.

The procedures involve reinforcing a weakened body wall with a flat sheet of surgical material. Patients have told The i Paper they face dismissive doctors claiming the pain is “in their heads”. One woman, who now struggles to stand, has had to stop working because of agonising pain following her hernia repair. Patients also said they are not being warned of potential complications before their hernia implant surgeries, which are being increasingly linked to autoimmune diseases, according to experts and campaign groups.

Michelle Clark, 53, from Carlisle in Cumbria, has been unable to work since she had a mesh implant three years ago to treat a hernia in her groin area. After the surgery, she could not walk for a week because of extreme pain in her abdomen, which she still experiences. Four months after the procedure, she tried to go back to working as a chef just two days a week, but “couldn’t stand up because of the pain in my back”. Before the surgery, she had been on her feet eight hours a day. “I’ve always been independent and always had my own money,” she said. “Having to depend on my husband having to pay for everything now – this is why I got so sad.”

She believes her immune system is reacting negatively – she has suffered a year of respiratory infections after the surgery and her asthma has worsened. Six months after the surgery, she started developing hives all over her body and parts of her face kept swelling up. “It wasn’t just one or two hives – I was covered,” she said. “I must have had about 200 a day. And not only were they itching, but they were literally burning my whole skin.” Ms Clark now takes methotrexate, an immunosuppressant that is used to treat inflammatory conditions, to keep the hives at bay. She developed arthritis in her knees, shoulders, hands and fingers, neurological problems, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol. Before the operation, she had fibromyalgia, a condition that causes extreme physical pain and tiredness, which has become much worse. She has had one foot operation and is due for another one in six months. “I can’t walk that far because of the pain in my feet – they’re all swollen,” she said.

Ms Clark said her vision “keeps going blurry” and she is getting “the worst migraines I’ve ever had”.

When she first complained, doctors told her the pain was normal after a big operation. It took her a year to get an appointment with a consultant, who told her the pain “can’t possibly be anything to do with the mesh”. She was referred to the same consultant again last year, who was still adamant that her mesh had nothing to do with her problems. “I left there crying,” Ms Clark said. After complaining to the Patient Advice and Liaison Service (PALS), she was referred to another doctor who told her the same thing. In order to get another assessment, she was told she would have to complete a pain management programme, which helps people learn to cope using tools like psychology and physiotherapy, as opposed to trying to cure chronic pain. Ms Clark got so “low” that she “didn’t want to do anything”, she said, adding: “I just didn’t want to be here.” She said she would not have had the implant if she had been warned of the possible complications and fully understood the risks.

Kath Sansom, from patients’ group Sling the Mesh, said the most common side effects reported from hernia mesh implants are chronic pain, nerve damage, and infection around the site, as well as autoimmune diseases and fibromyalgia. Although vaginal mesh implants were heavily restricted in 2018 due to chronic pain in women, mesh continues to be used to repair hernias. Drawing a comparison to the vaginal mesh scandal, she said: “It’s the same material causing the same problems, regardless of where it’s implanted, regardless of whether it’s in a male or female – it’s this same plastic making people sick. We need more long-term studies into the effect of putting a bit of plastic into a human and letting it sit there as a permanent medical device. I can guarantee there are a lot more people out there suffering from hernia mesh than the records even show.”

Hernias are extremely common – it is estimated that more than 100,000 people in the UK have hernia repair surgery every year. Surgical mesh is most commonly used for hernia repair, but there are suturing methods that involve using a patient’s own tissue. Dr Ulrike Muschaweck, a leading hernia surgeon in the private sector, said mesh-free procedures have the fewest complications if they are done correctly, but most surgeons in the UK are not being trained to do them. She said meshes are sometimes inserted too close to a nerve, which is what triggers chronic pain – common in the groin, testicles and back.

For big hernias, and in cases where the available tissue is too weak, she said mesh is needed, but it should not be used for most repairs. “It’s always the same story,” she said. “The story is the doctor saying: ‘This is the pain which is in your mind, in your head.’ They’re saying that nothing can be done because the mesh is in the groin and that’s it – it’s done so you cannot remove it. And then patients get a high dosage of strong pain medication, and they get their recommendation to go to a psychiatrist to get their mind treated. It is really a terrible story.”

She believes negative complications from mesh repairs are much more prevalent than what has been reported.

Dr Vladimir Iakovlev, a pathologist and associate professor in medicine and pathobiology at the University of Toronto, said mesh implants trigger an immune reaction as the body tries to absorb them, and can “cut through tissues and migrate, deforming and damaging tissues” over time. “The best way to avoid the risks is to avoid a foreign body – use native tissues,” said Dr Iakovlev, a leading expert on mesh. “This can be done for a large proportion of groin hernia, for small primary hernias in younger patients. If this fails, a mesh can be used for a repeat repair. Unfortunately new generations of surgeons adopted a ‘mesh for all’ approach because the technique is easier and the recurrence rate is marginally better for surgeons with lower skills. Publications show that a surgeon’s skill may be a larger factor for outcomes than mesh versus non-mesh.”

Dr Nicholas Farr, a mesh expert and research fellow at the University of Sheffield, said hernia surgery patients are not being warned that they could develop autoimmune diseases because the current NHS England guidance is that there is no evidence linking them to mesh. “While I agree that current evidence is insufficient to establish a conclusive link between hernia mesh and the development of autoimmune conditions, this does not mean that no link exists,” he said.

Janice McClymont, 70, from Borehamwood in Hertfordshire, had two groin hernias repaired with mesh. The first surgery 10 years ago left her in agony and unable to stand up straight. “I was so, so ill,” she said. Since the surgeries, she has developed unexplained incontinence, which has her showering five times a day. Ms McClymont went to see a gynaecologist, who asked her if she had had a hernia repair. He attempted an internal examination and touched an area where the mesh had been implanted. “It was like an electric shock – I couldn’t stop shaking for 10 minutes,” she said. Ms McClymont has been referred, and is waiting for, an ultrasound appointment. She is still searching for answers.

The Royal College of Surgeons referred The i Paper to a statement from the British Hernia Society, which said that “current scientific evidence and international guidelines continue to support the use of prosthetic mesh in hernia repair”. It said it has established a national hernia registry that records and monitors all types of hernia surgeries and has called for this registry to become mandatory, in order to gather “comprehensive reporting”. NHS England did not respond to a request for comment.