I seem to have a lot of questions these days . . . My newest one is about experiences with surgery (any kind) for Sjogren's patients. I recently had surgery to repair a small incisional hernia (the result of a small incision from a surgery I had many years ago for endometriosis). The hernia surgeon's report notes that there was "extremely heavy scarring" (internally) around the old incision. I just saw a post from Tharrell in another thread where she mentioned a recent hip replacement that failed due to excessive scar tissue. I'm wondering if excessive scar tissue is common in Sjogren's patients after surgical procedures.
My original surgery was more than 10 years ago, and Sjogren's wasn't even on my radar until earlier this year. However, I've had on-and-off problems with eye dryness since my teens. So it's possible that, for me, there were issues long before I was aware of them.
So I wanted to ask: If you've had surgery as a Sjogren's patient (or at any time after you believe your Sjogren's syndrome had kicked in, even if not yet diagnosed) how was your recovery? Also, do you think it affected the progress of your illness?
Just wondering if maybe the hernia repair surgery wasn't a good idea -- either because of the potential for excessive scar tissue, or because it might trigger worse Sjogren's symptoms, etc.
Hi Lillia. I actually asked my rheumatologist about it. I have mixed connective tissue disease, overlap of lupus and scleroderma, in conjunction with sjogren's. I was worried that the scleroderma could cause more fibrosis, scar tissue. She said no, my mctd was not involved in that. She did say that the prednisone can delay healing time which was not the problem here. I had a lot of inflammation after the hip replacement and a steroid shot helped greatly. I actually have averaged two surgeries a year in the past 4 years and never had any complications from any of them. My orthopedist is still trying to figure out what happened and I'm doing my own research as well.
Hi Tharrell,
Thank you so much for your response. It is very helpful. I think maybe this is one of those instances where I'm just manufacturing things to worry about unnecessarily.
I hope you recover well from the hip replacement issues, and that your holidays are happy and restful.