I had surgery to repair a RV fistula that I have. I currently have a temporary ileostomy and a j-pouch created.

The surgery to repair the fistula was not successful to I found a second opinion and this surgeon said he would do a gracilis flap to fix the fistula.

A gracilis flap is when a plastic surgeon comes in and removes muscle from my leg and sticks it between the anus and vagina to heal the fistula.

Has anyone experienced this???

I read a discussion about this on here before.

Have you tried the search function before? It's in the left hand side of the tool bar, magnifying glass with "find" next to it.

You might want to search by the name of the procedure to find the older posts. It could be that the people that were talking about it might not see your post.

Good luck

Cate,

I have heard of this procedure before (not necessarily where the skin is gotten from though). I also wanted to tell you that as part of my jpouch creation surgery my surgeon took tissue from my omentum and padded the area between my anus and vagina to prevent fistulas from forming. Your correction approach is the same approach my surgeon would also take to attempt to fix the fistula (again still not certain where he would take the tissue from, but the area your surgeon is recommending sounds reasonable to me).

Who did you get your second opinion from if you do not mind my asking and are you going to tell your first surgeon about it or go with the second surgeon. I am bothered your first surgeon did not suggest this and it leads me to believe he has no experience with this type of surgery because of that. Best of luck.

Yes I had this done 2 years ago. It was the only thing that helped.The only warning I have it is that it was a long long healing process and the scar(not that we don't have plenty) was about 8 inches. I have told many people about this procedure because I think it is the only thing that can work when you are dealing with an area that is broken down.

PM Olive Oil, she's had it done and is a success story. Fistulas love to recur, and the gracilis muscle flap procedure is a fairly invasive, sort of last-attempt procedure for fistulas which have not responded well before.

BUT: please ask your surgeon about the new mesh fistula repair which is showing GREAT results!!! If he/she does not know about it, it is being pioneered at the Academische Ziekenhuis Maastricht. It is well worth checking into before making a final decision.

Gin

What is this mesh fistula repair?