ASIA Syndrome: Understanding the damaging effects of Mesh Implants

Are you experiencing chronic illness or new symptoms after having an operation with implants? Then today I've got your back because I'm speaking with a renowned environmental engineer and functional diagnostic nutritionist, Dr. Sharon Surita, to discuss the effects of Asia syndrome. Hello and welcome to Beyond Diagnosis, a podcast to raise your awareness. Decisions and voice for alternative practices so you can take back control of your health. I'm Rita De Michele, your host, a mindset and empowerment coach, and the founder of the Onus platform. Join me each week so you can create the health of your dreams. Welcome, Dr. Sharon.

Thank you so much for having me today, Rita.

Oh, it's a pleasure. This is really, I think, so new for so many people. You, you specialize in detoxification. You also, you know, around toxins, mold, chemicals, but you are very passionate around implants, specifically the mesh implants. And for anybody listening and watching, if they don't understand what that kind of mesh implant means, is if you have a hernia and they put a mesh implant in there to secure so it doesn't burst again, basically, in simple terms. Can you tell us a little bit about that? And I believe you have a personal story around it.

Yes, I do. Absolutely. I'd love to share this story with you and your audience because it's one thing that Pivoted my whole life. I did a 180-degree transition from what I thought was going to be my career, my retirement location. I was an environmental engineer full-time, and that's where I developed a specialty in environmental toxicants. So looking at exposures, chemical exposures primarily, but in the air, water quality, and things like that from an environmental engineer's perspective. So designing structures, designing stormwater systems, designing even landfill treatment systems to minimize gas toxicity from methane from the landfills, a lot of other toxic and noxious odors from landfills, and then the water quality, which is a big, big piece in all of our human health. But going into 2019, when I had my own hernia repair surgery, it was supposed to be a biosynthetic No, not a biosynthetic. It was a biologic mesh because I had already heard about lawsuits for the polypropylene mesh, which is the gold standard. That's the one that they use in probably over 90% of hernia repairs because it reinforces that structural defect in the abdomen. Yes, absolutely. But it's plastic, right? And we know how toxic plastic is in the environment, but we're implanting this in the human body. So you can think about that. And I already knew I didn't want the polypropylene, and I fought for biologic mesh. But what I was implanted with was a hybrid. So it still had plastic in it, a small percentage, but enough to trigger that inflammatory response, which you called out as ASIA syndrome. And that is an autoinflammatory autoimmune syndrome that's induced by any adjuvant. That is what ASIA stands for. And that's what I experienced. That's what people with breast implants tend to experience. And, you know, it's becoming more— not a formal diagnosis, but doctors are understanding that it really is an issue that can, can be happening with people who are having these seemingly benign surgeries.

You know, I'm, I'm actually really surprised because like yourself, I had hernia operation and I had mesh put in. I was never told or educated what that mesh was. In actual fact, When I had the operation, no one even told me that I was going to have mesh. They just said that I was having a hernia operation. It was only once after the operation they said, oh, you know, we've added a mesh and we put a mesh on the other side just in case that one bursts too. But I was never told. I was never educated about what it was. And when he said mesh, naturally my mind just went, oh, it must be some surgical grade. I just naturally thought like a super, super fine kind of stainless steely thing, you know, that would be, you know, surgically appropriate for putting inside a body, except— but now you're telling me it's plastic.

It is.

I had it in 1999, and now just this second I found out that it's plastic.

Yeah, yeah. And some of them are made out of different forms of plastic. So we know polypropylene is the main one that I mentioned. The Facix ST, which is now becoming more commonly used because it is that hybrid mesh and it still holds most of that structural integrity, at least for the first 3 to 6 months. That one is supposed to degrade over a 6-month period, but it's been seen, it's been known to not degrade at all. I've met numerous people who have had explant surgeries years later and that has not even changed in constitution and size. It's still there. It's causing an inflammatory response. So of course there's granulomas observed when they have the explant, transplant, lots of inflammation. And you can see the pathology reports that are showing it still persists, like years and years after, it's persisting, that inflammatory response, which is what can cause chronic disease or chronic disorders.

So they're actually noting that there is a high inflammatory response on their blood work, and they're ruling out everything else, and they can pinpoint it down to the mesh.

Right. And it can be a very long time before they can understand, they can come to the understanding because as you, you had your surgery, you said in '99 or what year was that?

Yeah, '99.

Right, right. So you might have symptoms that might be associated with so many other conditions, you know, with common symptoms. You have nausea, you have tachycardia, maybe blood pressure, blood sugar dysregulation, fatigue. You have Well, you could say it's beyond fatigue. And I know some people use the term chronic fatigue or what's the other one? Myoencephalitis?

Yes.

MCS, MFS, which one is it? It's one of those acronyms. So with this, you can also have things like vascular compression issues. Some people get diagnosed with the condition POTS or orthostatic hypotension. Some people finally receive something akin to mast cell activation syndrome because the inflammation is now systemic. It's not just localized. So if we don't find a way to tamp that reaction down, and some people are fortunate to be able to have an explant, but some people aren't. So you have to figure out what things you can do to reduce the whole body reaction. Through detoxification.

You used the word there called— am I right in saying explant? Explant?

Yes.

What does that mean?

An explant is the opposite. So it's when a surgeon can go in and do a full or partial removal. And that's the case more times than not. People can go in and do a partial removal, especially if you're not going to a hernia specialist or someone familiar with breast implant illness, for instance. They only remove part of what is determined to be causing the problem. And so that won't solve the problem altogether because you still have something triggering your body, right? So with an explant, which I was fortunate to be able to have, it was a full removal. And again, mine was a biodegradable mesh, but it came out fully intact with the exception of some of the edges that were fraying already. They were fraying, but it was more along the lines of the inflammation causing it to kind of contort within my body.

How would someone know whether their mesh years later is still intact? Would they have an x-ray, or like, how do they go if they're suspecting that they've got these symptoms? Which was one of the things I was going to ask you, so I'm so glad that you've brought up the range of symptoms that someone can experience. So they may be experiencing all this, and they've started going down the path with A doctor, a functional doctor, or someone like yourself, and you've ruled out most of it, and so you're starting to explore the mesh implant. How do you know whether it's fully intact or not to go down the, the path of having an operation?

Right. So most times, if it's not fully intact, there will be some chronic pain happening, and, and that could be due to mesh migration or, um, like shrinkage of the mesh. So the, the symptoms will highly be dependent on— I'm sorry, not the symptoms, but the diagnoses will be dependent on the symptoms. Of course, with that, if you don't have significant pain, then you have to rule everything else out, unfortunately. In the conventional medicine world, you probably do cardiovascular workups. You do neurology workups. And I've done them all. And gastrointestinal workups. They might do colonoscopies and endoscopies to make sure there's no structural damage. But they do see it. Unfortunately, there's a lot of bowel perforations that are happening with mesh, abdominal mesh. And on top of that, the sad thing is, and I probably had maybe 8 to 10 CAT scans my first year of having, even within the first 5 months of having the implant, because I had to keep going to the emergency room with severe symptoms. And the CAT scans, if you're not well-versed in studying or if you're not a radiologist that specializes in it, you're not gonna be able to see or distinguish between the mesh and tissue or even like scar adhesion. So my recommendation is always to seek out a hernia specialist, preferably before any operation, and not just go with a GP.

Yes. For our audience, what sort of symptoms did you experience?

Yeah, mine were very severe. And when you ask the question about how do you know, Well, my reaction was immediate. From the moment I woke up from surgery, I felt off. Like, first, first, you know, for lack of a better word, I was vomiting. I was very tachycardic at the time, and we couldn't understand why. It wasn't a normal response is what they told me. But they said, you know, 3 days, 5 days, a week, you should start feeling better. And that wasn't the case. So— I had, again, severe nausea, unrelenting. A lot of head pressure, the worst, as if you had a migraine, an unending migraine. And there was nothing that I could do to tamp that pain. So I think that among those, and then the pain, because the inflammation started immediately. You have surgery, you're already inflamed. But there was nothing that they gave me pharmaceutical-wise to bring down the pain. And that was kind of the thought, the first thoughts that led me to believe my body's not processing these pharmaceuticals the way it's supposed to. It's either metabolizing it too quickly or it's just rejecting it altogether. And that's what kind of led me to find— seek help from other hernia support groups that I found actually on Facebook. And that's where I really started digging into the research, like what could cause this? Is it really mesh that can cause it? Like even in that year, people were more suffering from the chronic pain part of it. Um, so Asia syndrome now is becoming a term that's circulating within those groups because we're noticing all of these symptoms, and like the gastrointestinal symptoms even, that are correlating with when people have had mesh implants. Or if they've noticed structural changes in their abdomen, then those symptoms are starting to pick up more and more.

And is it sort of— we can't separate anything. Everything's You know, connected in the body, right? Do you see more particular symptoms depending on where the mesh is? So, or is it just systemic? Like, you have mesh in your body and you're just gonna have symptoms? Or do you, um, like, if you had— like you were saying, if you have it in your abdomen, you may have more gastrointestinal? Or so, do they use mesh with hernia? Every, like, depending where your hernia is, it's always like that? Or is it more in areas that have more movement, like in the groin area or the stomach, always bending over? Is it?

So yeah, they, they do use mesh. Like I said, it's the gold standard. So they're going to use mesh, um, with, with the exception of if the hernia is small enough and you're again going to a hernia specialist. Now I think that there's a cutoff between probably 2 millimeters, so it's not really that large. But they'll still use mesh. So if you go to a hernia specialist or an abdominal reconstructive, like a plastic surgeon, they could potentially bridge the abdominal hernias. Now, we're not talking about inguinal hernias, which is probably what you had because it's more in the groin. In the groin. But any of the umbilical, peri-umbilical, in that region, or even some incisional hernias can be repaired like an abdominoplasty. So they can join the muscle layers together, like really suture up that hole and not leave it as an opening versus people who do an onlay of the mesh. They don't really, they don't do anything to close the defect itself. They're just covering it with the mesh. And then the mesh is what's preventing the hernia from coming out again. But we know sometimes people re-herniate either way.

Right. Okay. So that's almost like putting a Band-Aid on a cut.

Correct, right.

Not the right solution.

Not at all. No, it doesn't fix—

You think you're being sutured up when you have a hole in your body, right? So are doctors, uh, well, hernia specialists, are they understanding that this is happening, or is it still, um, not accepted as a reality for people?

Yeah, I think it's, again, the research is more and more prominent. Dr. Shirin Tofai is actually one of the leading hernia specialists in the United States, and she's put out a couple of research papers that really dive into reactions, how people are reactive, and she goes into the symptomology. She also goes into recovery post-explant. So we can see that these people who are having explants are recovering like pretty quickly. I don't remember if it was 6 weeks on, they're noticing significant improvement. And then, and that was a high percentage of the people having explant. So it's, the evidence is there that the hernia, the mesh is implant, all of these symptoms occur. The mesh is explant, a lot of the symptoms clear up. And then over time, as people practice, you know, the proper diet, the exercise or movement, the detoxification practices that you have to use daily, Um, they can see more and more improvement, which was my case. It took many years to get to, you know, pseudo-functional again from being bedbound in the beginning of my, my illness. Wow.

Bedbound. That is extreme. That is an extreme reaction. And I'm sure a lot of people have had it. They just haven't put the two together. That's the thing. It's joining the dots. And if you're not aware, it's so hard to actually join those dots. So if, if the traditional way of doing it with mesh implant, um, causes these symptoms, are there any new advancements? Is there any alternative that they're using that is better for people? Or—

Yeah, the research continues.

We're hopeful, are we?

Yes. I guess the basics mesh, which I mentioned earlier, the hybrid, and then the biologic mesh, are more appropriate for people who No, I won't say the Facex. Let me take that one out of the mix. But biologic mesh is more appropriate for people who might already have autoimmune conditions. So that's something that should trigger people. Hey, I have reactions to certain things. Or again, it's some type of condition where my body's attacking itself, or for lack of a better phrase. But if you already know you're hypersensitive to certain things, then having a prosthetic mesh implanted is not probably the best option for you. And it might be the only option if the hernia is large or too large, but it's something to consider and go forward with your surgeon and try to analyze what is the best course of action for each case.

Right. So in some people's case, if the hernia is very large, what you're saying is just to suture it, just to stitch it up, isn't enough.

If it's not large.

Yeah, you actually need some form of other structural support, and that's why they use the mesh. But it's about inquiring— now that we know this, is about inquiring what type of mesh that they're going to use. So this is where this podcast, this episode, is going to be so crucial for so many people, because hernia is so common. It's not like, you know, you can— I, I know so many, including myself, my brothers, friends All have hernia. So to actually be, um, educated and aware before you actually go in— unlike you, you went— well, you may have been aware, but you got something that you didn't want. I had no idea. I didn't even know that they were putting mesh in. So, but now, you know, that was '99, we're talking about 25 years later. The patient-doctor communication has improved and people are a lot more aware. But what, what can, what can people experience? So what, what I want to know is, if someone's had the operation and they experience a symptom, they can feel fairly confident that they can directly correlate that symptom to the mesh?

I would say it's, it's a little more complicated than that because we talk about the, the toxin bucket overload. So in, in many people's cases, they might not have any symptoms initially. So they might have additional exposures like the vaccine— people are having vaccine injuries now that is actually tipping the bucket into what the dysautonomia world or mast cell world where you're having a chronic disorder order, but it can be a culmination of all of these toxins that a person is exposed to over the years. And I'm no exception. I was, as I mentioned before, I was an engineer. I worked in the field. I was exposed to landfill gas. I was exposed to chemicals in the environmental lab. I was exposed to things as a consultant every time I took samples. Like, obviously those are chronic exposures over time, but I wasn't ill at that time. So at that point, my body was still able to process these toxins out. And, you know, obviously my liver was, was fully functioning. But as you, as you age, unfortunately, those detox processes, you're just perpetually exposed to these toxins. And if you're not aware of what you can be doing to reduce exposures and also what you can do to, to better those detoxification processes, then there might be an incident or an event that is going to tip you over that, you know, over the edge or fill your bucket into Into full capacity.

Yes, yes, that is such a good point. And it is that fill the bucket, like you've got to a certain point and then the body goes, you know what, not one bit more. Like, right, I'm gonna let you know it's time to clean up, you know, to clean up the body. So you have— what is the— your point approach? You have a point approach to healing, and, you know, especially from implant illness, and you are So what is this POINT approach that you have?

So the POINT approach is looking at all of our functional pillars. And, you know, people, functional medicine practitioners all over the world do focus on certain pillars, one of them being— and I'll go through the acronym POINT. So P is proper nutrition. And the first thing is that we're not really eating according to our metabolic type if we're just trying to fit into whatever the fad diet is at the time. So we want to be eating according to our diet is or whatever, you know, if you want to increase mass, for instance, so you start bulking up by eating more protein, and, and that might not necessarily be according to your metabolic type. So you're, you're causing like either acidity or alkalinity in your body where it's going to kind of affect the processes over time. So that's just one thing, like proper nutrition is going to look at how your body is oxidizing, whether it be fast, slow, or mixed, and you want to eat according to that in terms of macronutrients. But you also have to look at any food sensitivities. And for the chronic illness community, when we're thinking people who have been exposed, you know, to numerous environmental toxins, who are suffering from mesh implant illness, you might have developed a lot of food sensitivities. You might not be able to process oxalates from your body anymore. Your liver is fully congested at this time. You probably had so many Pharmaceutical products from surgery, anesthesia. You have probably multiple rounds of antibiotics because we know that that's commonly prescribed as a preventative, unfortunately. It's not absolutely necessary, but in most cases I've seen that those were prescribed alongside. So imagine that you're being— you're undergoing the anesthesia, you're in this traumatic surgery process. It's not an easy surgery. And Your body is taking it as a pretty big trauma. So that alongside any pain reliever medications, even if it's ibuprofen or any other non-inflammatory— or sorry, the NSAIDs, right? Or even Tylenol, high-strength Tylenol. All of those have impacts to your organ systems, your elimination systems, we'll say, your kidneys, your liver, even your colon can be impacted. So when we think about nutrition, we want to look at all of this and try to eliminate any stressors that we can when it comes to the macronutrients and even the micronutrients that you're bringing in. So that is our P. O is for optimizing movement. And again, in most— if you're otherwise healthy, you can exercise traditionally. You can go do weight training. You can do Pilates or anything like that. But unfortunately, people who are chronically ill from implant illness, They cannot do the exercise, traditional exercise. So you have to learn to optimize movement, find a form of movement that you can do to encourage lymphatic drainage in the body. And movement is so fundamental for that. So whether it be even if you're lying down doing leg lifts or arm pumps, or you need a therapist to come in and help you get some movement, even at that point, start wherever you can and work your way up. That's where I started. And then even a hand bike, I had a hand bike on the desk. And then I slowly moved into recumbent bike where I started with a minute at a time, 2 minutes. It took probably 3 months to get to a 20-minute mark. But finding that movement and continuing a practice that suits the person. So that is our O. You want me to continue with the rest of the points?

Yes, please.

OK. So I is to identify all the stressors. And we kind of mentioned that with with the dietary and environmental toxins. But stress is beyond the physical as well. So we look at the physical component of it because we can do so much to change the products that we use, minimize things with words that we can't pronounce, for instance, or artificial synthetic ingredients, fragrances, things that we're exposed to, especially when you put it on your skin. You're having it absorbed through your skin. You're also inhaling any of the fragrance or those synthetics all day long. So think about cleaning out your personal care products, your cleaning products, and then your cookware. If you want to have an air filtration system, because we know indoor air is more than not more polluted than even outdoor air.

Even that one, when people say that, I find that so fascinating, that one. It's like what we're breathing inside is worse than being outside with all the cars and all the environmental pollution. It's incredible.

Right, right. But that's because of the dilution effect, right? Because outside, that's way more volume than you have inside your home. And with the newer construction, everything is airtight, so you're not getting that proper ventilation. And then, of course, you have to worry about mold in places that are higher in humidity. So that's another piece.

Yes.

So that's like, we're looking at those physical stressors, but we also need to look at the emotional, mental, and spiritual stressors. And that emotional piece is a critical piece of healing for anyone. anyone with this type of disorder because it's systemic again. And we get into that mindset that we're never going to heal, or we get into a mindset that these symptoms are just going to compound and compound. But we have to learn to turn off the noise. And, and I always recommend brain retraining programs like the Gupta program to start, or maybe Primal Trust, which is another good one to help people kind regulate that, the mental response and do that neural retraining that's really fundamental to healing. So that—

Yes. Yeah. And that's one— what, that was the I? So you've got the N and the T left?

Yes. Yeah. So N is to nurture sleep. And a lot of people think, oh, I sleep, you know, 7 hours, 6 hours, I get enough sleep. And that is not the case. Like, ideally, we want 7 to 8 hours of sleep, we want to be asleep between the hours of 10 PM and 6 AM, if possible, because that's when most of our organ systems start detoxing while we're sleeping, and the rest, repair, restore phases are really ramping up. So we want to be sleeping at that time. And then the whole thing with sleep hygiene, we won't dive into that because there's so many things that people can do, including, you know, making sure EMFs are out of the room and adjusting the temperature to a cool setting. So many things that people can look at. You can even Google it and find some good tips, or you can go to resources that probably you provide and I provide. And it's just make that sleeping area a safe haven and somewhere you can really repair. And then the last one, of course, is the targeted therapies. So it's last for a reason, because we have to make all of those changes in our diet and lifestyle before we approach it with supplements and other targeted therapies, maybe some herbal recommendations. So from here, we use diagnostic labs. We are functional diagnostic nutrition practitioners. So we do an assortment of labs to really look to see where are the deficiencies, where are the imbalances. And from there, after— again, after people have implemented these lifestyle changes, we see what additional supports might be needed. And that's where supplementation comes in at the end.

Really, really important points that you've brought up because You can't supplement yourself to better health if you don't do all the lifestyle changes. Like, you can't stay up late watching TV until 1 o'clock in the morning, get 4 hours sleep, you know, drink considerable alcohol and all the rest of it, and then take your supplements to make yourself feel better. So that is such a— I really love that point approach because it's really kind of like a lifestyle medicine sort of approach to And for not to create fear in people who are listening to this that they have implants, who maybe can't remove them, you know, maybe their hernia has been too big and they require the mesh to be there, or, you know, maybe they can't afford to have another operation. There is hope for them by applying what you've just said. So it's kind of like whether you've got the mesh in you or you choose to have it. removed, because I think that would be— once you've got all the scar tissue and everything around the mesh, that would be quite an intricate operation, would it not, removing it?

Yes, it does take a lot longer.

Yeah. So there is hope by what it sounds like, applying very much the same methods that you would in life if you had an autoimmune or some other kind of chronic illness. Not related to mesh, right?

Right. Absolutely. With with the mesh again, with other implants too, you know people have valve implants for for heart defects, and you know it might be joint repairs, and some of these things are not explantable as you mentioned. So adjusting again your diet and lifestyle, and then supporting your body's needs is a lifelong thing. So we're not going to do things for a month or two months and and get back to where we were before. No, it's. You want to do all of these things that are healthy for you and for you specifically. It's like a bio-individual approach, and then continue that on so that you live an optimal life, you know, the better quality of life and functionality.

Absolutely. And one question actually just came to me now that I'd like to ask is, what's the chance of developing bacteria around these implants? Like you say, you've got a— an implant can be anything. It's from breast implants to a Stent in your heart, to mesh for hernias. We are specifically talking about mesh today, but let's just go a little bit into like other things like a hip replacement. They can all breed bacteria, can they not, that then can grow and get into the blood?

And it's usually in the form of biofilm, which are like colonies of bacteria that inhabit an area, especially when there's foreign responses happening, right? They, they're going to go to the source where the inflammation is happening and they will colonize So that is an issue, and biofilms are evident in mesh. They're evident in the breast implants, you know, the silicone implants. And so we're thinking when we see anyone with these systemic things, it's part of the same kind of approach you would do for mold toxicity where you have colonization there. You want to break apart those biofilms, flush them out of the body, but you'll have to do it continuously, like on a cycle. Of course, you don't want to expose yourself to all these biofilm busters all the time, all the time. Time. But you know that the, the likelihood of this happening, if your implant is, is not able to be removed, then you have to be more cautious. And you have to think about what things I can do to regulate the, the bacterial colonies in the entire body, not just in the gut microbiome, although that is one of the biggest pieces, but to think about all the, the microbiomes in the body. Even, even, you know, even if we're looking at the skin, we want to make sure that there's balance in every area of the body.

Absolutely. And you did touch on— that is so important because I don't think any— I don't think many people think when someone goes, I'm in such terrible pain, I need a hip replacement, that what they're actually introducing into their body when they put a foreign element like that into their body, that you can have all that bacteria around it exactly the same as the mesh, you know. So sometimes when you have infections or whatever, you don't know where the source has come from. Well, this is somewhere where you can start looking. What advice can you give to someone around advocating for themselves prior to actually having the surgery?

Oh yes, this is so important. If, if you're able to do it, if it's not an emergent condition, then definitely get multiple opinions. Do not settle for the first one, even if you feel confident with that one. Make sure you, you get the knowledge of different procedures and how different practitioners are going to Approach it. You really want to find a hernia specialist or even any kind of reconstruction specialist that specializes and ask the questions like, have you experienced patients having, you know, this ASIA syndrome? Have you had to do explants? How many and what kinds of materials do you use? Like, get all that information in there. And then another important piece to be besides getting all the knowledge is to pre-talks. So prep your body. You're not— you shouldn't go in there with, with a diet full of processed carbs, processed sugars. And, you know, you want to, you want to amp your body up to, to get into that repair mode for it. So make sure you're eating clean, you start those detox practices before, and, and get into the routine. Make it a part of your life so that your recovery process will be so much better.

That is great advice because— and I really do hope that many people after listening to this and, and all contacting you, that they understand the importance of actually speaking up prior to actually accepting something into your body, because the consequences can be huge, as you've experienced. Thank you so much, Dr. Sharon Sarita, for coming on to the show. And if anybody would, you know, is listening to this and they go, this is me, I'm experiencing this, I've had that operation, Please, all of Dr. Sharon Sarita's details will be in the show notes. Contact her. This isn't something you want to do on your own, you know. You really need guided help, and she's here to do it. Thank you so much for being on the show.

Thank you so much, Rita. It was a pleasure.

Thank you. I would love to know what was the biggest insight or aha moment You got from this interview, so you can now speak up, take action, and make informed decisions for your health. And if you like this episode, get instant access to your free ebook, Alternative Wisdom: Taking Back Control of Your Health, at life-onus.com.