Hi, my name is Ben. I am a 44-year-old American. I was healthy and very active, loving backpacking, hiking, and mountain climbing, among other activities. I unwittingly had surgery with Joshua Taipei Hernia Center (who performs their surgeries at West Garden Hospital) after coming across the center’s website and being impressed by the center’s patented and trademarked “Integrated Hernioplasty” inguinal hernia repair, all the claims Joshua Taipei Hernia Center made about its qualifications, and the high rating and positive reviews on Google Reviews. Never having been to Taiwan, I assumed that medical professionals there adhered to the Hippocratic Oath. In time, I came to learn that assumption was wrong.

It was only after having a disastrous surgery for my uncomplicated inguinal hernia that I began to dig deeper to find out how the surgery could go so wrong. That is when I discovered and began to understand the shiftiness, deceit, lies, and illegal behavior of the self-professed experts at Joshua Taipei Hernia Center. If you are considering having surgery here, please read this website in its entirety, because the thought of other people getting incapacitated from having surgery here made me decide that enough is enough and that I needed to take action and do something about it by creating this website. 

The hernia surgery, which was promised to be painless and with a quick recovery, has left me essentially bedridden and with chronic pain from high tension and nerve involvement and muscle damage that has made me unable to walk without a limp. I have spoken with multiple experienced hernia surgeons, some educated in the USA. None had ever heard of anyone developing a limp (not because of pain but surgery-related damage to my body) from inguinal hernia repair surgery. Never after the surgery did I do any exercise or activities that could cause damage to the surgery. I have always taken small, slow steps because the tension, pain, and discomfort never allowed me to do more. This is a full list of my post-surgical symptoms.

• Chronic inflammation in the lower pelvic area, especially in the mons pubis area, the inguinal canal, and above the inguinal canal
• Chronic pain at the surgical site where the muscle tissue was sutured
• Impinged, compressed, or damaged ilioinguinal and iliohypogastric nerves
• Extreme tension starting from my ilium and extending 5 cm down and in a 5-cm band all the way from the ilium to my vertical axis or center of my bladder. The tension is so intense that it completely flattened the muscle stretching across this area. The muscle feels very rigid or tense when touched. I often feel bruise-like pain and hot pulsating pain along this 5 cm band of muscle.
• Extreme tension that pulls my belly button 1 cm to the right in the direction of the hernia repair. Using my rectus abdominis muscles causes a tearing sensation in those muscles. 
• In the same area just below and to the right of my belly button, I have referred pain when touching my skin that manifests in the mons pubis area
• Sharp and burning pain deep in my pelvis 
• Tingling pain and shooting pain in my upper inner thigh, scrotum, and mons pubis
• Extreme pulling/tension pain just inside the ASIS
• Burning sensation upon touch that feels like boiling water was poured on my skin in the right side of my pelvic area
• Weakness in my step when my leg is in vertical alignment with my body, thus causing me to limp
• Inability to step properly because the internal oblique and transversus abdominis muscles are pulled to tightly towards Cooper’s ligament
• Immobility from all the tension and nerve pain

Four months after my May 15, 2024 surgery, I finally discovered what caused many of these symptoms. Joshua Taipei Hernia Center attached my conjoint tendon to my inguinal ligament superiorly and inferiorly of the deep ring of the inguinal canal and did no relaxing incisions. Moreover, they attached the conjoint tendon poorly to the inguinal canal resulting in extreme tension. Why was the conjoint tendon attached so poorly? Most likely because they have minimal vision on where exactly they are attaching the conjoint tendon, because the tendon was attached about 12 – 15 cm away from his small incision. Moreover his small incision runs a different direction than how normal inguinal hernia incisions are made.

As I write, I am waiting for revision surgery to have the conjoint tendon detached from the inguinal ligament. The extreme tension gets more painful and does more damage to your body as time goes on. The unprecedented tension, unseen by a handful of other hernia doctors I have met with (2 from top 10 medical schools in the USA), slowly rips your muscles apart. Now I can only sit or lie down in 2 positions that don’t cause pain. The pain varies from mild to excruciating and is almost always there. If you were unfortunate enough to have a similar procedure done to you, you should consult another surgeon and request that the conjoint tendon be detached or at a minimum have relaxing incisions made to release some of the tension.

So why did I not consult with Joshua Taipei Hernia Center to find out what was wrong? I did and they sent me the following response, “About nine years ago, a patient from Japan had similar symptoms. We removed the stitches above the internal ring, which resolved the pain.” Nothing more. I was outraged when I read it. This is the Joshua Taipei Hernia Center trying to save face by withholding the truth about my surgery while I was suffering in pain. What kind of people would allow their patients to suffer in so much pain and not tell them the probable reason for their pain? For more on that, go to the Joshua’s Hernia Doctor(s) page.

Before and after the surgery, I was told by Joshua Taipei Hernia Center that my hernia was uncomplicated. How can an uncomplicated hernia result in so much pain and so many complications? Read about Joshua Taipei Hernia Center and its doctor(s) on my website and you will get a sense as to how and why this happened.

If you are having problems after inguinal hernia surgery with Joshua Taipei Hernia Center and you have questions or need help, please email me. I’ll do my best to guide you and try to help you understand and resolve your problems. joshuafrauds@gmail.com