LIFE-CHANGING: Joan Isaac has joined almost 300 other women in a national class action after suffering pain and comlications from an implant. Picture: Jamie Hanson Source: The Courier-Mail
SEVEN years ago, Joan Isaacs was looking forward to retirement with husband Ian, trips to Europe and spending time with their grandchildren.
Now she is one of almost 300 women to register for a national class action against Johnson & Johnson Medical Australia, the distributor of mesh implanted to fix post-childbirth organ prolapses, and two manufacturers.
"I feel like I have been used as a guinea pig in a very cruel experiment," said Mrs Isaacs, who has endured excruciating pain and ongoing physical complications since she had the mesh implanted.
Brisbane lawyer Rebecca Jancauskas of Shine Lawyers, who in October filed a Federal Court claim on behalf of a lead client who had J&J mesh implanted, said she believed it could become Australia's largest product class action.
Last month in the United States, Johnson & Johnson was ordered to pay a South Dakota woman $US11.11 million ($A10.64m) in damages for harm caused by its Gynecare Prolift transvaginal mesh. More claims are pending.
Ms Jancauskas said tens of thousands of Australian women had Johnson & Johnson's polypropylene mesh implanted before the company stopped supply of Prolift, Prolift + M and three other mesh products in Australia by August 15 last year.
Since 2006, mother-of-two Mrs Isaacs has suffered pain, infections and bladder and bowel problems. It was only late last year, after a urologist ordered an urgent operation to remove Prolift + M mesh and remnants of another J&J mesh implant, that the retired teacher finally found herself free of pain.
"She set me free, she saved my life. It was so physically draining, the mental stress was so bad, I couldn't cope any more," Mrs Isaacs, 60, said.
Mrs Isaacs cries when she thinks about missing out on nursing her newborn granddaughter and years of playing with her two young grandchildren, because it was too painful to bend or lift anything.
Mr Isaacs, 62, had to become his wife's full-time carer and Mrs Isaacs said their "golden years" were taken away from them.
"My children watched me deteriorate from the outgoing, fun-loving, healthy woman that I was to someone who was very sick," Mrs Isaacs said.
She said when a reconstructive surgeon suggested mesh to fix the prolapse problem that recurred years after the birth of her sons, now 37 and 34, it was said to be "the be-all and end-all".
In the six years that followed that implant and its removal, and tthat of a second, Mrs Isaacs underwent eight rounds of surgery and endured regular injections for inflamed nerves.
"I feel very angry that this happened to me and it was allowed to go on for so long," she said.
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