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| My Nose |
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| This is what Gore-Tex and Dr. Maureen Muecke done to my nose. |
My name is Mrs. Maykowski and I want to tell you about what has
happened to me and my ordeal with reconstructive plastic surgery. A plastic surgeon, Dr. Muecke, and W.
L. Gore, a supplier of products for plastic surgery, has caused a lot of pain and heart ache to me since
2002. I had plastic surgery on my nose around the end of 2001 by Dr. Muecke in Birmingham, Alabama. Shortly afterwards, I had an allergic reaction to the Gore-Tex product she had put in my nose. Dr. Muecke called W. L
Gore, which they informed her that their product does not cause any allergic reactions. From that
discussion Dr. Muecke must have believed them because she operated on my nose again and put more Gore-Tex
in my body in addition to what was already put in during the first operation. After a few months
had gone by, I got a small lump on the top left side of my nose. At that time I really wasn?t concerned and just thought it was a pimple coming up, because I did get acne from time to time. As time went by, the lump
on my nose started to get bigger, eventually bursting and draining fluid. I was forced to wear
small band-aides to absorb the fluid and to keep the hole covered and clean, not mention to cover
the eye-sore of an open wound through the skin in a highly visible place on my face. As time went on, the
hole steadily became larger. I decided I would not go back to Dr. Muecke because of a disagreement between her and myself.
Between the end of 2002 and the beginning of 2004, I went to see 4 different doctors and not one
of them knew what was happening to my nose. Towards the beginning of 2004 my nose started to give
off a sour smell like meat or flesh rotting. Shortly afterwards, a piece of my nose bone fell out
and the side of my nose with the hole started to collapse. My husband and I started to panic big time because we had no idea what was causing this to happen. My family doctor eventually found a specialist, Dr. Grant,
which I went to see at the Kirklin Clinic in
Birmingham, AL.
Dr. Grant found out that the cause of my skin decay, the foul odor, etc, was the Gore-Tex product that Dr. Muecke had put in my nose, twice. Dr. Grant could
not do anything with my nose because his specialty didn?t include reconstruction of the nose area. Dr. Grant did recommend and sent me to a fellow plastic surgeon, Dr. Cox, within
the same facility. Finally, at the end of 2004 I was able to get my appointment with Dr. Cox. Since then, Dr. Cox has performed 3 operations on my nose.
The first one was to repair and
remove the Gore-Tex product from the nose area, remove any infection growing under the skin in my face around the nose, and perform any other patch work as he could within
the general area. The first operation was a great success in closing the hole and removing any foreign stuff from the side and top of my nose. My husband spent several days
removing many feet of packing, string, through
the hole as part of my recovery until the hole finally closed. The side affect of that operation is that I now have
a round scare, dent, just smaller than
the size of a dime on the top left side of my nose. But, in time, I began to smell the rotten flesh scent again and
a second operation was still needed.
Dr. Cox found a small hole during a follow up doctor visit where my skin was being eaten away, like the side of my nose, at the bottom inside of my nostril. The second operation was
to remove a chunk of Gore-Tex that was put in behind my lip, between my gums and my nose. He had to cut the inside of my mouth where my lip meets my gums to
remove the infected piece. Per
Dr. Cox?s words, the stench from under my lip was terrible. I spent little over a year recuperating and waiting for
my last surgery which was to try
and re-form my nose back to the correct shape. During this waiting time, top of my nose between my eyes continued to collapse until you could not sit a pair of glasses on it had have them stay.
My left nostril was still deformed at the opening, but there would not be any guarantee that it could ever be fully repaired. The third operation was a
good success with what Dr. Cox
could work with. The overall slope of the nose is back, but there are still shape issues with the left side and the
opening to my left nostril. Due
to all the scar tissue from the first operations with Dr. Muecke and the repair operations, we do not know if I can ever get
my looks back to being close to the
original. The good part is that all the Gore-Tex has been removed and I have had no more problems since it was taken out of my body. I have written this to warn people to not use
Dr.Muecke in Birmingham, AL, because of the risk involved of her quality when working on other people. If you go to a Plastic Surgeon, see if he/she will use
something other than the Gore-Tex
products. ( All the Companies on the MAUDE pages are partners of W.L. Gore )
Food and Drug, MAUDE
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