Port ladies, flu jab.

Hi, I have only had my port since Spring. I thought I had read, somewhere, not to have an injection in the arm next to port, in my case my left. Did I dream this up? Booking my flu jab and my right arm has slight swelling usually underarm and my primary is that side so I really would prefer to use the left.

Gosh, thanks for flagging this, I’m about to have both port and flu jab, so I’ll ask when they fit the port - and report back - let me know what you find out. 

Hi Belinda, my port was fitted just above my left breast. The surgeon said it was placed there because it was on the opposite side to my mastectomy and total lymph clearance. The surgeon said that If I’d had my left breast removed the port would have been put on my right side. Because I’ve had total lymph clearance on my right underarm I am not allowed to have any bloods taken from my right arm or blood pressure because of the risk of lymphoedema etc. They always take bloods from my left arm and it’s fine - my port is on my left side so there’s no problem taking bloods from the same side of the body as the port. 

I wonder if you’re thinking of a Picc line which goes in to the arm? 

When I go for chemo they take the pre chemo blood test via my Port. For blood tests I between chemo they use my left arm. I asked my onc about flu jabs at my last chemo appt (Sept 17th) and he said I should wait until my EC chemo was over (I’m having EC not FEC) and I was in the Taxol stage of my chemo before having a flu jab or wait until chemo was over at the end of Dec. But I can’t remember why!