I am now into my fourth week of infection and breast draining following my lump removal.Never have this on a bank holiday (over easter I had to drain it myself with syringes and in despair I managed to get a disrict nurse to help with the dressings-they have been removing pus for the past three weeks.)I have had three courses of anti-biotics and now have another infection above the op site(I now realize that this was where the catherta was inserted.)7 hours at the A&E on Friday and the breast registrar surgeon drained it &told me to attend mondays clinic-its bank holiday!
My surgeon has been extremely good but I need to heal in order to have chemotherapy and radiotherapy.Has anyone else had this problem?
I had four weeks of infection over Christmas 2003 - I was admitted to hospital on 24 Dec less than a week after my lumpectomy and spent a week there having seven lots of antibiotics intravenously. No on could give me a scan as everything closed down over christmas so on about 30 Dec I finally had a hole made in the side of my bosom after which I had daily packing with strange tape made partly of seaweed get. This lasted about four weeks until the hole closed up small enough not to get the tape in.
Eventually I could have radiotherapy - 26 March 2004
Mole
Hi car and mole
sorry no answers
I too am having problems with drainage and infections.
I had mx on 6th April had to stay in hospital until 16th when drains were finally taken out. but on their removal it was noted thatarea was infected, so first course of anti biotics, load of gunk comming out of drain wound and next day bad pains and swelling, was readmitted to ward on 17th iv anti biotics on morning of the 18th drain site erupted and with stuff going over bed, wall and floor. then followed 4 periods of asperations. before being went home with a different anti biotic. district nurse attended every day to change dressing and I had to “milk” gurggling wound site. then saw surgeon, who has no people skills and whom is not “good”. who then decieded to reopen the wound. then came a week of daily packing of wound with gauze, at my last appointment he decieded to stop packing the wound and I am now left with a stoma bag over the wound that continues to collect all the nasties, at least this is water proof which means I can at least bath. I thought I was the only one this was happening too and it felt like a very lonely place. with all this happening I feel I have been unable to get on with adjusting to the loss of my breast and recovery, I am fortunate in that I had my chemo prior to surgery and my nodes were clear so proberly wont need rads. but I would really love to see an end to this.
sorry to have gone on
best wishes to all
Sharon bas
Hi,
I didn’t have a post op infection but my back wound from my LD recon took 6 months to heal. I started chemo about 3 to 4 weeks post surgery and a week after surgery my back wound opened up to leave a big (2inch by 1 inch) hole in my back. I had two infections in it during the 6 months and had to use manuka honey topically to the wound to clear up the infection for about 4 months to eat up the dead tissue on top of antibiotics twice including 2 concurrent lots over xmas.
I was very lucky in that my friend is a BUPA tissue viability specialist nurse and dressed my wound every 2 days to start with eventually getting down to 5 days.
I didn’t have a lie down bath from my surgery (22nd Sept last year) until mother’s day this year!!! At one time I was so fed up with the infections and dead tissue in my wound that I was about to have maggot therapy but thankfully the honey did the trick where the purilon gel the hospital had recommended hadn’t.
Hope you get some help with your infections. Many doctors (surgeons and GP’s) aren’t up to date with the latest tissue viability/wound treatments and if you can you should ask for a specialist.
xxx
It’s great to know that I am not alone in this but in all the information I was bombarded with initially, the possibility of infection was not stressed highly enough.(I have commented on this to my breast nurse)
My husband has likened our treatment to that of mechanics who work on his classic car-ie. lets tweak this and see if it runs ok!
Thanks for the info on manuka honey,I have used complimentary meds for arthritis having lost faith in conventional medicine.
Also who is up for starting a petition to get hospitals to work on bank hols? It seems that it is only nurses who do-I work in retail and have no choice and it is also the same in many other jobs.