I had my mastectomy on Monday with full lymph node removal, reconstruction and an implant in my right breast so I’m not lopsided.
I’m feeling ok apart from my upper right arm being numb, tingly & quite sore. Is this likely to go away as it is an awful feeling? The breast care nurses think they will be taking the dressings off and removing the drain on Monday. Will this help?
Also not sleeping too well, (about 5 hours) due to having to sleep on my back, wake up with a really bad back. When can I sleep on my side again? ???
Well done for responding so well to surgery so far. You’ll get different answers from different people - we are definitely all different. I’m going to give you an honest answer. My experience is that it hasn’t been easy I’m afraid. I had my surgery in 15 months ago with full axillary clearance (but no reconstruction) and my outer upper arm is still numb, tingly or a bit painful - but not always. Initially it was almost permanently numb, maybe 6 months? The nerves were severed and it’s still early days to expect them to have repaired. However, I’ve been fortunate to avoid lymphodoema so I’m not complaining. I keep massaging it into the nearest lymph system and massage the inside to avoid cording and ‘clumping’ in the armpit (the oncology physio says that, when the lymph nodes are removed, everything else just slips into the space and can create quite a hard wodge of ‘muscle’ that has to be kept soft through massage).
Those exercises you’ve been given are essential. I still have to do my version daily but can’t get the arm and shoulder movement I had before as my scar is quite tight. Hence more exercises and massage.
As for sleeping on your side, much will depend on that arm and how comfortable it is. I was a foetal position sleeper. I found I would wake up with a numb hand if I slept on that side so I had to find ways to stop my full weight pressing on it - a small cushion against my chest did the trick. I believe you can actually buy or get free mastectomy cushions from certain charities. However, having got that sorted, I found a couple of months after radiotherapy (which I found very straightforward), I experienced pretty bad breast muscle pain (normal; delayed microwaving?) and I now sleep on my back all the time. I’ve got used to it. No more instinctive curling up in my sleep.
Hopefully someone is now going to tell you theirs was better in 6 weeks so don’t get depressed by my answer please. Whatever happens to you, your body will adapt quite quickly. What feels awful now will feel way more comfortable once that drain is out. Right now the insomnia is as likely to result from the general anaesthetic as it is from the physical discomfort. Meantime, there are some very effective sleep videos on YouTube that you can plug into. Progressive Hypnosis’s Manifest Healing got me through the whole thing.