Hi
Every two to three weeks since my mastectomy, lymph node removal and reconstruction using a dorsi flap, I have had to go back to the hospital to have my back seroma drained of fluid.
Two weeks ago, it was 90ml and I’m going tomorrow before going up to Yorkshire for three weeks to have a drained and it feels big.
Is anyone else having this problem? If I didn’t have this or my phlibitis I may cope a bit better with my chemo.
Best wishes to you all.
xxxx
I really feel for you as I went through that.I had a double mx and had seromas both sides with one on the left being much worse. I wasn’t able to have it drained during chemo as I had a portacath which had been inserted on the chest wall and was floating in the seroma!! It was too great an infection risk so I had to go through my last 4 chemo with the seroma there.
4 weeks after finishing chemo and 4 months after the surgery I had the seroma on left drained for the last time (600 cl). I then had a haematoma drained from the right side 6 months after surgery. I’m now 9 months post surgery and it’s all been fine since then. The chemo slowed all my healing right down but once I’d finished everything suddenly started improving.
Hopefully yours won’t go on for so long. I kept being told it will eventually resolve and it was hard to believe at the time but it did.
take care and try not to get too down about it.
Elinda x
Hi mnc
I do feel for you.
I had a WLE and Axillary clearance and was released from hospital sfter 5 days despite drain still collecting 200mls every 24hrs. I had to go back every other day to the hospital to be drained a total of 8 times before the seromas suddenly stopped. My oncologist was keen to start my chemo but said he couldn’t until seromas stopped forming.
vivrog
Hi,
Sorry if this sounds a bit dim but what exactly is a seroma? I’m considering a delayed LD flap recon and have been scouring these forums for information. I keep coming accross this term but I don’t really know what it means.
Thanks
Awadan
x
Hi Awadan,
While you’re waiting for your fellow forum users to reply, here is a link to BCC’s information booklet called Your operation and recovery, which contains information on seromas:
breastcancercare.org.uk/upload/pdf/your_op_and_recovery_07_web_0.pdf
I hope this is helpful
Kind regards,
Kate, BCC Facilitator
My surgeon described a seroma to me as (I quote) “Imagine you have grazed your knee and it is not bleeding but producing thin yellow fluid - well, your breast tissue has been grazed in a similar way but it builds up and expands into a pocket.”
I had to have my breast drain removed earlier than usual because of other complications and so it led me to have one whopping seroma! The first time it was drained my husband (who thought I was moaning about nothing) went quite pale when a pint of fluid was drained away. I went back several more times to have it drained but it eventually settled down.
It annoyed me that no health professional warned me, or explained to me, the possibility or the symptoms of a seroma… thank goodness for Google, Macmillan and BCC who signposted the answers.
AlexG
Had MX and LD flap recon with axillary node clearance 15th Feb, being drained every week so far, very active seroma and drained last 200mls in 4 days, usually 1 pint in a week. It’s sore especially when trying to sleep at night as it makes the site tender. My surgeon used the same analogy with me and got me to imagine my back from shoulder to hip being the wound, have been told though it won’t interfere with the chemo. I was warned of the possibility of seroma as I had very “active” drains but the reality is always very different. Had an antiinflammatory injection beginning of the week into the site but the fluid is still building again, maybe a bit more dispersed. xxxTina