Hi again Tat, here I am again and hope this helps you and others too! After my right mastectomy without reconstruction in September 2013. I did all the exercises recommended and yet still found that I developed adhesions which greatly limited my movement. This was happening by 12 weeks after my surgery. It felt like the scar was stapled to my ribs and that the right side of my chest was in a vice. Although not painful it was very uncomfortable and limited the movement I could achieve with my arm and my deep breathing. I had particular difficulty raising my right arm and twisting my upper body to the left. I continued with the exercises and also was advised to massage the scar every day with oil or cream. I did this but it did not help. I walked a couple of miles each day in the countryside for up to an hour or so and using my walking pole tried to twist from side to side as I walked. This helped a bit. (I held the pole horizontally in front of me, with my hands spaced apart on the pole and then swivelled from side to side with each step.) After a couple of months of doing this, and all the usual exercises, and swimming too, I asked the doctors at the hospital and BCC nurse about it and they said to carry on with what I was doing. My GP arranged physiotherapy for me and the physiotherapist there told me that I could get special help massaging the wound to break up the adhesions if I arranged it privately. ( She was not trained in this type of treatment) In fact, she was surprised that I had already re-gained as much mobility in my arm and shoulder by then, although I clearly had tightness in the scar and adhesions. I then started to do a lot of research on the internet to find out if anyone else had this problem and found a lot of info on MYOFASCIAL RELEASE – a term I had not come across before. Once I put the words/terms “ release adhesions” and “tight scars” , “myofascial release”, “mastectomy” into Google and particularly on You Tube, I got lots of information and videos which really helped me. These showed me that the main point that I had been getting wrong was how I had been moving my skin over the scar. I had been moving and stretching it one direction and then almost immediately in another direction, and so on. What I found out was that when moving the scar and stretching it in one direction I needed to hold it in that position for at least 90 seconds. Then move the scar in another direction and hold firm again for 90 seconds and continue like this. This does seem a long time, and it certainly feels like a long time and takes quite a lot of effort, but it does work and 90 seconds means that the adhesions start to pull apart and separate. This is impossible to do if cream or oil is used. The skin must be dry and not slippery. Otherwise, your hand slides over the skin and can’t hold it in its “moved” position. Once I had watched all the videos, I started doing this every day for about 20 minutes to half an hour, both in the morning and again in the evening. This has really helped free my scar from my chest wall but I have found I still even now need to continue doing it once or twice a week or it starts to stiffen up again. Eight months after my mastectomy I arranged to see a physiotherapist trained in mastectomy scar release to check that what I was doing was correct and she was impressed that my scar was as free as it was but she showed me and my husband further exercises to help me. I found it very helpful for my husband to help with this as the exercises were a bit awkward to do myself. ( In my area, the NHS do not provide free access to a specialist physiotherapist so I was given the contact details by the hospital and went for a session privately. It was not expensive and well worth going.) I am now more than 2 years post op and doing well and wanted to pass this info on to others as I am sure that I am not alone in having adhesions limiting my movement post mastectomy. Of course you can not start this until the wound was sufficiently healed.( I think I would have started at 3 to 4 months post op if I had known about it.) I also searched on the breast cancer care web site for the phrase “myofascial release” but could not find it. I did however find many women on the forum wanting help with this same problem. Nobody on that web site seemed to have the answer that I had discovered by my research on the internet. (although massage with cream or oil was recommended to many women.) I must explain that this is a personal experience and that all exercises undertaken after breast surgery should be done in conjunction with your own medical team as each person is different and what works for one person could cause difficulties for another. Each person’s operation and recovery is very much a unique experience for them, though similarities are often shared. Also, please note that I had a single mastectomy without reconstruction and did not have Chemo or Radiotherapy. I don’t know if this technique would be suitable on patients following reconstructive surgery and/or Radiotherapy. Hope this helps someone like me!
... View more
