Breast Cancer Now Forum

Hi Chick, 🐤    Thanks. Yes, it went okay. They were really pleased with how quickly I'm healing, and decided in the end not to drain it, as it is going slowly but surely, and said that apart from the infection risk that it's more likely to come back if they drain it rather than leave it to go of its own accord, which I guess makes sense. I just needed some reassurance really because although I've had plenty of surgery in the past, including breast surgery, I've never had a seroma before. I can be a little impatient as well, and I'm keen to get back to work, but with the pain/discomfort as it is at the moment I don't feel quite ready to go back yet. They'll have to manage without me just a little bit longer! 😃   I remembered to ask what exactly "benign changes" meant - when I went for my post-op follow-up my surgeon said the histology results had come back fine, just showing benign changes (my mastectomies were prophylactic, as I have a gene mutation of the PALB2 gene), and being a researcher by trade I always have to know the details of things, so I was curious to know exactly what these changes were. I forgot though to ask about the drinks thing! I'll have to make a list of any questions I have for when I go back in a few weeks for the prosthesis fitting (never have worked out what the plural of prosthesis is!)    Thanks,    Bliss xx ... View more

Thanks Chick 🐤, I'm glad I'm not alone in being weird!    I'm actually seeing my breast care nurse tomorrow (didn't think of asking them) as I have a seroma, and although it's gradually going down, it's really pulling at my scars at the moment. I finally gave in today and phoned the breast care unit this afternoon (silly, I know, but I always feel as though I'm wasting their time if I ring with queries or ask them to check something for me, even though I know that's what they're there for!). I'm hoping that they'll agree to drain it.    Thanks again for confirming I'm not on my own in being weird!    Bliss xx ... View more

Hi Sunflower,    As others have said, best to get it checked out with your specialist nurse, but it could be a seroma, which I was warned about before my surgery. I've had a double mastectomy (3 weeks ago) and developed a number of large areas of seroma. A seroma's a collection of serous fluid (healing fluid, like the fluid you get in a large blister) which can collect under and around the wound after a mastectomy. It's harmless though, and it usually starts to develop about a week after surgery bif you develop it. Your body gradually reabsorbs it over 4-6 weeks, but a specialist nurse/surgeon can drain it if it becomes troublesome.   Mine's now starting to go down a bit, but at its worst it looked as though my breasts were growing back!!    Fortunately my surgeon warned me I was at a higher risk of developing a seroma before my op, so when it started I knew what it was. Though it's going down slowly but surely now, I still have a number of large collections of it around my chest, and I have still a large collection of it, which looks like a lump, just above the end of my wound in my arm pit.   *hugs* ... View more

Hi Astra,    I know what you mean about bumps in the road, and the effects of gravity when bending forward. Although I had a full bilateral mastectomy, with all the fluid I have with the seroma it's as though my right breast is growing back (fortunately my surgeon warned me about the possibility of it before my op), and with all the fluid sloshing around it definitely has a gravitational pull. I think generally the ends of wounds take the longest to heal, and though the ends of mine at the front are healed, my underarm ones aren't quite there yet and are much more raised. I guess it's because your arms are moving more, putting more stress on these wounds.    I've been massaging my scars (apart from the underarm ends where there are still a few small scabs) when I got to 2 weeks post-op. The guidance I read online said after the first couple of weeks and once the wound is healed and any scabs have come off naturally (it said not to try and pick them off) that you can massage the area. I've already found some areas of the scars that seem flatter. It's also supposed to help with seroma and help to prevent lymphodoema, not that I'm noticing any change with the seroma, infact I think I'm going to have to give the breast care nurses a call about possibly getting it drained. It's been almost a week now that it's been very painful. The wounds themselves are fine, with only the occasional twinge, and I have a number of numb patches, but where the seroma is at its worst the skin's stretched really taut and it's really painful to touch. I'm signed off work until mid September, but I can't contemplate going back to work with this level of pain.    Regarding your now differently sized breasts Astra, once everything's healed you may be suitable for a partial breast form/prosthesis. Might be something to ask your breast care nurse about. I'm lucky that I don't have such problems. Mind you, the morning of my op when the breast care nurse came to see me with a selection of sizes of "softies" (Amoena priform breast forms which are simple cotton fabric breast forms filled with staffing), it was a rather surreal experience choosing what size breasts I wanted! Prior to my surgery I was a D cup, but due to gravitational pull without a bra on, most of it was rapidly approaching my waist! The breast forms I've got, which are in proportion to the rest of me, when I came to measure myself to buy a mastectomy bra give me a B/C cup size.    Love to all ❤  ... View more

No, on the grounds that chocolate comes from cocoa beans, beans are vegetables, and vegetables are part of a healthy diet, chocolate is definitely an important part of recovery!   Not so much puffiness but the full-blown water bed effect! Before my op my surgeon described seroma as looking as though your breasts are growing back (I'm currently an A cup! ). If I prod one side of my chest with a finger, there's a ripple effect that goes all the way across my chest rather like a moving water bed. A bit weird to see! When I went to my follow-up appointment on Thursday the breast care nurse said she didn't want to drain it because it's not pulling on my wounds and is moving freely. Any procedure carries a small risk of infection, so she'd rather let nature take its course, but to contact them if it gets worse or becomes very painful. My body should re-absorb the fluid over the next 4-6 weeks.   The past couple of days I've been battling muscle spasms across my upper chest and around into my upper back, which are very painful. How much is due to the surgery though I'm not sure. I remember my mum getting muscle spasms after her mastectomy, though much further down the line, but I get muscle spasms all over my body anyway due to my other conditions, including in those areas, which I take muscle relaxants for. A little local heat helps to unlock the muscles a bit, as does gently doing some arm/shoulder exercises.   I guess it is only still 2 weeks since my op, so it's still only very early days, and sometimes I do expect a bit too much of my body!  ... View more

Hi Teya,    I'm 2 weeks post-op following my bilateral mastectomies now. I too had the post-op "high" - for the first few days I couldn't believe how well I felt considering what I'd had done! In my experience (prior to this I've had numerous neurosurgeries (brain and spinal surgery) and a previous breast surgery) I've always found there's a post-op "high". I think this is partly an adrenaline thing and partly a relief thing that you've got the big scary operation that's been looming large in your consciousness out of the way. You've done it! If you're anything like me there's also the "I'm fine - no need to keep me here" act you put on for hospital staff to persuade them to let you go home as soon as possible.   Once you're home though and you start to do normal things, even if it's just pottering or reaching for things on shelves, you start to feel the effects of what you've had done. If you're taking painkillers, take them regularly and don't wait until you have severe pain before having them. There's nothing like pain to make you feel low, and tired exhausted. With me it's partly that I'm not sleeping very well because I can't find a comfortable position to sleep in, so apart from the physical 'shock' to your body making you tired, the not sleeping properly doesn't help at all. I've also developed a seroma (collection of fluid under and around the wounds) which is making the whole of my chest area and upper back uncomfortable and painful in places (strangely the actual wounds aren't painful at all).   I've always found that if you behave yourself and rest like you're supposed to following surgery, that the post-op crash isn't normally too large. Rushing into doing things and getting back to normal is the temptation you need to avoid, even though you feel as though you can do it. You've had both the emotional impact of the diagnosis and the physical effect of the operation to contend with, and it will take some time to get over. Listen to your body, and take things easy.    Bliss ... View more

Hi again Astra,    I've just noticed on your opening post that one of your concerns is the wound healing. I just wanted to say that in my experience, healing after breast surgery tends to be fairly quick and relatively problem free for most people.   I'm 46, but I've had breast problems since my mid-thirties, and annual mammograms since I hit 40 because of my family history. I had a ductal excision (where all the milk ducts are removed) of my right breast due to regular blood-stained nipple discharges around 10 years ago (fortunately the histology showed nothing abnormal except some internal inflammation). I did have a fair amount of bruising, but was surprised how quickly the actual wound healed. The worst thing, I found, was that as I had fairly large breasts and due to the placement of the wound under the nipple, with the natural effects of gravity, I got some 'pulling' of the wound. I was advised to start wearing a well fitting but soft support bra as soon as possible after the op to reduce the pulling on the wound, even though it was a bit uncomfortable.   My mum, who sadly died earlier this year, was first diagnosed with breast cancer 20 years ago and had mastectomy of her left breast, followed by a course of radiotherapy. She too healed very quickly, and it was the radiotherapy she had more problems with, though even since then radiotherapy practices have improved to reduce some potential complications. For almost the 20 years my mum and I were also on the local hospital's cancer patients' 'action' group (which advised the hospital on issues to do with cancer diagnosis, treatment, etc., from a patient's point of view), and through that, and being honorarily accepted into the group of  'breast cancer friends' my mum met during her treatment, I met a number of ladies with breast cancer who all said that wound healing was the 'easy' bit.   As I said before, I've had a different op and due my other medical problems I can't have a reconstruction, so I've just got the mastectomy wounds so no effects of gravity this time, but painkiller-wise I'm only taking what I'd normally take for my other medical issues. Though occasionally I get a sharp pain, on the whole I've had very little pain, and it's probably doing the arm/shoulder exercises that's most uncomfortable, although I very quickly after the op got my arms moving again. The morning after the op in my manual wheelchair because it wasn't practical to get my powered wheelchair up to the hospital, wheeling myself around the ward and escaping the ward to go to the nearest vending machine (probably not recommended so soon after the op!!).   I'm not sure if this is true, but one of the nurses on the ward said that because breast surgery isn't too invasive, in that it's not going into a body cavity, and that it doesn't restrict movement and mobility in the same way that abdominal surgery does, and that it's 'just' breast tissue that has to heal rather than other organs and structures that also get damaged or disrupted during surgery, it's less of a stress on the body so it finds it easier to heal.   Anyways, I hope everything goes well tomorrow, and keep us posted on how you're doing.  ... View more

Hi Astra,    I've not had the same surgery as you're having (I'm 3 days post-surgery after bilateral mastectomies - risk reducing - I don't have breast cancer, I have a genetic mutation of the PALB2 gene which increases my risk of developing it, so due to a multitude of complicating factors I opted for mastectomy), but I just wanted to wish you good luck for your op.    If your hospital's anything like the breast care team at my local hospital, who've been fantastic, I'm sure they'll look after you well.   I found the hardest thing on the day was waiting to go to theatre, which really seemed to drag. I was half asleep because I'd had to get up at 5.30am so I could get myself organised and have my medication no later than 6.30am with the last water I was allowed (I have a number of long-term health problems and I'm on loads of medication for different things), and had to be at the hospital for 7.30am. I don't do two 7.30's in a day!!! 🙂 I had plenty of visitors while I was waiting though - my surgeon and her registrar, anaesthetist, pharmacist to log all my medication, and one of the specialist breast care nurses.    I should have been first on the theatre list, but got bumped to 2nd place because they didn't want to take me to theatre until they knew where they'd got a bed for me for afterwards (because of my medical history my surgeon wanted me to stay overnight), but I went off to theatre around 10.30am.    All the staff couldn't have been more caring and professional. The anaesthetist decided that in addition to the general anaesthetic (and my surgeon said she always uses plenty of local anaesthetic as well to make you comfortable when you come round) she was going to do a nerve block as well because she was a bit worried about pain control for me afterwards because I'm already on painkillers. I've had surprisingly little pain though, and I'm surprised how well I'm feeling after just 3 days (although I've quickly discovered I need to rest and can't keep trying to do bits around the house just yet!!)   Anyway, best wishes for Wednesday. I hope it goes well. 🙂 xx ... View more