TEs. A Beginner's Primer
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Hi everyone. I'm new to this thread , I wasn't going to comment but my tissue expander is all up in my armpit too. I was actually rubbing the area while I was reading because it is sore from being in a bra all day. I can only imagine what my armpit will feel like during radiation ( which starts next week) . It's always something! Good luck everyone. I like the term " foobs". I'm gonna use it.
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Imoore4, my right TE was under my armpit and painful for 2 weeks after surgery. My first fill relieved some of the pressure and my 2nd fill even more. I can't wait for next Tuesday and my 3rd fill. I do push my TEs together with my upperarms, my PS told me too. Also he told me to move it with my hands, gently pushing with my hands. I have gotten hours of relief doing this. Hope this helps.
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Hi everyone
I'm new on this thread also, my breast cancer history in my profile below. I know Moonflower from the Triple Positive thread.
I had reconstruction surgery on May 22nd - delayed reconstruction right side using TRAM flap and left mastectomy with tissue expander. I am two weeks out now and have to admit that I didn't pay a whole lot of attention to the tissue expander side preop, I was more focused on the flap reconstruction side of things. My PS said I didn't have enough abdominal fat to have two breast flaps sowe went the implant route for the left side. I have a Natrelle 133MV-15 tissue expander in place on the left side and I was told that initial fill was 450 ml. I will go in for a fill on June 11th.
I am very glad to have found this thread and I have been reading up. So wonderful to know that what I have been experiencing on the left side is fairly common and to have the advice I've read so far. I am still pretty naive about TE's but this looks like a great place to learn!
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Thanks everyone for the welcome and warm wishes for my surgery last Friday. Everything went well (I was told).…PS filled with 60cc's, so I've got a little something! It sure doesn't seem like much after reading about some of your fills. Now I wish I would've asked why I got so little!
I saw the PS in his office yesterday, but he didn't fill then…I have to wait two more weeks.Have any of y'all had extreme swelling after surgery? I can't find posts with anyone complaining about this! Before I left the hospital, I could tell my arms were swollen especially in the elbows. The nurses were not concerned. Now I have it in my stomach/waist area! Where my panty elastic goes around my waist I have a DEEP indention as if my underwear was 3 sizes too small! I am so worried this is a sign of lymphedema. My breast surgeon did a SNB (negative) in January and she said she would not be taking anymore lymph nodes. But when I saw her in the hospital after surgery, I was too out of it to ask about that. --Lorie
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hi loriekg. I was swollen around the lower and upper belly too. I think it's from the anasthesia. Not sure about the arms though. I'm 4 weeks out from sx and my tummy is getting back to normal.
Regarding fills, my PS told me he fills to what the incisions can tolerate. Also my BS left plenty of skin for PS to work with. I was filled to 400 cc each side at surgery, then 100 two weeks later at my first fill. But this tuesdsy he only did 50. I guess we just have to trust them.
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Hello, Ladies - As I read this thread I remember so well being exactly where you are about 22 months ago. A few things about TEs:
- They generally fill W I D E before they fill out, for some weird reason and your armpits will literally seem to disappear. (Moon used to talk about running into door jambs because hers were so wide. And I walked like John Wayne toward the end...)
- Low and slow is the mantra for fills. This isn't a race, and you'll be much more uncomfortable if the fills are too frequent or too large. If it hurts; tell your PS you want to go slower, or that you want smaller fills. This is no time to be a hero. This is a painful process, but also a means to an end and a 'necessary evil'. As a general rule, many of us got 50ccs every other week for the duration.
- The tenderness that some of you are experiencing is nerve pain. You become hypersensitive to any kind of material touching or covering 'the girls' for a while and then one day you realize that it's gone away completely. I suffered with it for about six weeks and then one morning I woke up and it was just gone!
- You'll find that the more fills you get, the less painful they become (usually). BUT if you're in a lot of pain, saline can also be REMOVED from the TEs if the fill process is going faster than your skin is expanding.
- It takes about a week for every hour you were under anesthesia, for the effects to leave your body completely . The more water you drink, the faster you'll rid yourself of the effects of anesthesia.
I hope you all have a relatively easy time of the TE experience, because it really does get better, and it will be worth it in the end! One day at a time, one foot in front of the other. You got this!
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I have a call into my PS, but I you ladies might know. I'm in my 3 month "holding pattern" with TEs and will have exchange surgery in August. DH and I are going on vacation next week and I'm wondering if I can get in the hot tub and/or pool? I assume it's fine but haven't asked anyone yet?
Thanks!
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hummingbird, my PS advised me against hot tubs, mostly due to possibility of infection due to high heat/ long soak times. Hot showers and a swim in a cool pool are fine.
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Thanks JoJo.
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I feel that cold water thing when I'm drinking, too!! Crazy. I've stopped using ice because it's so weird.
Welcome, websister!!
Lorie, I'm so glad that your surgery went well, but that swelling sounds awful! I didn't have any, but hope that you get some answers and some relief soon.
AZ, great advice! Thank you. I know that my TEs look more like hot dogs than hamburgers. It's weird. I'm assuming it will all work out in the end. . . .
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Halee—you mentioned wanting to be the same size, as you'd always had one side bigger than the other. That's me…and my PS assured me that he would correct this and I'd be symmetrical. My question is how do you look right now? My PS put 60cc's in at the time of surgery so I'm not totally flat, it just looks like two little pancakes are on my chest. BUT one of the pancakes looks a little bigger than the other. I'm assuming that the TE's are the same size, and now I'm wondering why they didn't remove the extra skin that my left side has so they'd start out equal, you know what I mean? Just curious if you noticed the same thing. Oh, my first fill will be on June 17, about three weeks after BMX. --Lorie
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Lorie, I'm the same way. My BS said at exchange everything would even out. I'm hoping he's right. I lived my whole life with the left being way bigger than the right.
My right side, the smaller side, is way more painful than the left side. I'm thinking there is more skin on the left as it was bigger.
I'm just hoping I have a really good outcome. This whole mess has been so upsetting. It's been the worst 6 months of my life. I'm hoping new symmetrical Foobs will make it all worth it.
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Yes, Audrey, symmetrical AND perky! :
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LOL...perky. The other day I asked my PS what he thought of Caitlyn Jenner's implants. He said "they're too high"! I told him they were perfect, I want mine like that. So now I'm bringing Vanity Fair into the operating room.
Just kidding, of course. I want more cleavage than Caitlyn. He already told me there will be a fingers width between them. I can't wait for August.
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Me too, I can't wait to lose this lopsided coconut bra. Mine are sorta even but PS says the right is perfect and left needs some pocket work at exchange. The left is way more into my armpit which is driving me insane, hard to shave in that bat cave! My "cleavage" is wide and a bit tender. In fact my whole chest is still tender. PS says she'll fix everything at exchange. I hope so and I hear you about this being a LONG haul. At exchange in August it will be almost a year. Yuck!
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My NSBMX is scheduled for this coming Thursday (6/11) and I had my last appointment with the plastic surgeon this morning. We had discussed doing direct to implant but since the Natrelle Inspira won't be available until end of June/beginning of August, the decreased complication rate and the ability to "tweak" things at the exchange it was decided to go with TEs instead. She said she usually fills 300 at the time of surgery and goes to 700 for someone of my size (natural size is 38D) but she may go a little bit bigger initially based on how much skin is leftover after the BS is done. She said that with the Inspira's I'll have cleavage 24/7, they'd look like an augmentation and be perky. I told her that, at age 51, I'm okay with that. I don't have horrible sag/ptosis at the moment but this will be a nice change. I've always been more bottom pole heavy so it will even things out but I told her I don't want them in my chin. She laughed, love her. LOL
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Good luck for your surgery Tempy. It's not so bad so take a deep breath and move forward. I was in discomfort but not pain.
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I'm not really afraid of the pain, I can handle pain (would only take half of a low dose Percocet maybe once a day after my excision biopsy/lumpectomy) but the PS and BS keep talking about the possibility of me losing my nipples. I've grown rather fond of them. They say they're going to use some sort of sensor that can tell how well the blood flow is and hopefully keep them, but with them saying that well it's a possibility over and over again I'm nervous as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs.
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hummingbird
My PS said no immersion in hot tub but did not say I could not get in. As for swimming she said that's fine. I'm 6 months post BMX and exchange is the end of July.
Scottie
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Lorie -- I look a lot different right now than I did in the week or so after my BMX (I'm 3 weeks out now). I didn't know what to expect, but I wasn't thrilled when I first saw myself. I wasn't upset because I was uneducated on what I would see, but I wasn't thrilled. My left side, which has always been my bigger side, looked a lot bigger than the right -- I thought that he'd filled one side a lot more than the other. And they were big in different places with a crease in my left side. Turns out my left side was more swollen and that went down. My right side filled out more at the bottom, and my left side filled out more at the top, but they look pretty symmetrical now once you take into account that I'm only about 1/3 filled and they've filled in slightly different places so far. I feel like they look pretty good now, considering. . . . I get my first fill on June 19 -- just two days after you.
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I hope to encourage those of you who think your two sides look so different. My prophilactic side looked good but my BC side looked squished. I went in once to see if it was leaking because they were no way the same size. At exchange, my PS did pocket work with alloderm to even things out. I couldn't be happier!just keep writing your questions down so you remember to ask them. Another thing I found helpful was to take photographs. I could look back and see how things were changing. This process is so slow that we seem to feel stuck in one place. Best wishes to all
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hello ladies!! I'm new to this thread. I'm so glad I found it. I had my double mastectomy in March. I see a lot of ladies hadfills at the time of surgery. I didn't get any at the time. I've been doing 50 cc at a time. My goal is 500cc. I have to say like everyone else these TE are so uncomfortable, the first couple of fills were painful. Now these the last couple have been painful now. My PS is saying all the skin is stretching. It is hard to sleep with them, I sleep on my side. I wake up with it hurting at times. Thank goodness for the medicine. I always take take a pain med and Valium when I leave the office. I'm at 450cc, one more to go. I'm going to skip a week. I love that I don't have to wear a bra, I will wear a sports bra if I go to a appt. I can't get the exchange til I finish chemo. I'm also having reconstructed nipples done. Has anybody had this done?
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Kathy that is encouraging!! Thank you for sharing. I've been lopsided my whole life and would love to at least get that taken care of.
Hi, JustDiagnosed. I'm not sure what I'm going to do about reconstructing my nipples. My PS doesn't do that until a few months after the exchange, so I have time to decide. Part of me thinks that would be nice, but I'd always worn padded bras so that my nipples didn't show, so part of me thinks it may be nice to be flat and just get 3D tattoos. . . . I'm hoping that the decision becomes more clear to me as time passes.
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Halee, isn't that a kick in the but??? I spent my whole life hiding my lopsided nipples in padded bras, just so ironic.
I have decided to get 3D nipple tattoos and I am going to buy a set of stick on nipples so once in a while I can put them on under a t-shirt for shits and giggles. I'm thinking the tattoos will be a good guideline for where to place them. The ones I want are $250, I think on the Curediva website.
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Audrey -- I know, right?!! My mom told me that she couldn't believe I was considering reconstructing my nipples as paranoid as I've always been about them showing. I didn't even know that stick-on nipples were an option! Off to google. . . .
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They have "sparkle" and glow-in-the-dark nipples?!! It is amazing the things that exist that I've never imagined. . . .
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glow in the dark? Wouldn't that surprise my husband. But I suppose you have to do topless during the day to charge them with light first! That would take away from the surprise.
I thought about nipples and tattoos for quite awhile. My PS was ready to put me on her schedule three months after my exchange. I wasn't ready to think about them or commit. I had read that PS tattoos by Kaiser were vegetable based instead of permanent ink. When I read that Vinnie Myers occasionally comes to SoCal, I called to be put on the waiting list. In my mind, this is my commitment to myself to believe that the BC won't come back. Or at least that I will just deal with it if it does. I want to make the most of each day I have.
I'm also one who is relieved that I don't have nipples that show. I still vividly remember the first time I went outside after my two Mx in the cold and put my hands up to make sure my nipples weren't protruding. I laughed out loud when I realized what I had done. Drinking cold water also gave me that same weird feeling while I had TEs in. My implants now feel like a part of me while the TEs seemed to be perched on my chest.
You girls bring back great memories!
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My PS doesn't like the fact of tattooing. He wants toreconstruct them himself. He said it will be after I heal from the exchange. I thought about not doing it, but I'm leaning towards reconstructing them. I haven't experience the weird feeling while drinking cold water.
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Remember that you are in charge of your outcome, not the surgeons. If you feel the fills are too soon, too much, too often= speak up and say so. Want less at a time? Do every other week? say so... If you want tattoos but he wants to reconstruct, speak up and say no. Or at least don't rush into any decision. I Have had a number of surgery tweaks, way more than I expected, so also dont rush to reconstruct or tattoo before you are sure you are done with surgeries. And then wait a number of months to see where they drop/end up so the nipples can be placed where you really want them.
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That makes sense about waiting for them to drop before reconstructing nipples. His nurse is leaving for commuting reasons, but is coming in Friday's to finish her patients. I'm so sad to see her go. She said he was the best PS.
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