DIEP Flap Reconstruction 2016
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Zinny, good luck with stage 2. I will be having liposuction and transfer of fat to the breasts to make them even and for contouring. Plus getting rid of the dog ears and making nipples. I don't know why they don't do the tatoos at the same time though. I still don't have a date and it looks like next year sometime! I hate this waiting.
Has your doctor told you to get Spanx for after surgery?
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Off to see the surgeon tomorrow for follow up from my debridement July 22. Hoping to get answers on what the next step is. Stay tuned.........................
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I am waiting for stage two of getting my nipples done and then the aureola and doing some reading about it. So just wondering how safe is tattoo ink that they use on the aureola and nipple? If it's not approved by FDA and Health Canada, why is it being used in hospitals. Just wondering. Here is another article on the subject. And another one about the ingredients in the ink.
Has anyone here have had an alergic reaction or complications after getting the tattoo?
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Morning ladies.
Tanyarocks, I hope you got some answers and an idea of what's to come.
Grateful, stage 2 recon from DIEP? Or did I miss one of your procedures? Please let us know what you find out. I'm going to have 3D nipple tattoos done, I think. Won't be until mid 2017, if that. Oh my brain feels so scattered some days lol
Question ladies?
Started occupational therapy again yesterday for lymphadema prevention and range of motion fine tuning, scar management. I love this lady. I saw her right after my BMX, and she is just awesome and so informative, and knowledgeable.
My question is she asked if they were eventually going to remove the flaps, and fix it so I had a scar right across the front like --------- ? Imagine my horrified face at the idea of yet another surgery?
I saw his patient pictures. They had flaps. Thou naturally, some less noticeable than others. But I also saw pictures of the scar straight across. Is there a medical necessity for this? Why remove the flaps? (I know some unfortunate patients lose their flaps, but in other cases, any reason it would be needed?)
Hope all are doing well today and healing issues are resolving.
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Hi ladies I'm back the wound vac is a pain in the butt to have to carry around that longggggg tube with the pouch connected to my stomach but it really worked. my incision is almost closed so the doctor said there is not room to put the sponge so the rest will have to be covered for the remainder to close. My nurses were excellent. I saw my ps today and he is scheduling my stage 2 for Dec. Simplicity he is not going to take out the flap but the skin shaped like a football so I will have the line going across the middle, lift the breast, dog ears and work on the shape around the football shape area where it is kind of flat. He will wait to do the nipples in his office some time after stage 2. Still concerned about not having leave to cover stage 2 but if I wait till next year I'll have to start all over for the year with insurance payments. Hope you all understand that. Over all I am still very please with my stomach and breast.
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good visit today i think. back in january to discuss/schedule stage 2 for possibly feb. will need another reduction on the right with a lift on both and reshape on the left. possible that i need more fat necrosis removed on the left but we will see. then of course, the dog tags on the waist.
so, overall i am happy and look forward to finishing stages. no nipples etc until i heal completely from this next surgery.
COME ON 2017
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also............who got nipple tats and who got reconstructed nipples? can i see your pictures???
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Tanya, that is great news! Another step closer to getting this behind you 😃. I had my stage 2 left breast reduction in August and it healed up within 4 weeks. I am very pleased with the results! I will be seeing the ps in December to talk stage 3 (nipple and dog ear removal). Take care everyone hugs
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I was wondering how fat necrosis presents itself - is it a lump? I had 3d mammo this week and have to go back for a US...
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stellamaris, is that on your reconstructed breast you are having US?
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Simplicity, I don't know what your OT was talking about I have football shaped flaps from my delayed DIEP, and they are there to stay. You get a straight line across with implants, so perhaps that is what she is used to seeing?
I started out with implants and hated them. My original PS told me I was too thin for a DIEP. Twoinfected implants later I went to see a DIEP surgeon, and he told me I was the perfect candidate!
I now have lovely C cups. The football flap isn't gorgeous, but I look pretty amazing in clothes and not half bad naked.
I got nipples done back in April with my stage 2. I want to go to Vinnie's for my tats. Just waiting for the scars to lighten and to get over feeling so tired after the BC nightmare. I've got a lot of life to catch up on! Glad to be DONE with surgeries.
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Any suggestions on what type of bra to wear following DIEP surgery? My surgeons office said to get a front closure sports bra, but I'm not sure if I should get a tight one with lots of support or a soft stretchy one. I'm really small (36A) and having mastectomy on the right only. Plan to go shopping tomorrow. Thanks for any ideas!
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I found sports bras to be very expensive and hot so I bought two like this (black and white, no closure back or front) at a department store for $12. They seem to work. I don't find I need the front closure necessary because it stretches. I am not big either, so I just pull it on like panties and pull up over my hips and breasts and over the shoulders. I prefer the soft bra because I can massage my breasts throughout the day which helps prevent necrosis. Maternity bras often have front closure if you decide to go that route. What doctors don't want you wearing are bras with underwire.
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stella...my fat necrosis feels like a hard spot, almost like a small ball. actually, now that i touch it, sometimes it feels like a ball and other times just like a blob lol. it doesn't hurt. i just randomly massage it when i remember.
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grateful: the US is on my left, reduced breast, the one that has no cancer (I hope)....
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thanks Tanya, that is what my "lump" feels like. Keeping my fingers crossed, since my breasts look so nice now. Would hate to have to mess with them again. Hope you are continuing to heal without complications. Hugs
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Grateful99,
Thanks for the photo and description! I never thought of pulling a bra up from my feet - that's a great idea. A pull-on bra without any hooks sounds ideal, especially since I've been worried about the front hooks rubbing my skin after the surgery. You didn't have any trouble sliding it over the incision on your abdomen right after your DIEP flap surgery?
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JCN16, I was careful when pulling the bra on over the abdominal incision and I had a bandage over it for quite a while. You're right, the front closure could have rubbed on the new breasts.
Stellamaris, all the best for your US.
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grateful, my surgeon is a non binder, in fact she suggested that I not wear anything with a tight waistband. Surgery was this afternoon. Eating cereal at 1 am, lol.
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Zinny, would you feel comfortable sharing more details about your part 2 surgery?
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My stage 2 was in April, and my surgeon was a no binder too. It was pretty easy.
I had nipples done and fat grafting from my waist an inner thighs to fill in the poles. He also cleaned up some shelves in the flaps--places where the two thicknesses of skin didn't match up quite right.
He put several layers of gauze with holes in them to protect the new nipples and covered all that with tegaderm. Thus, I didn't get to see my new nipples until my post op a week later.
The only painful part was the fat grafting donor sites. I felt and looked like I had been beat up. Lots of bruising. But, I loved the results!
I didn't have any drains, but I was back to lifting restrictions for about a month. I could work, but I was pretty tired.
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This is me 7 months post stage 7. Lefty was the side with the infection, so there was no expansion with that flap. I'm pretty happy with the results. All that is left is tattoos!
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BigSister, that looks great! Thanks for sharing.
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Anyone have DIEP after having other major abdominal surgery? I've had small intestine resection, and need preventive mastectomy due to high risk syndrome and also need ovaries removed. Thanks! Also, hospital/ Doctor recommendations??
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I had DIEP after two C-sections (long time ago). Can't help you with doctors though. It might help if you told us where you live.
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My insurance is good nationwide, so I'm willing to travel for treatment. I come from New England, but live in FL now.
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PeutzJegher- I had my UMX and DIEP in NOLA at the Center for Restorative Breast Surgery. They are world class in my opinion. I can't say enough good things about them.
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Thanks Java, I've been reading about Dr. Robert Allen, he developed the DIEP in 1992. His practice is in NOLA, is that the place you are referring to? What is UMX? You just had this done a couple of weeks ago? How encouraging this is!0 -
A UMX is a unilateral mastectomy. And I am three weeks post-op today. Dr. Allen did pioneer the procedure while the two doctors (Dellacroce and Sullivan) in NOLA worked for him at his center before Katrina. If I'm not mistaken Dr. Allen has two offices, one in NY and one in NOLA.
Here's the link to where I went. http://www.breastcenter.com
This is an OLD OLD OLD thread about the 3 doctors and if you scroll down, you'll se the out-of-pocket expenses discussed. Now, things might have changed. But I will tell you that after insurance and having already paid out my limit in co-pays, deductibles, etc., I didn't have another charge at all. If that matters you to. It mattered to me. Plus, there is a HUGE group of us NOLA ladies on FB and having talked with them and seeing their results, I felt great about my choice. https://www.cancercompass.com/message-board/message/all,1894,1.htm?mid=22755 < I don't know why this link isn't working correctly. Copy and paste it as I had to unhyperlink it. Of course, now it's working. Ugh.
If you have a skilled microsurgeon who loves what they do and does hundreds of these a year, you will have good to great results. The problems come up if your Plastic Surgeon only does a few per year. I wanted a team who knew what they were doing, worked in pairs and loved what they were doing. I got all that in NOLA. I live in the DC metro area. We have LOTS, TONS even, of doctors. Not one here no matter how skilled they were did the sheer volume of DIEPs that NOLA does. I was sure to ask. And we have some kick ass plastic surgeons in the area. Doing 10, 20, 50 isn't enough over the course of a year when they do other kinds of plastic surgeries- nose jobs, ass lifts, etc. You want someone who is doing 100 of these things. It's literally sewing tiny blood vessels together under extreme conditions. The more you do, the better you get at figuring out what works, seeing problems and coming up with solutions AND making sure that prior problems that have been seen are proactively minimized. My local PS told me my DIEP would take about 11 hours, maybe slightly less because I wanted only one breast and this included the time for the mastectomy as well, and recovery would be in an ICU. He recommend three surgeries- mastectomy with TE placement, DIEP recon at a later date, and then phase two even further out from that. At NOLA, my surgery from start to finish was including mastectomy was 6.5 hours with immediate reconstruction available. They knew radiation was a possibility and when they opened me up and found more than should've been there- positive nodes, etc., they added in extra fat to the foob and under my arm so any radiation damage would be done to my EXTRA FAT and not the fat I would be keeping later down the road. It's the anticipatory needs of a cancer woman that made me feel like they cared about me, cared about my results, cared about how my body would be impacted by all the surgeries and things happening to it. They took care of me. Completely. And my boob? It's the bomb. Even with the extra fat and the Mrs. Frakenstein stitches, my foob looks so real and so natural many technicians who've seen it say that it just looks like I had surgery to it. If I had been able to keep my nipple, my foob would look like I had a lift and not a UMX. I am fairly certain when they are done with me in phase two, my foob will look REAL, natural and work the way I want it to.
Now, I'm done singing the praises of NOLA. I will tell you that Charleston also has Dr. Maasey who worked under Drs. Dellacroce and Sullivan in NOLA and she has the about the same success rate and no huge costs after insurance pays.
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Thanks for that, javamama. I am still waiting to hear from NOLA about my insurance. I'm pretty sure it's going to pay 100% if I can get it done before the end of the year, but you never know. I hit my out-of-pocket on 2/4/16, the date of my BMX. I live in Atlanta, where we have dozens of plastic surgeons. I've had 2 consults, neither of which made me feel comfortable--they didn't even listen to what I wanted, kept pushing implants which I DON'T want. So I have no problem flying down to NOLA for surgery, if Cigna will do their part. I'm really hoping that I can get it done before the end of the year, so it will be free. Otherwise, Ill have to start over with the deductible and OOP.
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