How long did your discomfort last?
I am a little over two weeks out from lumpectomy with sentinel lymph node biopsy. At the same time I had an oncoplastic breast reduction on both sides. I'm wondering if others have continuing irritation/pain on the biopsy side and how long I can expect it to last. I sort of expected the annoying irritation to be gone by now, or at least substantially reduced.
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Hi @tigglewinkle, Two weeks is really too soon for the pain on the tumor side to be gone. Oncoplastic lumpectomy is more complicated than a regular lumpectomy or simply removing tissue for a bit of a reduction. My SO explained that it involved an internal flap advancement where tissue within the breast is rearranged to make up for the volume loss and indentation caused by removing the tumor. It has great cosmetic results - not much change in the appearance of my breast despite a 3.2 cm tumor - but the moving around of flesh causes more widespread internal damage that has to heal. Also the SNB can cause damage to the brachial plexus nerves. That usually heals with time but nerves regrow very slowly.
I'm not the best person to give you a timeline since radiation and a thermal burn further injured the nerves in my breast. My brachial plexus neuropathy had improved some during my eight week wait for radiation. I would say the timeline is pretty much individual. When you next see your breast surgeon you could ask about the expected time range since they have a great deal of experience with this.
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@maggie15 Thank you so much for this—It's very helpful. I am especially interested in your radiation experience. I meet with my radiation oncologist today and my understanding is that it will start in only a few more weeks, but I don't understand why they can't wait until the breast tissue is more healed from the surgery. I am relieved that my discomfort is normal. I also feel like my surgical bra contributes to the irritation, but truth be told, it's just uncomfortable no matter what.
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The usual time between surgery and radiation is 3 - 8 weeks. I was happy to have the longer time span but this seems to be driven by the number of patients requiring radiation and the facility schedule. My radiation issues were not at all typical since I found out later that I should not have done it. My pulmonologist told me a lung cancer radiologist would have seen the red flags in my medical history (upper GI bleed, esophagitis, Barrett’s esophagus) which meant I already had subclinical ILD that was exacerbated by treatment Also, I was burned in an accident six weeks after finishing rads so I had thermal burns on top of the relatively minor radiation effects. Most people get through radiation just fine with slight skin problems and the fatigue that hits toward the end but improves in a few months. I hope your discomfort improves and radiation goes well.
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Hi @tigglewinkle. I’m so sorry you are having a lot of discomfort! Our bodies are all so different and it’s hard to know what’s “normal”!! This is such an abnormal experience. My situation is very different (and possibly of no help to you at all) since I had a mastectomy, no radiation and recently had a substantial reduction of my healthy breast at the same time they put the implant in my mastectomy side. But your words about the surgical bra causing discomfort rang so true!! It was not a fun time. In hindsight I see that my surgical bra was a big part of my discomfort on both sides because it was really too small and I was having torso swelling issues so the band was digging in too much as the day went on, it would start out okay in the morning, plus it was pressing painfully on my reduction incision. (What worked for one side didn’t for the other, I needed some sort of split bra contraption apparently!) Anyhow, I stopped using the way too tight bra the surgeon gave me and used a larger size, same style, one from my first surgery (I tried velcroing it to be tight enough but I know it wasn’t quite enough compression) and I used abdominal pads to try cushioning the incision where the band dug in but I still had a very tender spot where apparently the nerves were still alive. The rest of the reduction incision was pretty numb. It has been such a strange experience of numbness mixed with discomfort, so hard to describe! The plastic surgeon tried giving me two other different styles of post-surgical bras and I could tolerate one better than the others. It had Velcro expansion along the band so I could adjust it better. But then my physical therapist gave me some channel padding and chip pads … they provided a lot of relief!! I’ve never even heard of such things! The channel padding was sort of like bubble wrap but in solid channels instead of individual bubbles … I could put it between my skin and the bra band to even out the pressure. I wish I had that from day 1 with my mastectomy because it would have been so useful! And the chip pads felt really good in my armpit where I initially had lymph nodes removed and some scar tissue work was recently done in there, causing it to swell and be quite uncomfortable again. My regular physical therapist had never heard of these things but it was the lymphedema physical therapist that gave me those products and also recommended I switch to a compression camisole rather than a bra so the tight band wouldn’t dig in. That also has helped but it’s way too soon for you to worry about the next “garment”. That was after about 8 weeks for me and I was still having swelling issues. Some post-surgical swelling is normal and everything takes a bit to settle down. P.S. I have not been diagnosed with lymphedema but I’ve definitely had an annoying time of it dealing with some extra swelling after this last surgery. Thankfully it’s getting less as more time passes. The discomfort is not nearly as much, and it’s been four months since my last surgery. I guess in my mind it was going to be just a few weeks and then I would feel fine and life would be back to normal but it has all taken longer than I wanted it to. Try to be patient as your body is healing from something pretty significant!! I hope you feel better each day!
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@needs.a.nap I'm glad to know I am not alone with the surgical bra frustration/annoyance. I'm not sure if it's OK to do, but I've been experimenting with other bras/sports bras for all the reasons you mentioned. I just can't put up with the digging/irritation on my incisions. I can tell it's still somewhat numb but now feels like I have a terrible sunburn and the straps are rubbing up against it. I've heard that radiation makes you even more sensitive so hoping this abates before I'm subjected to that. Thank you for letting me know your experience.
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That sounds pretty uncomfortable @tigglewinkle! What did your surgeon have to say? I know without compression one runs the risk of too much swelling, but with compression, if it’s too miserable to bear … I just don’t know what the solution is!! Do you have restrictions? I did overdo it accidentally about 3 weeks in and opened up my one incision on my reduction side, so that took a few weeks to close up and heal. It’s hard to not really use our arms or chest muscles!!
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