Pain with tissue expanders two weeks post double mastectomy
hi all - I had a skin saving double mastectomy two weeks ago and at the one week follow up the nurse said “you look pretty full” and saw that the PS filled one at 450 and the other at 400. After the one week appointment, as the surgery swelling went down, I started getting sharp pains at the bottom of my left chest, by the bottom of my ribs, and also sharp pain right in the center of my chest along the bone that is in the middle of my ribcage (in between my two expanders) if I do any movement that involves bringing my hangs or arms together. Like super sharp stabbing pain. If I lean my upper body forward like leaving over sink to brush my teeth, I get th same sharp pain in the middle of my breast bone. If I sit at a desk and I’m slouched over even the slightest and I go to stand up straight, it’s the sharp stinging pain (that I’d rank an 8 outta 10) under my left breast. I can only assume this is coming from the expanders. Has anyone else experienced this same sharp pains in certain places from their expanders and if so, did it go away before the surgery to put implants in?
Comments
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jenny,
Sorry to hear about the pain from your expanders. I had expanders after skin sparing DMX in 2018 but didn’t experience the type of pain you are describing. However, my PS didn’t put very much into my expanders in the OR.
Don’t be afraid to reach out to your PS office and let them know about the pain.
Maybe the volume is too much? I think some saline can be removed if you can’t tolerate the volume.
Good luck!0 -
Hi Jenny,
Hope you're feeling better from your pain.
I also got mine filled by my PS in the OR, not very much b/c I'm on the petite side. I do have to say, they are bothersome, especially now that most of the swelling has gone down (and for some reason on rainy and humid days? - my operation date was 8/12/24).
Best of luck ❤️
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thanks ladies!
I will say my surgery was 8/6/24 and being 4 weeks out it’s definitely better. The sharp pain upon certain movements is gone and ie it’s just a constant dull pain (which I describe as some pressing a wooden dowel onto my best bone and not letting up on the pressure), coupled with the constant stinging tingling feeling in my chest area. Taking gabapentin and ibuprofen helps with that feeling. But it’s definitely slowly progressing towards improvement.1 -
Before my surgery the doctor showed me the expander. It is a hard plastic thingy, not at all looking like any type of silicone or salin implant. So I was totally expecting that this would be how it feels, what you all described. I had my surgery on 8/26/24. Spent two nights in the hospital, and after that was on Tylenol for a week. Haven’t taken anything since. The weird feeling of having a plastic thingy on my chest won’t go away with a pain killer because it isn’t pain really, it is just the feeling that it is there.
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I am experiencing the exact same pain. I talked to my PS today and she didn't know?? She thinks it the sutures pulling from the chest wall. I really hope it gets better. I will be 4 week post op on Thursday. I had my first post op fill today and I am now 250cc on both sides. Does anyone know when you look like you have a breast shape? I just have one hump throughout my chest but no definition between breasts…I really hope it gets better:(
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@duchessoftea my breast don’t have too normal a shape, just b/c my PS and I agreed not to fill them up completely. We don’t want to stretch the skin too much because we don’t want too big of an implant, so mine look a bit deflated at times, which I can live with for the sake of not having bigger breasts than what I had pre-mastectomy.
Hope you feel better soon. Sending love to all of you, especially this month 💝0 -
@faithfulkat , thank you so much! I am grateful that I'm not alone in my inflated chest look:) I hope your recovery goes wonderfully too. Blessings to you, dear sister!
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@duchessoftea hope your pain is better or went away. I was 8 weeks yesterday from surgery and I can exercise and stretch with my expander now, and don’t have the weird feeling in my chest while I do it. Sleeping on my side is still weird, so I only do it for a little bit, buy it isn’t painful.
However my surgical scar is still raised and looks ugly. Tryinh scar tape and see if it helps.0 -
here’s an update…. Double mastectomy in August. Terrible tissue expander pain afterwards. It slowly got better over time. But my right side was not healing well; seemed to stay swollen and wasn’t going down like my left side. Then one day I noticed the right expander had shifted. It was poking from under my skin in a way it had not before. And part of my suture line was becoming super thin. They tried to reinforce the suture line with stitches in the office but couldn’t. I finally had to have surgery to take out the right expander. Looking back, I think I had a seroma from after the first surgery that caused the expander to shift. I felt so much better within two days of taking out the problematic expander. Night and day!! I could finally go back to the gym and walk on the treadmill and slowly start lifting light weights (5 and 10 lbs). I go back to surgery in a month to either go directly to implants (if there’s still a big enough void behind the skin) or I will have to have another tissue expander put in to stretch the skin.
All of this to say, the pain level does get better as time goes on but sometimes you have a problematic side that won’t heal right and might always be in pain until you have it taken out. The only saving grace is knowing that many people with expanders experience complications, so you’re not alone.Wishing everyone pain free days ahead!
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That deep, sharp pain when leaning or reaching sounds like it could be nerve-related or from the chest muscle being stretched. Expanders aren’t exactly gentle since they press on everything, and that discomfort often hits in weird, specific spots like under the breast or along the sternum.
It usually does improve over time as the tissue stretches and adjusts, and for many people, things feel way better once the expanders come out and the final implants go in. But if it’s really sharp and not easing up, it’s definitely worth checking back in with your plastic surgeon just to rule out anything like nerve entrapment or irritation
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