Exchange City

Mericat

I had a lift on the non mx side at the time of exchange, PS took some skin to make breast tighter but not any of the breast issue itself.  I had no fat grafting, I think the PS likes to wait to see how everything settles and looks like minus the swelling. 

There is some minor pain from the incision, I had an incision around areola and then straight down front of breast.  No drains, and just glue used to close.  If may have been a bit uncomfortable where your bra touches the incision but the unbearable. 

Hi Ladies,

I am having a minor problem that I hope someone can help me with. After my exchange surgery on Oct. 19, I developed a small blood clot (can't remember the fancy name for it) underneath my left boob. It was painful, sore to touch, and felt like a marble with a strand of raw spaghetti leading to it. I showed it to the PS at my check up, and he told me to take 2 aspirin a day until it went away. It took about a month, but it finally disappeared. Now I have the same thing on my right side. It just developed in the last couple of days...sore, throbbing, but I cannot feel a marble, just the hard stick (I guess that's the blood vessel?). So.... Do I call the dr.? Have any of you experienced this? Could it be caused by my new underwire bras that I have been wearing for 2 weeks? Any thoughts? I took aspirin this morning.

Thanks so much!

Roan

Congrats Jill, and Obxflygirl on your cross over! Hope all is well, and a healthy recovery!

Thanks Nurse Lizzie,

I am first going to tell my husband, who is a cardiologist, when he comes home from work today. You are right in that I am otherwise healthy... I ran a marathon last weekend (Disney Marathon)! I had been wearing sports bras until mr recent visit to Victoria's Secret.

Thanks for your advice. My PS is not in the office on Fridays, so I will call him Monday.

Thanks again,

Roan

Hello ladies!  My internet has been down so I haven't been able to catch up for the past week.  I had my exchange on Monday and according to the PS it was a very boring surgery (I like when I'm boring to him:-).  He put in exactly what whippetmom suggested so I feel like I should wind up with the smaller boobs I've wanted for the past 25 years.  I stayed over night and had drains, but today was the grand unveiling and I couldn't be happier.  So weird to have squishy boobs again.  Is it okay to be feeling myself up every couple hours???  Can I blame it on the vicodin?

Cindylouwho - all I could think all week is that I have to tell you that the horrible pain, elephant on your chest, iron bra feeling is mostly gone.  I hope to all hopes that it goes away for you too next week.  I even slept through the night last night - drug free.

Thanks so much to all of you for listening and supporting.  Without you I might have been miserable for so long.  Instead I might need a new screen name. xxox.

Miserablex100.....woo hooo!

I now can be added to the list of Exchanges... April 16, 2013. Yippee... from coconuts to squishies, can't wait!  Cristina

I was diagnosed May 4, 2012 and had right nipple sparing mastectomy on May 24th with expander.  Fortunately was able to avoid both chemo and radiation.  Right breast reconstruction and left mastoplexy with implants on 9/18/2012 (silicone).  Right implant below muscle and 300 CC, left was above muscle and 275 CC.  Having some issues with the right side becoming the increasingly decreasing breast.  Definitely going to have to have this redone.  I've been told the right chest muscle is contracting.  I understand why the right implant was placed below the muscle, but don't understand why there was no bigger difference in size and why the left was placed above the muscle.  It would seem that the overall profile would be different when done that way.  Any input would be helpful.  

Kikki

Kiki - just saw your note.  I'm sorry I don't have any advice or input, but wanted to let you know I'm sorry you're having a difficult time and fingers crossed that someone on the board can help you.

Jill 47, so glad to hear from you! Things seemed to go well this morning. I have and appt with the PS in the morning. I hope he lets me out of this MX bra. Very uncomfortable

And tight. Slept all afternoon, so I am up late. So glad to be on the squishy side.

Merlcat - please don't be nervous...the exchange surgery was 1000x easier than the BMX.  I even went out to lunch with my husband afterwards.  

This might sound goofy, but I did a lot of visualization in prepping for both surgeries.  Anytime something negative crept into my head, I would incinerate it into a volcano (umm, yes, imaginary).  Again, I know it sounds a bit hokey, but it worked for me.  I use visualization whenever I'm prepping to present at work so I thought why not try it for surgery.  If you're not comfortable with the visualization, the other thing you can do is write out how you want your surgery and your recovery to go.

Hmmm- looks like I'm gonna be trying some serious visualization! I'm trying to stay busy but my mind tends to wander back to surgery...maybe I'll try to, whenever I start thinking about surgery, to push that (bleck) out and focus on a warm, sunny, Caribbean beach and that nice breeze that's always there I miss vacations...lol I'll just head out on a mini mind trip ha ha

Merlcat - I understand whay you're saying. I was more nervous about my exchange then I ever thought I would be, but I think that was due to knowing this is the permanent thing. Up until then, everything was temporary. One big mistake I made was not lining up help for after my exchange.  I was doing too much and was uncomfortable for at least 6 weeks afterwards.

The Caribbean sounds like a great idea....

...one thing I noticed on my previous post is that my recurrence was not listed. Although I was diagnosed with stage 1 IDC in 2002, ten years later (sigh) I had a new primary on the other side - DCIS. That occurred this past July so I opted for BMX with TE installed at same time. I've been on the fill journey ever since. Because of the radiation from ten years earlier, the fills had to be spaced five weeks apart. No issues with that and I'm done with the fills. The Mentor expanders are filled to 600cc. My implants will be 550.

Whewww. Felt good to get all that out. I can't talk to my DH about any of this. He has a tough time with all of this. Lucky I'm the strong one.

For those of you waiting for your exchange, it was so much easier than I could have ever imagined. Came home, took a long nap, next morning I went to see the PS, went out to lunch with my parents and then dinner. Oh my goodness, does it feel so much better after having TE since July.