Precautions with BMX

SusanGA

I am scheduled for a BMX next month. One side has cancer but the e other would be prophylactic. My question regards the precautions. How do you handle blood draws, finger sticks(pre-diabetes) and blood pressures when you don't have a non-surgery arm. My thinking in choosing prohy for the non disease side is that at least I can escape SNB on that side. Since my cancer was so hard to find and I have taken ERT for 22 years I thought there was a significant chance of eventual cancer in the good breast (dense with microcalcifications and a biopsy years ago). I have an appointment pre surgery with a Lymphedema Specialist to be pre measured. I hope that helps. Any ideas are appreciated.

BlueKoala

I'm wondering the same. I'm planning on having the other side removed in the next few months.

Blood pressure? Blood draws? Injections? These have always been done on my arms.

Carrying a handbag???? I only carry a small bag now, with a long strap so I can carry cross body. I suppose I will change to a clutch style

ksusan

You'll probably be advised to use the non-cancer side. Some clinics are set up to do BP on the leg, but many have no idea how to read the results. You may be told to consolidate blood draws, use a butterfly or pediatric needle, get flu etc. shots in your leg or buttock, and keep diabetic finger sticks clean (cleanse area, don't reuse lancets, cleanse after stick). It's doable.

NotVeryBrave

They just told me that those precautions apply to the left side (where the lymph nodes were taken).

I'm also being sent to the LE clinic to be evaluated. There wasn't time pre-op. Apparently it's still okay if before my post-op appt with the BS? I think it's mostly doing measurements and suggestions on exercises.

wrenn

I was told to only use prophylactic side and not the side with nodes removed. Coming up to 4 years I haven't had any problems

dtad

Hi everyone. I also had a prophylactic mastectomy on the non cancer side. However my BS did remove 2 lymph nodes just in case the pathology on that side came back positive. I regret that decision. IMO it was over treatment. Since my surgery I have had some questions about possible lymphedema on that side. It just makes me think it was not really necessary. I believe most BSs underestimate the possibility of lymphedema. Good luck to all...

ChiSandy

Not all cancer professionals (nurses, MOs, surgeons, etc.) are familiar with lymphedema or know that is much more common than formerly thought. I developed Stage 0 LE (at one point it actually flared to Stage I) even though I had only 4 nodes removed. Luckily, I am at a cancer center/hospital system where everyone's familiar with it—there are actually two LE specialists, one of whom founded LANA.

But my friend in the southwest “exurbs" (beyond suburbs) was diagnosed with Grade 3 hormone-receptor-negative DCIS in one breast and ADH in the other. Because her breasts are dense & small and she wants as little followup treatment as necessary, she chose bilateral mastectomy; her breasts are so small she hasn't worn a bra in 30 years, and as a widow of more than 15 years she doesn't intend to go back on the dating market. So she turned down reconstruction or even prostheses. When I took her to the hospital the day of her surgery, after she'd been prepped, the nurse-navigator came in with a basket of booklets, catalogs, mastectomy bra & forms. I asked about which arm my friend would need to use for BP or blood draws or whether she'd need to use her thigh, leg or even foot, and the nurse thought I was crazy. “It's so uncommon and they're doing a bilateral mastectomy. Nothing to worry about." I asked what about sentinel node biopsies, and was told they would be done.

So when the surgeon came in to the pre-op cubicle, I asked her, and she shrugged off my concerns by saying none of her BMX patients got LE. (But most of them with DCIS probably didn't follow up with her—nor with any oncologists, whether radiological or medical, if they didn't get local or systemic adjuvant treatment—so the incidence was likely higher). She also started to tell me I should go back to my hotel room because my friend would “be in the O.R. at least seven hours." My friend reminded her she wasn't getting reconstruction, and the surgeon looked at her quizzically (as if to ask “who doesn’t get reconstruction?”) and then said, “oh, right—three hours, then—go to the family waiting room.” Bilateral SNBs were done, all negative. No LE yet, but you never know—my friend is a bit more obese than I.