Has anyone had pleural effusion?

NBee

I have stage 4 inflammatory breast cancer with metastasis to the bones and lung. I've recently been told that I have pleural effusion. My left lung was full of fluid, I was having horrible pain in my left shoulder (referred pain from my lung, they said). They drained the fluid and placed a pleural catheter in my left lung so I can drain when I need to, which has been once a week lately. After they drained my lung and changed my meds I started feeling much better. They said that the fluid that came from my lung was full of cancer, so I'm assuming that means I have malignant pleural effusion. I've looked online at the prognosis for this and it scares me! Has anyone else had pleural effusion? What have your experiences been like?

NewGardener

Hi NBee

I've had a handful of pleural effusions. First one in 2014 while on everolimus/exemestane - it resolved itself. In June 2015, I had one again - had a thoracentesis and changed treatments...and I was lucky that the PE didn't return. Most recently I had a PE at the end of 2017 while waiting to get into a clinical trial - the pain drove me into the ER (shoulder, back, chest). Again I had a thoracentesis - with the new trial drugs again I was lucky it didn't return.

So hopefully your new meds will do the trick and address it and they'll be able to remove the catheter. Good luck!