Mammogram with seroma?

DorothyB

My swollen breast is doing much better. It was drained for the 4th time this past Tuesday and I finished my course of antibiotics on Thursday. Now my swelling looks like what I would expect from a seroma. The lumpectomy area (top center of breast) is quite swollen with the seroma, but the sides and bottom of my breast seem to be close to normal - which is nice after months of swelling. It is also not painful at this point.

I am scheduled for a mammogram on Tuesday morning. I'm wondering if having a mammogram while still having a seroma is considered OK for getting good images and also whether it is more painful than a normal mammogram.

Thanks!

godisone

DorothyB its good that now your breast are in much better condition and the swelling is managable. My only concern is PAIN. You know how annoying mammograms could be, then why do you want to expose your swollen breast to this much pain? Also, I am pretty sure that in the condition of serosa the pain is going to be much more than a normal painful mammogram. Just speak to your doctor regarding the same and do present your concern. If she insist that mammograms are important even in case of serosa then do talk to her regarding taking some medicine to deal with the pain which mammogram could incite.

Keep posted honey.

godisone

DorothyB its good that now your breast are in much better condition and the swelling is managable. My only concern is PAIN. You know how annoying mammograms could be, then why do you want to expose your swollen breast to this much pain? Also, I am pretty sure that in the condition of serosa the pain is going to be much more than a normal painful mammogram. Just speak to your doctor regarding the same and do present your concern. If she insist that mammograms are important even in case of serosa then do talk to her regarding taking some medicine to deal with the pain which mammogram could incite.

Keep posted honey.

gb2115

I had a mammogram with a hematoma and it definitely hurt more. The staff didn't seem to care, business as usual for them. I hope it's not too bad for you.

VitaSh

I had a mammogram with a seroma about three months after the operation and a) it hurt more than usual during the procedure, and b) after the mammogram the breast was much more swollen and hurt more than before for weeks. I even worried whether there could be a rupture. If you can postpone your mammogram or replace it with something like ultrasonic, I would advice you to do so.

DorothyB

Thanks for the responses. I was able to move my next surgeon appt for draining (in a couple of weeks) to earlier in the day and reschedule my mammogram for a few hours after the draining.

SUPer52

Hi Dorothy, Thanks for posting about your experiences with draining your seroma. I have learned a lot from your shared experience. I had my mammogram in August with my big seroma present, and while I still had some general overall swelling from radiation. I will say it actually did not hurt. I was quite pleasantly surprised because I was prepared for much pain and was even afraid the seroma could pop. They still got good images and were able to measure the size of the seroma since it did show on the images. Just for reference, my seroma is on the upper outer quadrant, just in front of my armpit.

DorothyB

Updates:

Got seroma drained again this morning - another 100 cc, but since the antibiotics, it looks like what I expect a seroma to look like - swelling there, but rest of breast isn't really swollen and isn't hard. The first time it was drained, I felt no pain because the nerves hadn't healed yet (guessing this is why). Four weeks later, it was a bit painful having it drained. It was worse the next two times. So, this morning I took half of a tramadol and had a friend drive me. No pain! I love tramadol now

This afternoon I had my mammogram. I saw the med onc yesterday and told her that I was having the seroma drained in the morning and the mammogram in the afternoon. When she looked at my breast, she said that it was going to be pretty painful having the mammogram, so I opted to take the second half of the pain pill before going and had another friend take me. Mammogram wasn't bad. No results yet, but not worried about that at this point.