Poll on Sentinel Node Biopsy Pain

I demanded a valium before the radioactive injection.  The radiologist was a female and extremely understanding of the sensitivity of nipples.  She gave me a lanocane shot right outside of my nipple and believe me my knees jerked right off the table, not from the needle but the burn from the lanocane serum.  After that I felt nothing as they proceeded to give me about 6 injections straight into my nipple.

After surgery I remained pretty much in bed for 18 hours a day for 3 days straight taking pain meds every 3 hours.  I have a zero tolerance pain threshold.  After day 5 I was able to get off the pain meds.

This was 3 weeks ago that I had the surgery.  I have some nerve thing going on where my nerves under my armpit area are extremely sensitive to any type of cloth other than soft cotten.  I was told by the nurse that SE is very normal and will eventually go away.

I did get the cording SE but that was because I didn't understand that I was not to lift my arm above my head for a long time until I healed up.  That SE is healing as each day passes as I am just not using that arm anymore until the cording goes away.  I do massage the area on a regular basis with my finger tips and that has helped a lot.

My scar at 10 days was raised up but now is starting to flatten out.

I learned a valuable lesson and that is when someone tells you to take it easy after surgery - they are telling you this for a reason.  However, when you are used to doing 8 to 9 hours daily of Hard Labor each day then to me taking it easy is just doing normal things and grooming my horse for one hour to me was totally acceptable as it was "easy" but that is why I got the cording issue going on.  I am learning to be very protective of my left arm now.

I guess I was one of the lucky ones.  The nurse was really sweet and kind of scared me though by saying some people find the procedure really painful.  As the doctor was getting ready, she already was holding my hand and acting concerned. I did have a local numbing agent on my breast, nipple area. As it turns out, the needles were thin, I had several injections right around the nipple (wasn't looking and didn't count!) and though I did feel some mild burning, it was not too bad.  I sort of thought it was kind of like acupuncture and it was over really quickly.  I had the radioactive tracer injected a few hours before surgery and the blue dye during surgery too. 

It seems like this is one of those situations where everyone is different.  It is too bad they do not have a standard routine of offering everyone something for anxiety as well as a numbing agent.

The variances of this are so interesting.  I had read here that it could be painful and the nurse told me beforehand that women usually found it very painful.  I wanted to take the xanax I had in my pocket, but I couldn't get in touch with the surgeon in time to find out if it was okay, so I went ahead and did the labor breathing.  The four injections felt like wasp stings.  I think it was somewhat painful, but nothing extraordinary.  The surgeon's office called later and said I could take the xanax, which helped with any after effects.

I just had the SNB a week ago. I was a bit surprised when the doc said he was going to give me 8 injections, and that they couldn't use anesthesia. He was very kind and gentle, and did it quickly. He told me when I would feel the needle going in, and then when the radioactive tracer was injected it did sting. I closed my eyes and just breathed through it, and while it was painful, it wasn't the worst pain I've ever felt. I think just the idea of having things injected into your breast is kind of gross. It's like: I have breast cancer, and now you're going to inject things into my breast? Adding insult to injury.

Later on, I told my surgeon about it, and she said they've tried different ways of doing it, but haven't found a good one yet. I guess if you give someone lidocaine, it will interfere the with the lymph pathways and can interfere with the result.

I'm sorry your SNB was so painful, and I hope they find a better way to do it in the near future. 

I was another lucky one, got lidocaine, no pain with any of the 4 injections and found it fascinating to watch the machines take pictures of my lymphatic system.

My problem is with the concept of sentinal node (singular) and my surgeon taking 6 sentinal nodes from the cancer side (2 sets of 3 lit up) and 4 sentinal nodes from the prophy side.  They were all negative--thank God--but is it normal to have this many sentinal nodes?  And boy, I am really paying the price now painwise from all that digging around in my armpits. 

I'm really glad you are doing this poll. I thought it was just me! I had this done an hour before my lumpectomy. They injected the lidicane first which really burned. Then they did the radioactive stuff. Granted I was probably at the most vulnerable moment of my life, but it hurt worse than anything I have ever felt. I lost all the control I had been working so hard to keep. Even after it stopped hurting I could not get control of my emotions again. I went into surgery shaking. I am facing a bilateral mx next week because 2 lumpectomies did not get clean margins. They have to do a SNB on my good side at that time. I am dreading it so bad. I might gamble and not do it. But if any cancer is found on the good side they would have to do the full ancillary node disection. What great choices we face.

Oh Lord, Lord, Lord!  That was UNBELIEVABLY painful for me, and I'm no wimp when it comes to pain.  They had me put on Emla cream, which was totally useless and basically a waste of my co-pay.  Although, the cream was helpful for accessing my port during chemo. 

But, yes the SNB procedure was horrible!

I had no anaesthesia but the needles were thin and the doctor was very skilled. There was a slight stinging sensation but the pain was very mild. I would hate to have had the injections in my nipple area though - I'm sure that would be more painful. They injected the tracer into my lumpectomy scar. The worst for me was the wire insertion before the lumpectomy. It was exhausting and I just hated being impaled with wires. It was such a relief to go into surgery and oblivion.

geebung -

I was in surgery 4 hours b/c my surgeon had so much trouble locating a lymph node to dissect - apparently they're really tiny if nothing is wrong. 

I agree 100% that the wire insertion was an ordeal, but I got through it, crying and all.  I've been through much worse pain - it's all relative, really. 

I think the pain must surely be worth it to avoid having to get several nodes dissected and avoid the lymphedema problem. 

Hi:

I, too, thought this was barbaric and hurt terribly.  The only thing worse than that was having an endometrial biopsy last year with no anesthetic.  If men had this done, they would be knocked out cold.

I also had a node positive after the lab report but not at surgery.  I opted out of the axillary lymph node dissection since I was having rads anyways.  I also ended up having chemo because of my oncotype score.

Peeps

My BS did ev ererything once I was under anesthesia so I felt no pain at all. After reading these stories I am SO glad he did it this way.

 RhondaM.

The reason that sometimes the injection is done when the patient is not under anaesthesia is because the equipment needed is not available in or near where the surgery is being done.  In my case, the Nuclear Medicine department at one hospital was shared by several hospitals in the vicinity.  So I actually had the injection done at the hospital next door to where I had my surgery (fortunately I could get there through a tunnel in the building).  Another issue is that it can take 20 minutes or more for the radioactive material to move to the lymph nodes and if operating rooms are busy, waiting 20 minutes for the dye to move isn't the best use of an operating room.  In fact, at my hospital, because they want to be sure that the injection has time to move to the nodes, the injection is always done at least one hour before surgery - and it can be done up to a day before.  That makes sense to me.

Back in high school, the dentist gave me a shot of Novacaine in the roof of my mouth. He must have hit a nerve or something because I fainted in his chair. The four SNB injections weren't as bad as that shot in my mouth, but they did burn a lot. I had the injections about 2 hours before my mastectomy, and the doctor said that they couldn't give me any local anesthesia. He counted down each shot by saying "You're 25% done; you're 50% done" etc., which for me--believe it or not--did help! He was very apologetic, too, which goes a long way when you're in a difficult situation.

This was the worst part of my whole lumpectomy procedure.  I was told the procedure would burn, but just for a few seconds.  They were right.  When the dye was injected into my breast, it burned like fire, but only for a minute or so.  Glad I had to only have 4 shots (that was enough).  I was glad when this part of my procedure was over.