Possible severe complication of LD flap reconstruction.

Hello all.

I used to be a member on these forums a few years ago. I had to come back and make this post because I thought it was important for the members who already had or are planning to have LD flap reconstructions.

I will skip over the multiple complications I had after this surgery. What I came to tell you is that now, 6 years after the surgery, I am facing another surgery to deal with a severe side effect that is quite rare, but it exists. There aren't more than a couple of handful cases in the medical literature.

To make a long story short, due to 6 surgeries in 2 1/2 years and the Aromatase Inhibitors, I went from a 130 lbs weight to 191 lbs. Fairly fast. I got to the point that I was eating only 800 calories a day so I wouldn't put more weight on. Ok this is just to give you the idea why the issue wasn't discovered sooner. Because it was hidden under rolls of fat, that's why.

In the past year - after I was off Femara - I decided it was time for that weight to come off and went on the Low Carb High Fat diet. I am proud to say that now I weigh 139 lbs and I am on an on-going weight loss - I hope by the end of the year to get to at least 130 if not 125 lbs, Now comes the kicker. Once I got to 145 lbs I started noticing a bulge right under the left side of my waist incision the PS did to prelevate the LD muscle. The more I lost weight the bigger the bulge seemed. So obviously I scheduled an appointment. I saw the PS yesterday and am getting ready for surgery to repair a herniated muscle with possible colon entrapment.

I have to say that I felt that something wasn't right not long after the 2009 surgery, but due to my "fatness" nothing could be seen or palpated, and everybody thought it was just swelling/nerve damage from the surgery.

I have to say that once I reached 160 lbs I started walking a lot - couldn't walk much before that, esp because in the meantime I had gotten a torn meniscus - hello obesity. Then I started doing all kinds of exercise to go with my diet, and everything went fine. But those exercises did also exacerbate the herniated muscle.

So what the PS explained to me: the fascia (outer layer that holds the muscle together) of the muscles that previously were covered by the LD muscle got frayed up and tore. Through the opening, the muscles that were UNDERNEATH started bulging. And everything that was UNDER those muscles followed course.

I will give a couple of links at the end of this post of other cases reported.

Please think twice - and thrice, and four times - before you do this surgery. If you've already done it, make sure you check your back always for any trace of hernia. To better see this, turn your profile to the mirror and curve your back outwards, like if you had a ball in front of your tummy and wanted to cover it. Check carefully or have a family member check that.

Here are the links:

Lumbar hernia after breast reconstruction

Management of giant inferior triangle lumbar hernia (Petit's triangle hernia): A rare complication following delayed breast reconstruction with extended latissimus dorsi myocutaneous flap

This is it. I wish you all good luck, no matter what type of reconstruction you choose.

Day