Pain after six years of mastectomy

Hello, I am sorry to hear you have so much pain and repeated surgeries. I will briefly list my surgeries, uni mx July2012 with TE put under my pectoral muscle. I was going to have a DIEP. Changed my mind, heard about BRAVA and fat grafting. Had 1 fat grafting procedure 2014, the PS said take out the TE, did that and got first bad infection, 300cc's pus taken off my chest. Had adhesions that wouldn't even shift with the next fat grafting procedure, he finally cut it loose on the 3rd fat grafting procedure. He didn't know how to do it,. Switched to another PS who did fatgraft for 4th time, had another bad infection. Lost most of my grafted fat. Had 5th fat grafting done by the 2nd PS who, while kinder, was not wonderfully more skilled with fat grafting. I had rad damage so my circulation was poor initially. I finally started getting Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy after the 3rd surgery. It vastly improved my skin. Got another New PS who put in a new TE OVER my pectoral muscle. So much better than it was the first time when my muscle was chopped up. I had implant exchange August 2015.,,,,again, it was placed Over my pectoral muscle. No Stratice or other Acellular Dermal Matrix stuff, although that has been used in other over the muscle placement of implant surgeries. I had nipple reconstruction on Dec 3rd, 2 weeks ago today. I plan to see Vinnie Myers down in Southern California later this year for an 3D areola tattoo. I have had 16 surgeries in the past 3 years, and I am finally done.

I am not perfect looking by any stretch, but compared to the adhesions /crater in my chest that I lived with for 4 or 5 months, this is much , much better. I feel nearly normal again. Over the pectoral is the way to go if you want to try again with an implant. PM me if you want me to show you what it looks like. I don't know ifany of this would work for you

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25455288

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00238-014-1001-1

Good luck, I will be thinking of you.

Hi Ronna,

You have my sincerest hopes for a good resolution of the painful/nagging symptoms you have been putting up with.

Have you read about ACCOLATE for treatment of capsular contracture? It has been used for this in a couple trials. It has been linked to liver problems in some women, but also seemed to relieve capsular contracture in some as well. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19338783 Nothing is ever easy, is it?

Could you have pain from neuropathy ? I think I'm having some arm stiffness /tightness in my upper arm that could be neuropathy. Sorry if you have already figured this out. Sometimes I just want to spark different ways of looking at things to help figure out solutions for myself and others.I think I am going to try ALA for that. I read it is not good if you had Some kinds of chem like taxanes?, but instead I had Cmf,so I plan to try it to see if can help my arm pain. Take care, I hope you get relief soon.