Expander Pain

I had my first post-op visit with the PS yesterday and wow was I unprepared for the pain! Lol

I had my drains removed and my first fill, here I sit almost 24 hours later and find breathing or moving painful. My recovery from my bilateral mastectomy was nothing compared to the pain from the fill. I don't like to take medicine but I can't stress enough the importance of following doctors orders. He has me taking Valium as a muscle relaxer and 800 mg Motrin and Percocet as needed. I wish you all thes best ands now that your not alone in your suffering! Xoxo

I too am in the middle of the process of filling the tissue expanders too. Had a fill yesterday, my third....none put in at surgery. After each fill, only 50 cc at a time every 2 weeks, I find my chest tight, muscle spasms and pain. I usually end up back using Norco for about 3 days after a fill, in addition to my regular Aleve every 12 hours.

But....10 days ago my PCP got blood work results back and my kidneys and liver are not happy with me. So...no more pain meds not even an aspirin. This last fill has left me in more pain than previous ones but how can I compare since i had pain meds for the first 2 fills. I have muscle relaxers only...Skelaxin and Valium. Dr says I have 4 more fills to go and I should expect that each fill will be more uncomfortable than the last because they are really stretching the pecs tighter and tighter.

I'm hoping the next blood work comes back greatly improved so I can take just a little bit for a short while to get through this.

I do not recall ANY pre-op conversations informing me about just how much this recon process hurts! I'm beginning to wonder if having reconstruction was worth it....maybe I should have embraced the concept of wearing prostheses instead. Hanging in there, but just barely....

My PS offered to go less but at this rate I have 2 more months of fills then wait the 4 to 6 weeks before exchange. I just really want this all done already. So I will try to endure the pain so I can hopefully be done and able to enjoy some of my Michigan summer.....they feel so short here especially when it is currently snowing and freezing outside right now.

I can do this....I keep telling myself that. I just hang on one more day...one day at a time. Thank God for inventing muscle relaxers!

katykids - wow! Who decided what your post-op period was?  That is pretty arbitrary, and no I don't believe that is the norm.  Part of the issue is that the fills are part and parcel of the surgery, so your PS is not usually billing insurance for fills.  It takes up their office time if you go more slowly but patient comfort and well-bring should take precedence over everything else.  Was there a corresponding insurance billing for each of those slower fills, or just the co-pay?  I had expanders placed with BMX is Nov of 2010, had skin integrity issues, had several repair surgeries and then had the expander removed because I needed to start chemo.  The expander was replaced six weeks after chemo (surgery was mid-July) ended with no fill.  I did not start fills for at least a month and only did 25cc fills, but continued to fill weekly until I was at 550ccs - so, this took a long time!  I was never charged a co-pay and did not have exchange surgery until the following February.

katykids - IMHO he shouldn't have been billing separate office visits, and charging you the corresponding co-pay, for fills that are definitely tied to your surgery - regardless of how long it had been since the surgery.  Being done with fills three months post-op is fast, and kind of unrealistic.  Doesn't seem right!

katykids - aw thanks!  If it makes you feel better I switched PS too, should have done it sooner.  It started with an insurance issue, actually the first PS had a new biller, with new software, and couldn't process the claim for a fat graft surgery, and the PS was unwilling to schedule more surgery (at this point I had a right implant and nothing on the other side) until the claim was processed.  While I understood this, my insurance does not allow a physician to deny treatment for a billing concern, so I switched.  My new PS did the exact same surgery, billed insurance, and was paid two weeks later.  The issue was clearly his biller, and he finally did get paid - but not for another nine months.  Now that I have been with the new PS for two surgeries I can see in hindsight other reasons I should have jumped ship earlier.  I am glad you found someone you can work with!   I am now hopeful that this new expander is working out, I can exchange this year.  Maybe next year will have zero surgeries, lol!

Anybody here have this problem? I found a way early on to sleep on my side on the couch. Ever since my last fill (only 150 cc each side so far) after sleeping on my right side each night I wake up with the left side hurting bad. Also I can feel more of the fluid on the left side is migrated to clevage area. Other side has more of a spread out feel to it. I don't see my PS until next week and not sure it is important enough to call. Should I be switching which side I lay on each night or is this just temporary since the TEs aren't full yet.

Any suggestions welcome.

damazon - I have not heard that terminology - not sure, but you might check with whippetmom on the implants 101 thread - her knowledge base on TE/implants is second to none.  It is natural to have more pressure as the expander becomes more full, so filling more slowly should minimize discomfort to a degree, but you should always be honest with your doctor about pain.