Lost tissue expander due to skin necrosis. Now what?

I had this happen as well. I had an area of necrosis that would not heal with the expander under it, so it was removed after several surgical tries to save it, because I needed to move on to chemo and needed to be healed to do so. The expander was out for seven months during chemo and then a month prior to surgery, then was replaced without any issues. The expander was put in place without any fill, that incision was allowed to heal sufficiently, and then was very slowly filled until it matched the right side, then they were both filled simultaneously until I reached the desired size, and I exchanged with no problems. During the time period the expander was out I just wore a soft bra (Coobie or Genie) and used the cotton insert that came with my mastectomy camisole and placed the correct amount of the fluffy stuffing inside to match my right expander size. As the left expander caught up to the right one I used less of the stuffing. I certainly hope that your PS is right, this is a setback, and that you can successfully have the expander replaced after your skin has healed.

I completely understand. I did not have reconstruction but I had a lot of tissue necrosis on the right side. After the surgeon debrided the area it looked like a wolf had taken a bite out of my chest. It was horrible. And when I say horrible understand that I have been a nurse 39 years. I have seen a lot of horrible but this took the cake. It was so hard for me to do dressing changes and my husband couldn't even look at it.

At first my surgeon put a wound VAC on my wound. That helped healing a lot, a whole lot. At this point the wound has shrunk considerably, but it will be another four to six weeks before the wound is completely healed.

Best of luck to you. I hope you can eventually get back to reconstruction and not have any complications.

Hi labweb, I am so sorry to hear about your healing/reconstruction woes. I get that it is really distressing to feel like you don't have a comfortable bra to wear, that makes you feel ok about how you look. I hated having the fake boob, I was always asking my kids if I looked symmetrical. I was just always nervous that somehow it would shift/fall out. Never fell out, but it did shift, causing me to feel embarrassed a couple of times, although I don't think anyone noticed but me. Glad to not worry about that anymore with my implant. So I have had many, many reconstruction setbacks, especially because of poor tissue healing due to very bad rad damage. I have considerable unfortunate experience with poor blood flow issuesimpacting healing. I figured out for myself that I needed to improve blood flow if I wanted my reconstruction surgeries to suceed. Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT )improves blood flow to areas of poor tissue integrity due to 100%Oxygen flow in an increased pressure chamber. Most HBOT, is at 2 to 2.5 Atmospheres, compared to 1 Atmosphere at sea level. I don't know if you could get insurance to approve it, but it might help alot. Most doctors know very little about it. Looked up, there is a Wound Care place not that far from you in Huntsville. They say that they help poorly healing surgical wounds on their site. Might be worth a visit if you can get some doctor to refer you.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24851552

http://www.huntsvillehospital.org/wound-care-clinic

Good Luck. It will get better, hang in there.