Seroma formation questions

I also developed a seroma after surgery. My doctor drew off 45 cc of fluid and I didn't have any more problems. Hope yours is that simple too.

manu14, I'm sorry you are still having problems. Has it encapsulated? For me, I kind of had the reverse. I had the seroma after the LX but it mostly disappeared during brachytherapy. It took a long time for it to fully disappear, but the fluid accumulation went down to almost nothing once I started radiation.

I had two seromas--one at the SNB site and one that filled the tumor cavity. The SNB incision seroma kept growing to the size of a tangerine. At my 2-wk post-op BS visit, I asked if it was normal or should it be drained; the BS’ NP said they preferred not to drain it because it would only refill and maybe get infected. (She also said that I had only a 2-6% chance of getting LE. Yeah, right). One week later, it burst spontaneously, spewing fluid & blood everywhere. Went back to the breast center (if I’d called 911, they’d have taken me to the crappy hospital’s ER, not the topnotch hospital where I get my bc treatment), and my BS was in surgery. Her NP cheerfully told me it had to “heal from the inside out,” and I’d just have to change dressings several times a day for “a few weeks.” I asked if she was freaking kidding me, and she snippily replied she’d go get the other BS (the dept. head). He came in, winced, squoze out another cupful of fluid (sounded like a squirt gun) and said it needed to be sutured closed. Well, DUH. I asked why this happened (a day earlier, my RO told me to go ahead and remove the remaining steri-strips) and he said the weight of my very large breast probably pulled it open. I asked him if I should have gotten breast reduction, and he diplomatically replied “I wasn’t your surgeon.” (The subject of reduction--or even of my breasts’ unusual size--never came up when I met with my BS). Two weeks later, the sutures were removed by the NP; the incision held and the seroma eventually shrank to the size of an olive. I asked the NP about possible reduction, and she said “there are too many problems--granulation. scarring...and seromas.

Before radiation, the breast seroma wasn’t visible--my surgical breast looked the same as my non-cancer one, except with a lumpectomy scar. But when I met again with the RO after my second session, he remarked that the pre-rads CT showed a “huge seroma,” which got larger, more distorted and encapsulated with each treatment. By the time I finished rads, I needed to ditch my size 38 I bras for 40 I. It’s beginning to shrink, though--my cleavage no longer skews to the left and the skin over the lx site is softer, albeit still tan. The redness is gone from the front. There never was any question of draining the breast seroma. LE massage, a Swell Spot in my sleep bra, and triamcinolone ointment every other day brought it down to nearly normal. The R breast is still fuller than the L, but it no longer has an outer bulge.

I’m pretty sure the burst SNB seroma, and the breast rads did contribute to my getting LE--despite having had only 4 nodes (all negative) removed. Even the LE specialist was surprised I developed it--he said that he wouldn’t have prescribed compression for me in flight with that few nodes out--but because I described cording symptoms and arm fullness when in the mountains, he believed me. (At that point he classified it as Stage 0; a week later when I lifted a guitar case, scooped hard gelato, and grated hard cheese, it swelled and is now at Stage 1).