What happens after the drains are removed?

My first thought when I read your question "what happens after..." was do the happy dance! I felt so free when mine was gone! But really just wanted to say hello and glad youre doing so well already. I have BMX coming up in a few weeks so its good to see drains may come out after a week. I've only had a drain after lumpectomy/node surgery years ago and didnt have to go back for further drainage.

Fluid does seep out for a little bit (usually just a couple hours or a few minutes), so they put a thick bandaid, more or less, over my two drain sites and told me to just leave that there until the next day.

I was told they might 'leak' a little on and off for a couple of days and if they did to just put some gauze and tape over it. Mine weren't removed until they were producing under 25ml of fluid within a 24 hour period for two solid days; I didn't produce much fluid and, by day 3 of drains, was only producing about 8ml on each side every 24 hours. They still had me keep them in for the full week though 'just to be safe' (booo! ).

My PS also told me that, if I wanted to lower the risk of seromas/fluid build up that might require aspiration, to make sure I continued to wear the compression garment for the full 4 weeks recommended, which I did, and had no issues with seromas or fluid build up.

Worrisome that she has a timeline instead of output amount. Someone can have under 20 cc per day after three days, while someone else can still have 50 cc per day after two weeks. That. and the fact that she says she might have to "aspirate" is really worrying. Because that means she's milking for money without worrying about your well being. She gets paid to do the "aspiration" while if she leaves the drain in place to do the job she doesn't get extra money.

Because what happens if the drains are removed before the 20-25 cc per day, you will most likely get seromas. The area will keep seeping. Seromas need drainage (aspiration) and not only that but they can cause quite severe scarring (I had to deal with that for almost 3 years after surgery)

If the drains are taken out after the 20-25 cc per day max, you will just get a bandaid and told not to shower for 24 hours, after which you take the band aid off and see a few drops of yellowish-beige dry liquid. That's about it.

I also concur with seachain and tangandchris - using an arbitrary time period rather than drain output can lead to serious issues - seroma, and seroma aspiration, are both infection risks. I have seen some patients from Europe whose surgeons have removed drains prior to hospital discharge (in Europe they seem to stay in the hospital longer for surgery), which would be similar to this timing concept. The logic is that drains are an infection risk, but I have seen a lot of folks on BCO who have needed drains for a lengthy time period to prevent seromas. I have had drains half a dozen times and always have them removed in about a week, but three different docs have all used the under 30mls in a 24 hour period as the benchmark.