Recon recovery

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Kat1984
Kat1984 Member Posts: 47
edited September 2016 in Breast Reconstruction

Hiya, I had a unilateral mastectomy and lymph node clearance back in February this year followed by chemo, no recon at that stage. I'm due to have a prophylactic mastectomy on my other breast with immediate recon (implant) and have a tissue expander placed on the cancer side at the same time with exchange surgery to follow in a few months. Can anyone tell me what the recovery from this op is like? No flap procedures make the recovery a bit more straight forward I believe but I have really no idea what to expect. Will I have drains for the recon? I'm just thinking about when I'll be able to return to work. I found the lymph node clearance caused the most pain on my initial surgery, should I expect much pain for this one?

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  • gracie22
    gracie22 Member Posts: 229
    edited September 2016

    You will definitely have a drain on the mastectomy/implant side; I don't know about the expander side--I am sure others will be along to comment on that. I had a double mastectomy with immediate implants and went back to work 4 weeks later. I would not have wanted to go back any sooner, but I felt fine to return at that point. Pain was manageable for me with Percocet for the 2 weeks post op. The bigger question mark with any type of recon is infection. I wound up with an infection on the non-cancer side weeks later and had to have one implant removed and do a hospital stay and IV antibiotics and needed 3 weeks off for that. I have not reconstructed that side again yet (am about a year and a half out.) If you avoid infection (and most do), the recuperation on the implant side should be pretty easy. I have had no experience with expanders and exchange surgery so will leave that to others. Good luck!

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  • gracie22
    gracie22 Member Posts: 229
    edited September 2016

    Bumping this as I would really like to hear from others on the "infection vs. rejection" thing

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