Reconstruction delayed.

I did.

I am doing delayed reconstruction. When I learned I needed radiation, my plastic and breast surgeon took immediate reconstruction off the plate (which I am now learning is not how it is usually done.) Once I completed and healed from radiation, I went to see my plastic surgeon and we went ahead and put in tissue expanders. I am scheduled for my last fill tomorrow and then a couple a weeks after, will see my plastic surgeon to talk about the exchange. I am curious to see how that appointment goes. The non-cancer side (I had a bi-lateral mastectomy), is filling fine and looks something like a breast. However, the cancer/radiation side is filling very high and there is a definite hard ridge at the bottom. I'm curious to see how he addresses that.

That being said, it's possible, but may be hard to find a plastic surgeon (from what I have read).

I think I depends on where you live. The newer hospitals are doing immediate reconstruction with radiatiin but there is a 30 percent chance immediate construction will fail with radiation. I have a friend who ended up with a DiIEP reconstruction because the radiation damaged the tissue too much.

One PS told me he would not do immediate reconstruction if radiation was involved. He assured me that if I had radiation delayed reconstruction yielded more vusually appealing results with far less risk of complication

if you are having a mastectomy, are you sure that you will also need radiation? I had a double mx, with immediate DIEP recon. At the time it was presumed that I would not need rads, but it wasn't definite till after the final pathology, so I guess they were ok with doing recon and then rads if necessary. In the end, I did not need rads.

I just finished my last revision/areolas/nips. The nurse replied how nice everything turned out, then added, "of course you didn't have radiated skin to deal with, your skin is so healthy". Sounds like that treatment can be pretty hard on the skin.