Breast cancer

Hello Jeanne Mari. Have you and your sisters had any genetic testing? Your family history with breast cancer makes you eligible for that if you wish.

As for the pain and recovery, sounds like you are now at the worst part of it, but I have a question: is the seroma the result of the mastectomy or the recent surgery? You could ask them about draining it, espeicially if it's from the surgery on the 27th of January and still not absorbing. 

I have had two mastectomies, the second one included a "re-visiting" of the first scar. Recovery from each surgery was different, as with one I developed a seroma, with the other I didn't, but there was a period of going through a lot of pain with both, and especially as pain killers were no longer an option at some point. It did get better, though, and by the time I was perhaps 2 weeks past surgery the pain was a lot more tolerable. Now, two months past last surgery, the pain is very manageable. Some people are pain-free at the stage I am at, but we are all different.

Do you have someone around to help?

Hello Grey Cats, thank you for your reply and sorry for not replying sooner but my browser decided not to let me back on the site. It is encouraging to hear that other people have the same experience and yes the recovery from the mastectomy was much easier then my recent surgery. I will be back in contact .in reply to your question on seroma it was after the mastectomy and it has not fully disappeared.I am not sure if this swelling is a seroma. The pain is in my arm. I live on my own in a retirement complex. I divorced my husband of 27 years two years ago and that was quite traumatic. 
my son and his wife who live in the Netherlands came to stay for four days following the second surgery which was marvellous and I have managed to make friends with another resident with whom we have shared past experiences. She had lumpectomy just a year ago when I supported her. So I am in the in between stage waiting for my review with the surgeon 

Hi Jeanne, good to have you back! No need to apologise for absence on this forum, and no obligation to respond to anything we don't want to. People sometimes go through periods when they just want to disconnect from anything cancer-related, sometimes people are too unwell to come on the forum, and sometimes, as you have described, it's technical difficulaties. 

Thanks for explaining everything. Whether it is a seroma or something else, I agree with you that it needs to be looked at by the surgeon, and if it causes a discomfort they should really do something about it.

Good to know you have a friend nearby who can relate to what you are going through. 

I had my review with the surgeon and I am so happy to report that I received the all clear. The second surgery removed all the lymph nodes and the arm was numb for about a week. But when the numbness went the pain arrived and yesterday I found out it is nerve pain and it is on the inside of my arm down to my wrist. I would like to here from anyone who has experienced this and how you managed it.

Great news! Did the surgeon say whether the pain is an after-surgery phenomena that is expected to improve in time or if he thinks there is some actual nerve damage?

Hi.  I had a mastectomy and lymph nodes removed in January and, like you, suffered with pain down the inside of my arm to my wrist. It can be something called cording and the way I got rid of it was to stretch my arm regularly in the way it felt most painful. I know that sounds totally the opposite of what you want to do, but it was less painful within a couple of days and I was pain free within a week.

I did exactly the same. I could even see a cord under my armpit and it’s gone now. I just constantly stretched it the way it felt most tight/painful and it went. X