Bilateral neck dissection swelling

Hi Elizabeth. If it’s lymphodema rather than just post op tissue swelling it won’t go away unless you help it. Get a referral to your hospital’s lymphodema clinic and the nurses there will show you the best way to deal with it.

I’ve asked them by email but will maybe push for them to look at it as they haven’t examined scar or swelling since op and  they don’t seem to be inclined to consider any treatment until 6 weeks or so, do you think that’s late ? 
many thanks 

Elizabeth35 said:

do you think that’s late ? 

No not at all. 

I would not be massaging the scar area for lymphatic drainage at this stage.  The tissue will still be very tender and repairing itself at the moment.  Did you have a drain in when they did the dissection?  It feels like excess fluid from the trauma of the surgery.  I assume it is not red and hot which may be a sign of infection??  If you can't get anywhere with the hospital then try to see your GP for reassurance.  Did the GP surgery remove the stitches/clips?  They did for my second dissection so they will have had a look at it then and can see if it is any different.  Hope this helps.

Hi Elizabeth

I'm currently 18 years post scc with radical bilateral neck dissection.  I would say the swelling went down after about 2 years and now i have the thinnest neck ever lol.  But I highly recommend massages and lymphatic massages daily preferably by a partner. That actually was relaxing and it helped so much with the swelling

I had a bilateral on 22nd December. Swelling has now gone and feeling is starting to come back. Left side good but right where more nodes removed is slow. Ear now has some feeling and I get tingling now and again. Under chin I still have no feeling. My main issue now is swallowing as I feel there is not enough room! Was going to query this when have follow up this week but appointment cancelled and now Mid May which is worrying me.

Be patient with the dissections, I was advised to use moisturiser once wounds closed over, so maybe that helped.

Thank you for reply - I too have swallowing issues , weirdly I feel on one side of my throat more , like there’s a shelf or blockage on that side stopping anything larger than rice ! The numbness t well go on way longer than I thought from all the replies,  ( I’d read so many NHS trust info sheets and they only mentioned earlobes and that swelling would go down in 4-5 days …) Have no idea I hadn’t come across better information sheets before as if you read about facelifts the info does mention similar but lengthy side effects …. Feel I maybe didn’t quiz the medics enough and as a rt was very unprepared for this . I hope you can get an appointment before May if swallowing is a problem

Thank you for reply - was your swelling ongoing for two years ? That seems like such a long time to have it … did you get numbness?