Nerve pain with expander

Perks

Hi there, I had a mastectomy 3 weeks ago now and had my first saline fill last week, since then I have had terrible pain where my nipple should be like someone is squeezing it tightly. Has anyone else had this? if so what helped?

Julez1958

Hi @Perks
I had a skin sparing mastectomy in October 2020 and at that time I had tissue expander inserted.
I had terrible pain for about 6 weeks - couldn’t get off the Endone even though normally I never even take so much as a Panadol .
Both my surgeon and breast care nurse said everyone was different and to be patient .
At about the 6 week mark the pain got a lot better although I continued to get the odd weird “ zinging” sensation.
I then had 6 weeks of radiation and at the end of all that I was just left with the sense of discomfort many have reported with tissue expanders.
I had the DIEP reconstruction in August 2021 and the pain was minimal - it was so
wonderful to be rid of the tissue expanders!
I had some physiotherapy  with a lady who specialised in breast cancer surgery patients  which was a great help - she told me no one likes the tissue expanders but at least in my case I am very happy with the end result so the end justified the means.
I hope you are lucky in recovering quicker but if you are in pain , take the painkillers .

Flaneuse

It's very common and eventually it's likely to stop.

Perks

Julez1958 said:

Hi @Perks
I had a skin sparing mastectomy in October 2020 and at that time I had tissue expander inserted.
I had terrible pain for about 6 weeks - couldn’t get off the Endone even though normally I never even take so much as a Panadol .
Both my surgeon and breast care nurse said everyone was different and to be patient .
At about the 6 week mark the pain got a lot better although I continued to get the odd weird “ zinging” sensation.
I then had 6 weeks of radiation and at the end of all that I was just left with the sense of discomfort many have reported with tissue expanders.
I had the DIEP reconstruction in August 2021 and the pain was minimal - it was so
wonderful to be rid of the tissue expanders!
I had some physiotherapy  with a lady who specialised in breast cancer surgery patients  which was a great help - she told me no one likes the tissue expanders but at least in my case I am very happy with the end result so the end justified the means.
I hope you are lucky in recovering quicker but if you are in pain , take the painkillers .

Thanks Julez1958 since the final fill I am feeling more comfortable and am at 6 weeks post op now. Interestingly once they filled me up the pain dissipated. I think that the scrunched up expander was rubbing on the scar line where the nipple used to be.