My experience with a manual manipulation of a flipped port

A few of you on here may remember that a little while ago I was trying to find women who have experienced their port flipping over like mine has done.

For those who don't know, a port (short for portacath) is a device placed under the skin (usually high in your chest or near your cleavage) that is used to deliver chemo or other intravenous drugs and to take blood. It's purpose is to enable the patient to avoid nurses and doctors having to access veins in the arm when receiving treatment. Instead of putting the needle in the vein in the arm the nurse puts it through my chest and into a membrane in the port which is attached to a catheter that goes into my clavicle vein. It's painless and there's no mucking around.

To me a port was a godsend as my veins were badly affected by my first chemo and it used to take multiple goes to get a cannula in. My port used to get blocked but we always sorted it out. I am definitely glad I got one.

Anyway after my 5th treatment, my treatment team couldn't access the port at all. An X-ray confirmed that it had flipped over meaning the membrane of the port is now facing inwards towards my chest wall rather than outwards to my skin - hence it couldn't be used and it was back to the old way of having multiple goes at getting a cannula into the veins in my arm. The port is stitched to the tissue in my chest but one of my stitches had broken. If you are considering having a port rest assured this hardly ever happens. 

Yesterday the much dreaded manual manipulation of my port was attempted to see if it could flip the right way round again without me having to have surgery to correct it. I was dreading this so much because I thought it would hurt a lot. I posted here a little while ago trying to find others who had had this done so I would know what to expect but, as it hardly ever happens, I was on my own.

Well I wanted to reassure the very very few who may go through this in the future, or those who are concerned about getting a port, that the manual manipulation didn't hurt at all. I sat upright in a chair and lent forward while my arms dangled down and I hunched my shoulders. My surgeon felt around for a while and then started to rock the port from side to side very gently until he got it onto enough of an angle that he could use another finger to get underneath and give it a gentle nudge/flip. It was a little uncomfortable but it wasn't painful at all.

Alas, after five goes he got it vertical but couldn't get it to flip so I will be having another surgery to fix it on 3 June because I have another 11 treatments to go. I am glad they tried the manual manipulation as it would have been great if it had worked.

I am really looking forward to having my port operational again. And now I know that if I ever have to have a another manual manipulation, it will be ok. Hopefully someone will find this info useful.

Take care everyone

Nadine