Fluid lump size of orange

My lymphoedema therapist would recommend massage but you need someone qualified to do it, a lymphoedema specialist, not just any masseuse. Also good to check with your surgeon before starting. Basically you want to very gently encourage dissipation without encouraging infection. A lot depends on location and duration too. It isn’t necessarily fast so if the seroma is relatively recent you might still want to give it some time to dissipate naturally. I had a very large seroma for a long time - apart from the risk of infection by draining, seromas are dab hands at refilling! Slow and steady is the ticket to get it to go and stay gone. Irritating though, mine would audibly slosh when I bent over! 

I had a seroma and was advised not to have it drained, it went away on its own.  They just gave me some stronger painkillers.  :smile:

I had a large seroma on my chest after mastectomy surgery. My surgeon syringed it off twice a week for 5 weeks as it was so uncomfortable. No problems,no infection and all gone after 5wks.

Afraser said:

My lymphoedema therapist would recommend massage but you need someone qualified to do it, a lymphoedema specialist, not just any masseuse. Also good to check with your surgeon before starting. Basically you want to very gently encourage dissipation without encouraging infection. A lot depends on location and duration too. It isn’t necessarily fast so if the seroma is relatively recent you might still want to give it some time to dissipate naturally. I had a very large seroma for a long time - apart from the risk of infection by draining, seromas are dab hands at refilling! Slow and steady is the ticket to get it to go and stay gone. Irritating though, mine would audibly slosh when I bent over! 

Mine is like an mango, it’s under my on my bust like a lemon and it’s now under my arm as well , when just standing it protrudes in front, and under my arm , is very painful. Let’s hope ours goes away by itself xx

Mercifully mine wasn’t painful, just occasionally ached. It was deep in the breast cavity but that also disguised how much fluid there was. It was aspirated the first time because I was starting chemo and my oncologist wasn’t happy with so much fluid (first aspiration netted exactly one and a half litres, later ones were mainly 400 - 500 mlls). It refilled like my life depended on it! I am grateful to my body’s capacity to recuperate but this one instance was a bit of overkill. Problem is that while aspiration can cause infection, so can a very lengthy accumulation of a nutritious brew of fluid for any nasty bacteria (and we all have them). So anything you can do to encourage natural reduction of the fluid is a good idea. A teleconsultation may be an option to see how to do it. Best wishes. 

I had a seroma under the arm, after the axillary drain came out due to irritation day 10 and the fluid built up a bit. I had it drained three times with proper aseptic precautions, twice under ultrasound control to get exactly in the right place and know the fluid was fully drained.