I'm sorry to hear you're having to deal with all that. I haven't had any trouble with pain or nerve damage thank goodness. I also have a silicone insert to make one side even with the other, but I rarely use it. I really only got it because my son got married and I wanted to look even in my nice dress. I hope you find a solution.

@A MyBCTeam Member

I really appreciate your information as I thought that I was the only one where the breast gets bigger a couple of hours after the massage.

I can’t wear sports bras as all of them put pressure over the area where the sentinel node used to be.
This is extremely painful.

I am wearing a mastectomy bra which the bra fitter calls a compression bra.
The seam that hits where the sentinel node used to be is very soft and thin.
On the lumpectomy side, I put a
silicon insert.

Left lumpectomy breast with silicon liner is the same as the right after massage.Two hours later, the left breast is bigger than the right.

Fitter said the liner is the correct size and did not want to give me a smaller silicon liner.

I can’t wear the soft spots that are cloth as they are painful.

Fitter gave me a new silicon liner with ridges from center out to sides all around inside of silicon liner.

This caused such horrible pain at the sentinel node spot for an entire day and also pain in my arm about 3 inches above the elbow on the inside of arm that lasted for a day.

She took that one back and gave me another plain silicon liner.
That only fills the space and does nothing to keep the lymphedema from getting bigger 2 hours after massage.

So, I think that there was some nerve damage that caused this problem as a result of the lumpectomy and sentinel node removal.

I can’t figure out how to fix this.

I just have to keep up the lymphedema massage.

Anyone out there with any ideas?

Mentioned Users

A MyBCTea...

I have it in my breast as well. I saw a lymphedema specialist who works in OT at the hospital that I go to. She helped a lot, however I almost always still have just a bit of edema in the lower inner part of my breast where my bra doesn't directly press against it. I am able to massage it out, but it returns in a few hours so I'm just kind of living with it at this point. I've tried compression bras as well and they do the same thing. It's actually even worse with a compression bra because it presses my boobs flat and there's more inner space for it to swell.

@A MyBCTeam Member

You need to go to a certified breast lymphedema specialist and learn self massage.

I have been told by 3 people that my breast seems better, the radiologist, medical oncologist PA, and the lymphedema PA.

But that does not mean that one can ever stop breast massage.

Mentioned Users

A MyBCTea...

Thanks so much. Mine is in my breast. Does the fluid go away at all?