reconstruction after radition

[brandi44]

i want to kn ow my best option. i had my right breast removed my oncolgist recommend that i wait for a year before i consider reconstrucdtion and i did now the probelm. Dec i had a expander put it went fine he put the inplant in and it did not heal properly,so he took the inplant out and decided to put in another expander and i had the same issue so he took that out.I know i need to quit smoking im working on that. Can somebody give me some suggestion on this it is becomming really hard to keep going I just need to see a light at the end of this journey and it has been long

[SueYoung55]

From what I was told by 2 plastic surgeons, radiation and expanders and radiation with implants don't go well together. For example: if you have expanders put in both breasts at the same time and only one side was radiated, as they expand, the side that was not radiated will expand just fine, but the radiated side can actually push the rib cage inwards since it was radiated too and is weak from radiation. The second issue is that implants have a 70% failure rate on radiated chests, the risk of capsular contraction. I know of women who have had both done successfully, but I would never make that choice for myself because I don't like the odds of failure that I was quoted. If I was going to have reconstruction, it would be a tissue transfer such as a DIEP flap. And I would choose to go to a surgeon who has done thousands of these since it's microsurgery and there aren't many doctors that do them daily.
These sites may be of interest to you: www.breastcenter.com, www.diepflap.com and for more information on these doctors from women who've used them ALOT, www.facingourrisk.org. Lots of women have had unsuccessful reconstruction and go to these doctors to get it corrected successfully. Research what's happened, research what you can do about it. Ask questions. You're on the right track. By the way, I was also told to wait a year for reconstruction. I'm sure you'll get other opinions as well. Best wishes :)