another one

[sweetpea03]

I was thinking about the surgery that I had two years ago and never got an answer to what actually happened. I had stayed the night in the hospital and early the following morning I had the IV removed, though they left the shunt in, for pain management. After about half an hour or so, the area around the shunt began to hurt. I didn't think much of it and tried not to think about the pain. But then the pain began to spread a little. It was around the shunt, but also now a little farther up my arm. Then it reached my elbow and I called in the nurse. She had no idea and called in another nurse. No one could figure out what was causing the pain. My surgeon wasn't in yet since it was early in the morning. Then when he finally got in the pain was almost up to my shoulder. He immediately told the nurse to take out the shunt and put warm packs on my arm. When I asked him what happened, he didn't say much and somewhat avoided the question. Do you know what that might have been?

[Archibald S Miller III, MD,FACS]

The odds are good that this was venous inflammation secondary to an antibiotic or another medicine that was used. It also could have been thrombo phlebitis or a blood clot that was pretty big. Standard treatment for this is warm packs and aspirin and it slowly gets better.

                                arch s miller ms md facs

[sweetpea03]

I think he had said something about it maybe being a muscle spasm? Though a friend of mine in med school had said that it could have been a blood clot. I don't know. I was just curious as to what it could have been.