Hot Flashes after mastectomy

[tatty21]

3 weeks ago I had a double mastectomy with immediate reconstruction. A couple of issues, the left breast is swells to an enormous size if I stand or move around for more than 15 minutes, the recon surgeon put me on celebrex, I get at the most 2 hours of relief from that, anyone else suffer like this? Should I insist that the recon surgeon fix it?

The other is the hot flashes, what are other women doing to lessen these, they are driving me crazy! I cannot use black cohash, as I had estrogen related breast cancer, any ideas?

Thanks

[SueYoung55]

I'm glad you got some relief! The expanders aren't the most comfortable thing in the world and with the pec action and full expanders it can get miserable! So glad it is better!

[tatty21]

Thanks to all that responded to my post. The recon surgeon removed 150cc from my left tissue expander, and boy what a difference. Life almost seems worth living again.  
I called my oncologist about the hot flashes, he is going to let me know the best path to take with regards to those. I will keep you up to date.

[bluebutterfly2222]

Regular exercise has been shown to reduce the frequency/severity of hot flashes, but that would probably be difficult for  you right now with the aother issues you mentioned.

Certain antidepressants can also help with hot flashes, and one study found that accupunctue brought about the same level of relief as Effexor.

Best wishes!

[SueYoung55]

You didn't mention what type of reconstruction. Do you still have a drain there in that swelling breast? Did you have a drain there and if so, when was it removed? You may need aspiration to remove the extra fluid. It's painless.
If it's swelling to an enormous size, get it looked at by the surgeon who did the reconstruction because that is not a normal condition.

I wish there was a good answer to hot flashes.

Best wishes!