constant swelling

[hatton22]

My mum had a tummy tuck, breast reduction and liposuction on april 6th 2009, since then she has suffered with dreadful tummy swelling, this has got worse following a hysterectomy in feb 2010, she has had scans and has been told to live with it, she has done a diary of what she eats and nothing improves it, she has to go to bed at 6 every night just to get comfortable, its not possible to live with this constant pain, she evens talks about suicide. What can be done to help.  Her stomach sometimes feels like ice then very hot, could she have been stitched up wrong, she had the surgery with a british leading cosmetic surgeon.

[seroma]

Well I am not a Dr but I have experience w persistant swelling and wierd similar syptoms post surgery when deep disolvable sutures were involved. I am pretty sure they r also used in a TT. Ask your surgeon if he used a polypropylene stitch commonly used. Perhaps manufactured by.a co. Called Ethicon. It is FDA approved so it's not the Drs fault if that is the cause. It was most likely the cause in my case. (No one will ever really know why) I had an xray and a ct scan done. All it showed was swollen angry pissed off tissue. No infection but it FELT like an infection. So draining physically and emotionally. I had to have my Dr take out the sutures and debride the tissue and it took FOREVER to heal. My Dr is amazing and kind and wonderful and has been so thoughtful and helpful yet conservative and careful. I went through fat necrosis after the surgery to remove the sutures and it also cause painful swelling which required another minor surgery once to cut that out and send it to pathology for testing. So my point is, don't give up hope. Her Dr is probably as puzzled as she is. She or you must advocate and participate in her recovery. Something isn't right but she must wait if she needs more surgery to remove sutures since she has had 2 surgeries in a year and the last one only a few months ago in Feb 2010 you said?. Try Warm compresses they helped my swelling feel better.alternate w ice packs.AVOID SALT!!!  If she can get to a pool to swim a little it will  help get her lymph system moving and will also feel good. and she may want to take a couple months  of an antibiotic like a 100mg Doxycycline just in case of some low grade infection. It helped me. It has been 2 years almost to the day of my surgery and although I still get a little swelling it is negligible now. Hang in there. She will heal and definitely see her surgeon or another Dr to evaluate this and ask him or her about the types of sutures and fat necrosis or what dignostic measures might help put together a game plan for her.. Good luck!don't forget Time heals all wounds.
Seroma

[Howard Rosenberg, MD]

It is not possible to provide you with a solution to this problem without much more information and a direct examination.  If you have consulted with her surgeon without success, then she may need to be seen for a second opinion or to a pain clinic to treat her persistent symptoms.