Author Topic: Seroma after surgery - need doctor's advice  (Read 2830 times)

Offline Jgunzz

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Hi everyone,

I recently had gynecomastia surgery done by Dr. Mordcai "removed doctor" in White Plains, NY. This was a revision surgery from another surgeon in Seattle that left too much tissue about 4 years ago. I had a minor case but wanted the cone shape around my nipples to be more flat, especially when wearing dress shirts. 

I live on the west coast and flew out to have the surgery done a little over 2 weeks ago. The night after surgery, I noticed that my right chest had lots of bruising around the compression garment and was swelling up a lot more than my left. I went in the next morning and Dr. "removed doctor" determined it was a hematoma. He then layed me down on his operating bed and opened the incision and evacuated the hematoma. It looked like grape jelly/jam coming out and there was quite a bit. Afterwords he left the incision open and wrapped me up and said to come back in 2 days. I iced the area about 6-7 times for 20 minutes each time that day and then went to see him after 2 days. When he pulled off the bandage, he was delighted and said that I'm healing very well from the hematoma. So he then took some steristrips (tape sutures) and closed the incision and sent me on my way. 
I'm back on the west coast now and my left side is healing very nicely and looks good and my right side has definitely reduced in size drastically than when I had the hematoma. However, I now have what I think is a seroma on my right side. The incision wasn't completely closed about a week ago and I manually drained the seroma by just using light pressure with my hands and about a cup of blood came out, and instantly my chest was flat. However, the seroma came back about 2 days later and now the incision seems to have closed up because I tried removing the fluid again the same way and nothing leaks out of the incision. This seroma seems to have taken the space that the breast tissue was occupying, and there is a small wave effect if I press on it. 

I went to see Dr. Phil Haeck yesterday to see if he was willing to drain it, and he told me that I'm not ready to have it drained yet and to see him again in a week. That was pretty frustrating because I've read that if a seroma is not drained, it can encapsulate which has the possibility of being permanent. I know that the seroma can also get reabsorbed by the body.

My question for anyone with quality input is what are the drawbacks of leaving the seroma alone and waiting for it to be re-absorbed by the body? Will this affect the final results and will tissue be created since there is a presence of increased blood/fluid around the nipple area? Should I get an opinion of another plastic surgeon, and if so, any recommendations for someone in the Seattle area?

Thanks in advance for the advice.

Offline Jgunzz

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Update: I drained the seroma myself 3 times since about a week ago and it was draining less and less each time. The first time I drained about 15 ML, the second time was about 9 ML, and the third time was about 5 ML. Now it's gone.


 

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