Pain After Thoracentesis ?

[Bill]

Thoracentesis certainly looks like a crude and painful procedure. My wife had 2 liters of malignant fluid drained from her right lung Thursday afternoon. ( BTW, I think that they had to switch to a larger needle than originally planned. I overheard the doc state that the fluid was " thick " and the tech scrambled for some additional equipment. )

I have a question for those of you that have had a large pleural effusion drained. It's understood that there would be some residual pain but, since this procedure, my wife is complaining of rather severe pain in the right shoulder area with movement, deeper breathing, sneezing etc. How was your pain in the days following your thoracentesis ? She had a thoracentesis a year ago but she was heavily medicated in ICU at the time so she doesn't even remember the procedure let alone how painful it was. I reported this to the pulmonologist but he was unconcerned.

Thanks.

B

[Patty]

Oh Bill....I am so sorry to hear about all this. I can't help you with your question, but hopefully someone can. I am so concerned about these seemingly unconcerned (uncaring?) medical professionals that are dealing out all this pain to your wife. I don't know what other people's experiences have been with such things, but I have since found out that some of the procedures I had (and not even nearly as painful as your wife's is)could have been done a lot less painfully if people had been more thoughtful, caring, compassionate, more experienced, or whatever. I don't know if it is possible or if somebody's already tried, but maybe you could enlist the help of a social worker or patient advocate? I am just so sorry and wish there was more that I could do except to pray and hope for some help for all of you immediately.

Sincerely, Patty

[CharlieD]

Bill,

I had a Thoracentesis when I was first diagnosed and also had the pain. Their explanation, in fact the Doc explained it before the procedure, was that the lung had collapsed from the weight of the fluid and the pain was caused by the lung re-inflating. He said to breathe deeply as much as I could stand which I did and it soon went away when the lung remained re-inflated on its own. Good luck to your wife with it. It wasn't fun, but then again, there is little that is fun about this freakin disease.

CharlieD

[stand4hope]

Hi Bill,

I don't know anything about a thoracentesis, but i do know that many surgical procedures cause shoulder pain. I've been told that it has something to do with the air that gets into your body, blood stream, or somewhere, and that it takes time for it to dissipate. I have absolutely NO CLUE if this is what is causing your wife's pain, but thought I would pass it along.

Also, I'm glad to see you post. Been thinking so much about you and was touched by Robert's post. I can tell he's not only worried about his mom, but he's worried about you, too!

May God bless you and your family over and over and over again!

Love,

Peggy

[Bill]

My wife has enough strength and motivation to try one last chemo cocktail commencing Tuesday. This tx MUST, at a minimum, work quickly and well enough to back her away from the edge of the cliff. Her pulmonology / critical care physicians ( all 3 of them ) said the same thing to both of us. She has so little functional pulmonary tissue left that further tumor progression would put her on a ventilator. That she doesn't want. Unless there's been a last minute change that I'm unaware of, her med onc plans on sticking with the first line of tx that I posted previously ( Arsenal post ). I don't particularly care for the regimen. I wish that he would be more aggressive given the circumstances. But, it wouldn't be the first time that I misjudged tx. Hopefully, I'll be wrong about this tx combo. I checked her RX orders on Friday and those are the drugs that were ordered and have arrived for her.

B