Who with breast cancer has had a sentinel node biopsy?

[theatergypsy]

Originally Posted by Poltracker

I had a skin sparing mastechtomy and they had to do the additional cut under the armpit for the sentinal nodes. Didn't feel anything since I was out at the time. The only irritant afterward (aside from the drains) was issues with shaving under my arm for a while. I have partial numbness under my arm, cannot tell if it was from the mastechtomy, the biposy or both but you get used to it.

Poltracker, I just came across your post when I was searching for something else. I had open heart surgery for a faulty aortic valve, and was filleted - 11 inch incision down my chest. Post-op, I had a numbness followed by tingling sensation and anything touching my chest was annoying. Not really painful, but cerainly not pleasant, either.
My cardiologist told me that because nerves were cut during the course of making the incision, this could continue for some time as the nerves sought new pathways. Well, sure enough, one day I was taking a shower and realized that I no longer felt that strange sensation. It had disappeared!
This might be the source of your underarm numbness. Take heart.

[BioAdoptMom3]

Thanks for all your posts! I have that same underarm (and back of my arm) numbness that is described here and it is bearable, but certainly not pleasant! Unfortunately none of my nodes lit up (surgeon said it happens in about 10% of us), so he took 7 nodes. We aren't sure any was exactly the sentinel node, but since all of them came back clean we are pretty confident about no spread! And yes, I will be having radiation treatments. Since my tumor was grade 3 and they cannot be 100% sure about spread, just as they can't with anyone in this situation, I will probably also be encouraged to do some chemo.

Nancy