| Port bruising problem - flipping?
I work on a mine site and am required to wear the uniforms supplied. The trousers are very heavy duty denim, with no give in the material and no elastic in the waistband. The waistline sits exactly on top of my port, which is situated dead centre, a few inches above my belly button. Because I've lost a little weight, when I stand up, the trousers are falling off me, but when I sit down, they are still quite tight, especially at the waistline.
They dig into me quite a lot during the day and I often have to undo the top button or shift the waist band to sit above or below my port. I have noticed at the end of the day, I often have faint blue bruising beneath the incision scar and occasionally feel sharp little tugs inside, as though it was pulling on stitches. I am now 7 weeks post op, and before I returned to work (at 4 weeks post op), all my port pain had gone completely. Now it bothers me, not a huge amount, but enough to be aware of it constantly.
I am worried that this constant pressure will cause the stitches holding the port in place to tear, eventually leading to my port flipping or moving. I mentioned this to my doctor at my last visit, which was for my first fill, after a 1 week shift back on site. He didn't seem worried at all, put it down to continuing post-op recovery, and pretty much dismissed my questions. However, given that I am now so far post-op and the problem still hasn't gone away, should I be bringing it up with him again, or am I getting worried over nothing? Does anyone know if it is this kind of pressure that leads to ports flipping?
Does anyone have any suggestions as to how I can work around this problem? At the moment, my pants are way too loose when I stand up, so if I got a bigger size they would literally fall off. I can forsee the problem still occurring as I go down in sizes too, as it is an inherent problem with the cut and material they use.
PS: I'm kind of worried that it might have started to flip already. Once, when I stood up in an awkward way, I felt it pulling inside quite a lot. When I pressed on the port location from the outside, it felt like I was feeling the edge of the port, as though it had turned sideways. I very gently massaged the area until it went down again and that hasn't happened since, but it scared me quite a lot!
Last edited by Fanny Adams; 02-02-2008 at 03:34 AM.
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