To those who just can not seem to heal after open heart surgery. I had absolutely no pain immediately after surgery or for months after. The incision, however, would not heal and kept oozing a clear, yellow fluid. Despite repeated prescriptions of antibiotics (cultures showed no bacteria present) the cause could not be found. Six months later a blister the size of my thumb appeared between my breasts, in the center of the incision. I had severe pain that shot downn my arms if I moved them too fast as well as pain from clothes rubbing the blister. The blister was lanced but kept coming back and the pain continued to get worse. Repeated trips to different doctors yielded many guesses but no diagnosis. After ANOTHER chest x-ray, I asked to see the results. At first I thought I had stitches inside my chest, then realized it was the sternum wires placed there to facilitate healing. Finally I knew what the problem was and immediately embarked on a mission to have them removed. Although I had to argue my case, the wires were removed and I began to heal. What was it? I have a nickle allergy. My body was reacting to the surgical steel wires. It has now been 3 years and 9 months since the original surgery and the incision is finally becoming a scar. To everyone with nickle allergy, make sure your surgeon and the hospital make every effort to find an alternative to sternum wires. The fact that the hospital and doctors chose to consider this allergy inconsequential caused me much suffering.
oddone's Blog
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That is very good to know.Thanks for sharing that.
Wow, that's bad. It's a good thing you know what's going on with your body. I told a doctor that was putting staples in me that I was allergic to certain metals but he said these wouldn't hurt me. They didn't. That was when I had my ovaries removed. But I'm guess they use different type for the chest. ?
Good morning Goldfinch. I'm surprised the staples didn't bother you. I had staples in my leg too where they took the vein for the bypass. It oozed something terrible but when I brought it to the doctor's attention he told me "I don't care about your leg". It is good your doctor listened to you. The wires I was talking about went through the bone (breast bone) to hold it together during healing. Being out of sight, it took a while for me to realize what the problem was. But all that is past, I just thought maybe my story would help someone else. I hope things are looking up for you. From what I understand, you have had a much harder time. I still try to find something in each situation to smile about. It makes it easier for me to cope if I laugh at my lousy situations. Since solid gold is the only metal my body will tolerate, I will melt down my jewelry for wires if I ever have to have more heart surgery. Then I guess I'll have to hope the doc is not broke! Am far too talkative this morning--hang in there and find something to laugh at today--even if it is laughing at my weird view of life.
Thanks for the advice! I never really thought that my allergy to nickle could cause problems like the ones you had!
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