Scar Tissue & Pain

[SurvivorPhoenix]

Hi, my emergency liver resection and tumour removal was in sept 2020. I’ve got a large yet beautiful scar across my abdomen. After 18months, I still get a lot of scar pain and can feel the scar tissue.

I’ve had scar tissue massage a few times from a trained person and try to do a bit myself at home. It’s feel really tight and pressured and when I sneeze it sometimes feels like I’m being stabbed!

Is this normal after this length of time?

[Sepsur]

I wouldn’t know what normal is - the scar tissue I have has become less intrusive over time. Hope you get some relief soon.

We run some stretch sessions each week, several of our members have had abdominal surgery & have found it’s helped.

cc-sn.org

[Gooddaysunshine]

I still get random shooting pain from my scars in groin and throat, but would put it down to ongoing nerve damage after intrusive procedures in those areas. What you describe may be similar nerve damage suddenly flaring up, particularly if something like a sneeze causes unexpected movement?

[Glen-ICU-SentMe-Nutz]

The very nature of invasive surgery means the stuff that holds us together - skin, tendons, muscles, nerves etc - gets cut through to reach the site the surgeon needs to address.Whilst said surgeons are hugely skillful (think of being able to open a match box and tying a bow in a bit of string inside the matchbox then closing it up - all with ONE hand!) at preserving as much as possible, inevitably some is damaged.

Nerve damage can repair itself but it is often very slow - maybe months to years and sometimes it doesn't ever heal sadly.

I found when caring for my mum with her stage IV throat cancer that after her laryngectomy, mum was constantly troubled by facial pain around the entry site (cut from ear to ear) and I also arranged some massage which really couldn't help.

The only thing that would even come close to relief was Fentanyl patches - though I should perhaps mention she was also dying of metastatic cancer and her pain was manifold and severe.

What I really wanted to say was that as mum's carer I (and indeed she) felt somewhat left alone with pain issues to manage even though we tried to engage with the hospital that treated her (QMC ENT - Surgeon was Mr Sethi who was just fantastic)

In the end it was left in the hands of mum's opiophobic GP with whom I spent the last 24 months of my mum's life battling with for adequate analgesia

I wish you the very best with you recovery,

Glen

[Gothcorn99]

I still get pain in my neck from my scar when I sneeze or something and it's been over a year