activac wound vac

butchl
butchl Member Posts: 11
in Esophageal Cancer #1

My brothet Butch is at homr with an activac wound vac and the dressing changes have been very painful.  Has anyone experienced this?  Any suggestions?  Thank you

Comments

  • paul61
    paul61 Member Posts: 1,392 Member
    #2
    Unfortunately I had this experience as well

    When I returned from the hospital I had an open wound and wore a wound vac for about a month. Since the appliance creates a vacuum in the dressing; removing the dressing is almost always painful. I learned to take my pain medication about 30 minutes prior to having the dressing removed and telling the nurse; “Please don’t try to be gentle, let’s just get it over with as quickly as possible”. Unfortunately there is no easy way to do it and it seemed if the nurse tried to go slowly and be careful it just prolonged the discomfort. But timing my pain medication seemed to be helpful.

    Best Regards,

    Paul Adams

    McCormick, South Carolina
    DX 10/2009 T2N1M0  Stage IIB - Ivor Lewis Surgery  12/3/2009 - Post Surgery Chemotherapy 2/2009 – 6/2009
    Cisplatin, Epirubicin, 5 FU - Four Year Survivor

     

  • butchl
    butchl Member Posts: 11
    #3
    paul61 said:

    Unfortunately I had this experience as well

    When I returned from the hospital I had an open wound and wore a wound vac for about a month. Since the appliance creates a vacuum in the dressing; removing the dressing is almost always painful. I learned to take my pain medication about 30 minutes prior to having the dressing removed and telling the nurse; “Please don’t try to be gentle, let’s just get it over with as quickly as possible”. Unfortunately there is no easy way to do it and it seemed if the nurse tried to go slowly and be careful it just prolonged the discomfort. But timing my pain medication seemed to be helpful.

    Best Regards,

    Paul Adams

    McCormick, South Carolina
    DX 10/2009 T2N1M0  Stage IIB - Ivor Lewis Surgery  12/3/2009 - Post Surgery Chemotherapy 2/2009 – 6/2009
    Cisplatin, Epirubicin, 5 FU - Four Year Survivor

     

    Thank you Paul for your info

    Thank you Paul for your info about the wound vac.  He does take his pain meds before the nurse comes to change the dressing and that does seem to help.  He will see the doctor on Wed and hopefully he will not have to have it on too much longer.  Did you have to have chemo treatments after your surgery?   He will need chemo again because one of the lyphmnodes had cancer.    Thank you again.

    Butch's sister

    Vicki

  • paul61
    paul61 Member Posts: 1,392 Member
    #4
    butchl said:

    Thank you Paul for your info

    Thank you Paul for your info about the wound vac.  He does take his pain meds before the nurse comes to change the dressing and that does seem to help.  He will see the doctor on Wed and hopefully he will not have to have it on too much longer.  Did you have to have chemo treatments after your surgery?   He will need chemo again because one of the lyphmnodes had cancer.    Thank you again.

    Butch's sister

    Vicki

    I did have chemo after surgery

    Vicki,

    I did have chemotherapy for six months after my surgery. I had six rounds of Cisplatin, Epirubicin, and 18 weeks of 24X7 5 FU infusion via personal IV pump. I have to admit it did slow the healing process for my largest incision by about two months. I will not try to suggest that chemotherapy after surgery is easy, it is not. But once we learned the side effects and how to deal with it, we were able to manage. So far the chemotherapy seems to have done the job it was intended to do. I am thankful for the gift of every day.

    I know it probably seems like things are very difficult right now. Healing from such a major surgery takes time and chemotherapy is difficult under the best of circumstances. But things do get better with time.

    Best Regards,

    Paul Adams

    McCormick, South Carolina
    DX 10/2009 T2N1M0  Stage IIB - Ivor Lewis Surgery  12/3/2009 - Post Surgery Chemotherapy 2/2009 – 6/2009
     Cisplatin, Epirubicin, 5 FU - Four Year Survivor

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