Plueral effusion

[Michelle D]

I'm so needy, I'm always asking so many questions of you guys. Well I want to know for those that have had plueral effusion how much fluid dud you have, how quickly did you clear up, and what is the best way to get rid of it super quick besides needle extraction? I have 500cc on my right lung and just a small amount on my left lung. I found out this morning at the ER. I have been put on 600 mg of motrin 3 times a day and antibiotics. Today I drastically cut my sodium and drank tons of water. They told me to force fluids seems counter-intuitive. I also have been obsessively using my spirometer. I'm also going to ask my cardiologist if I should keep taking the lasix. I hope to get rid of this quickly. It's so painful. I feel like each deep breath is like a knife in my chest.

 

[Luana]

Michelle,
You pain sounds like you might have a collapsed lung, though I'm sure if you did it would have shown on the x-ray. It also concerns me. If it's that sharp every time you breathe, I would either put a call in now to the ER you visited, or go back.

 

[Michelle D]

I had x-rays and ct scans. It's not collapsed. I was sleeping in a recliner for a while so the fluid and the pain was concentrated at the bottom of my lung. Tonight I'm trying the bed out and it seems to be helping a lot by spreading the fluid it just feels crackley when I breathe and not so painful. Oh and I haven't had a fever since this morning which is good news.

 

[Penny]

When I had lung issues, the pain lasted for only a couple of days. I did lots of spiro exercises and like you it hurt like hell. Doc gave me morphine pills and told me to breath as hard as I could even if it hurt for the deep breaths were what it was going to take to reinflate it.. I feel so bad for you cause I know how painful it can be... take care.. get better soon!

 

[malibu82]

michelle, does it also hurt if you cough, laugh, breathe deep, or anything else like that? i had that about 2 weeks post op, it hurt SO BAD i was SURE there had to be something terribly wrong. but like you they did the ct scan and xray and saw nothing. they said it was just things being aggravated from surgery and healing and it would go away in a few days. and it did. but it sucked. i took a lot of motrin for that, it seemed to be the only thing that worked. anti inflammatory pills are good for that problem.

 

[ejc61]

I had about 200cc. I was so irritated because I would just think that there must be a way to stop this pain. I would also get a choking feeling around my throat. Sort of a really bad case of heartburn. I also had rib pain and lower back pain although not all at the same time. Sometimes, it hurt to walk. And I had robotic so I had very small incisions. I think I was told that 20% of cardiac surgeries result in some sort of plueral effusion. My wife wanted to kill me because I was so off the wall. Stay relaxed and calm. It will go away. If you talk to your cardiologist, ask about the steroid pack out of curiosity. My surgeon was very understanding of the situation gave me the steroids as well as having me checked to see if it could be drawn out. He said that it'll just go away. He was right.

 

[Michelle D]

How long? I did some reading and it seems like usually they won't drain it until you are over 600 cc. I am feeling so much better since taking the motrin and sleeping in the bed instead of the recliner. It just makes me nervous. I'm sick of going to hospitals and doctors. I'm just irritated by all of this. I'll find out tomorrow if any of this is bacteria. Then I have an appt Friday with my gp and will ask if steroids would help. I still feel gurgly in my lungs but it isn't painful anymore so now it's just a matter of being sick of doctors and wanting to heal. I'm glad I'm alive and everything but it's just frustrating

 

[ejc61]

Michelle,
Well they didn't drain in my case but they started with steroids. Actually, i went into the ER 8/12/09. I got a steroid pack that day. I followed up with my surgeon shortly after on 8/18/09. Went to check if draining was an option on 8/31. It wasn't. The pains were less severe and frequent by the end of the month. The pains went completely away by 9/10/09. To me, completely away meant a full day will no odd pains. Oddly, I have all this on my work calenday because I was taking time off for Dr. appointments. I dealt directly with the surgeon since I considered it related to surgery. That may not be possible if the surgery is out of state. That's the one thing about having this type of surgery far away. If there are issues, it could be a hassle.

 

[Michelle D]

Yeah my surgeon is amazing but impossible to get ahold of. I have a great cardiologist but she is on vacation. I have an appt with her next week so I'm excited to talk to her, I trust her more than any other medical practioner. She never pretends to know things she doesn't and she never sugar coats things, she'll always give me tons of info even if it is stuff that is unpleasant. My family doc is not at all like that, half the time she has diagnosed me with things I didn't have. So I'm looking for a new one. The other day she said she'd refill my viodin and I went to the pharmacy to find out she sent in Valium for me. Anyways that is part of my frustration, I don't trust doctors and I don't feel like they give me enough info so that's why I ask you guys so many questions. I know you aren't medical professionals but it helps to hear what has and hasn't worked so that I can go to the doctor a little less clueless.

 

[DebbyA]

I had both pleural and pericardial effusion without typical symptoms, so ended up with a near-emergency and 3 days in the hospital with a new scar and a drain attached. Extracted 2 liters.

What I learned that might help you: The nurses in the hospital told me that walking as much as I could would help get rid of the effusion.

 

[ejc61]

I didn't deal with my PCP at all. My wife, the nurse, says that you should deal with the surgeon as long as it's a by-product of surgery. At least cardiac anyway. I realize that's not always possible. Cardiologists are an unusual breed. They take everything pretty serious and I like that.

 

[Lynlw]

I didn't deal with my PCP at all. My wife, the nurse, says that you should deal with the surgeon as long as it's a by-product of surgery. At least cardiac anyway. I realize that's not always possible. Cardiologists are an unusual breed. They take everything pretty serious and I like that.

Your wife is right, if your surgeon is pretty close. We call the cardiologist or surgeon when Justin has post op complications, (which he's had lots of surgeires and a few complications) but if the surgeon is too far to personally check you out when you run into post op complications at home, it different.
I know your cardiologist is out of town, but if she belongs to a group, maybe you should put a call into them and see who is coverring for her.
Michelle, I wonder if part of the reason they didn't suggest draining you right away, was because you had your surgery somewhere else. I know from other boards, sometimes if you have surgery somewhere else, the other hospitals, might try to be a little more conservative and not want to do procedures like drains right away, if they didn't do the surgery.
Justin had a picline placed at a hospital an hour from our home, the day the home nurse tried to pull it out it got stuck. There of course was also a Blizzard so we didn't want to drive an hour away if we could avoid it. We tried a couple closer hospitals, but not one would remove it, since it wasn't their doctors that placed it, they didn't want to accept the reponsibility if it broke off or something happened, So we had to drive to the other state
Hopefully the motrim clears
Justin never had plueral effusions, but has had pericardial after almost every surgery. How they treat him has to do with how much fluid there is, we know the symptoms for justin s get him there pretty quickly his last few surgeries so they were able to help him with just Motrim or motrim and steroids. When he was a toddler, it was 20 years ago, and it took a really long time even with being drained every so many days, for months. BUT they learned alot since they and usually it clears up quicker.

 

[Michelle D]

My surgeon is at the Cleveland clinic and I'm in Florida. Next week I will ask my cardiologist if draining would be necessary and she can have me referred to the hospital she works at. She makes things happen and I haven't even had a slight fever since the ER so I think I can wait six days. I've been using my spirometer constantly. I lost two pounds, I've been taking my lasix, and I feel better at this moment than I have in months, and I'm only 2 weeks and 2 days post-op. My spirometer is also telling me my lungs are getting better. So I think the motrin did a lot more to help me than I expected.

 

[ShezaGirlie]

Michelle - recovery can be such a slow process when we begin to feel so good, so just take it easy and keep doing what you're doing.

 

[Michelle D]

Argh...I took a nap and didn't wake up to take my pain meds or motrin and now I have a slight fever again. A bowel movement also caused a slight bleed, but luckily I'm already on anti-biotics. The anti-biotics are making me nauseous. Everything was fine and dandy before the nap. Luckily though I have no new pains. This is so annoying! At least by Christmas I'll be at six months post-op so I guess I've got a lot to be looking forward to at the end of the year.

 

[RI Mom]

So sorry to hear about the effusion. My child has had them a couple of times. The first was a result of a lymphatic leak when his heart was in bad shape. It was drained (2 L.) in a kid who weighed less than 40 lbs. at the time. We severely restricted fat in his diet and it was monitored for about 3 months. The second time was after surgery and it was very painful for him. We put him on a combination of Lasix and Aldactone for about 4 weeks and then dropped the Aldactone and kept the Lasix for about 3 months. We don't know for certain if the 2nd one was lymph fluid or some other fluid. I think the only way to know if by seeing the fluid.

Hope you get it under control soon!

 

[Michelle D]

What do you guys think if according to my spirometer I can blow out twice as long as I could two days ago do you think I might be getting better. I went from six seconds to twelve seconds of blowing into my spirometer in two days. I think that's pretty good, also my lungs aren't as gurgly.

 

[Lynlw]

What do you guys think if according to my spirometer I can blow out twice as long as I could two days ago do you think I might be getting better. I went from six seconds to twelve seconds of blowing into my spirometer in two days. I think that's pretty good, also my lungs aren't as gurgly.

I would take it as a good sign. Hopefully you are on your way to real recovery now.
I'm curious and it might be helpful for other people having surgery. Did you happen to notice when you were using your spirometer after you got home from the surgery, but before you went to the ER, were you getting better results and then they got worse, or did it pretty much stay the same as when you first got home? IF you were getting better every day or at least stayed pretty much the same, then it started getting worse, it might be something to remember when other people have post op lung questions. We could ask if they are having a harder time with their spirometer along with all the other questions we ask.

 

[ejc61]

What do you guys think if according to my spirometer I can blow out twice as long as I could two days ago do you think I might be getting better. I went from six seconds to twelve seconds of blowing into my spirometer in two days. I think that's pretty good, also my lungs aren't as gurgly.

Hello Michelle,
Good to see you using it. I think the important measurement is how high you get the bally thing up in terms of the unit of measure not so much the time it takes. Record the highest it goes per blow and then stop. If I remember, the spirometer goes to a measure of 3,000? Is this accurate? You just need to blow for about 5-6 seconds and record the number. In my case, for example, I blew to about 500 in ICU the day after. 3 days later maybe 1,000-1,200. By a few weeks, maybe 2,000+. I did get to the 3,000 limit after 3 weeks or so. Now I got my pleural effusion pretty late, 7 weeks later, and my number dropped back down to about 1,200-1,500. Don't get discouraged. And I think you had a tougher surgery.

 

[Michelle D]

I have a different one than you. I have to low and keep the blue thing in the middle of two lines for as long as possible. So we have different kinds.