My first problem

I am 8 days post op. I ended up in the ER today because I was in a lot of pain and having diffuculty breathing. (i am 3 hours away from ny Surgeon) After alot of test and blood draws I was told that a small pockect of my lungs had collaped with fluid around it. I was sent home and told to take my pain meds and breath deep as much as possible and It would get better. Has this happened to anyone else? any advice? Start 254 down to 240

When you left the hospital did they give you a device to breath hard into? (Dont know the name of it) If not, maybe you should call your doc and ask him about one. It is a device to blow in and in the hospital they told me it was important to use this as it would help strengthen my lungs back and prevent fluid. Good luck. Carol

Spirometer (I think)

You're talking about an incentive spirometer. You don't breath INTO it, you take air into your lungs slowly and deliberately and get that ball to rise up in the tube and stay there for as long as you possibly can. It helps to fully inflate your lungs. I have no idea if Dr. Overcash orders these or nebulizer breathing treatments for his patients on a routine basis, but Amy could tell you. If you didn't get that little plastic I.S., then just practice taking air into your lungs as much as you can and holding it for as long as you can and then let out the air slowly. Good luck!!! Jan

I was told to use my spirometer every couple hours until I reached a certain mark (can't recall) then I could stop. I think I used it for about 2-3 weeks after surgery. I was also told to breath deeply and force myself to cough. Feel better soon, Good luck

I ended up in the hospital with the same symptoms 2.5 weeks post-op... they thought I had colapsed a lung, but tests proved it was all in my head... Spent the night in the ER, came back home and slowly the pain went away. I had to use the spirometer a lot, and boy, I HATED it!!! I was sucha bad patient... I cried and whined, and yelled at all the nurses, I even made one of them cry! my dad said that if I weren't so big (he was caling me fat!!) he would've put me over his knee and spanked the $%@# out of me! Looking back, he was right... Sometime whe we are in pain, we just don't act right, or do the things we are supposed to do! Anyway, I am rambling again, sorry. Kandy, hope you feel better soon, get a hold of a spirometer, the hospital should have given you one. Also, did you see a respiratory therapist? I had to see one post op. Could you give him/her a call and see if there are any breathing exercises, besides the darn spirometer, that you should be doing? I know I had a few I had to do. BTW, be glad it was just small "pocket" that colapsed, had it been a big one, they would have put a tube in your chest, and drained the darn thing... At least, that was what my Dr. at the ER told me. They called it Pnemotorax (sp?) Good luck and keep us posted. Vivi