So…
I have noticed in the Facebook cancer groups, many women speaking of fluid in their lungs…
I have noticed that many have been told that this is due to cancer spread…
However, I have started to see a pattern in these cases, when I do imaging…
My bias comes from the fact that when I had my first & only core needle biopsy, to a lump in my left breast, that I immediately developed a pneumothorax(hole in my lung basically, in the pleura), & that for months afterwards every time I drank fluid, it went directly into my lungs…
But what I was seeing when I was imaging women with fluid in their lungs, was happening after laser mastectomy…
Apparently plastic surgeons have set aside laser surgery in many cases, because of those high incidence of post-operative pleural edema that occurs due to the way the laser hits tissue…
The laser injures the skin in such a way that the skin inside you produces large amounts of persistent fluid to try to heal itself…
Laser mastectomy was leaving women with huge amounts of persistent fluid in the chest area…
It appears also, that the laser surgery was cutting very very close to the chest wall, & leaving it either remarkably thin & prone to holes, or in fact, pierced the lung wall accidentally itself, leaving pneumothorax hole…
The problem with large amounts of fluid at a surgical site as well, is that in the case of breast cancer, it is possible for the parasite to migrate & live on that fluid as food…
This leaves the woman open to increased spread of cancer…
There is a disconnect between the surgeons doing laser mastectomy & the oncologists treating the patients afterwards…
Women fly in for the laser mastectomy, then return to their hometowns for consults locally…
Local oncologists may not have experience with the repercussions of laser mastectomy, so cancer is given as the reason for the pleural effusion-that cancer caused holes & spread…
But what I have seen is not cancer causing these holes in the lung…I am seeing IATROGENIC effect…This word means that the injury was caused by medical intervention…
Knowing from my own personal experience that a simple thing(or so I thought) like a diagnostic test, biopsy, could cause a hole in my own lung, I knew that something like laser surgery could certainly be causing these holes in the lungs of women…
Further…
If the fluid in the lungs is a large amount, & does not drain well, then a lung drain is often inserted, for regular home draining…
I am going to now insert some excerpts from studies on this subject…
The reason I have brought this excerpt in,is because I found it interesting to note, that after the chest tube was put in to the child’s LEFT lung(left pneumothorax), to drain fluid, that soon after, the RIGHT lung developed a pneumothorax too! So they then had to insert a chest tube into the RIGHT pleural space too…
I mention this phenomenon, because if you have had a chest tube inserted into one lung, & then soon after your OTHER lung starts to collapse & fill with fluid, this is NOT necessarily due to cancer(as you may fear), but most likely due once again to the IATROGENIC effect of having the first chest tube put in on the other side…
(Nonexpandable lung after drainage of pneumothorax – AJR
https://www.ajronline.org/doi/pdf/10.2214/ajr.136.6.1224
by AG Galvis – 1981
Other possibilities:”
Contralateral pneumothorax(ed. note:hole in other lung too)
Contralateral pneumothorax is an uncommon complication of TT(ed. note:thoracostomy tubes) placement.[68] This complication may develop when the tube is advanced across the anterior mediastinum.”
About chest tubes & the spread of cancer: The chest tubes themselves carry a risk of spreading things!
“Tube thoracostomy in the setting of malignant disease carries a low (<5%) but not negligible rate of tumor seeding of the track.[101,102] Local spread of malignant mesothelioma following minimally invasive thoracic surgical procedures is well documented.[103] Fortunately, it is much less likely for other tumor types to “seed” wounds or tracks associated with pleural biopsies or chest tubes.[104,105]”
Ok…
What about infection spread from the chest tubes?
“at least one prospective randomized trial showed that prophylactic antibiotics significantly reduce the overall rate of infectious complications following chest tube placement.[110] In a meta-analysis of studies on this topic, the use of prophylactic antibiotics was shown to reduce the absolute risk of empyema(ed. note:this is a milky fluid full of cholesterol type fat which exudes from Lymph nodes) by approximately 6% and all infectious complications by approximately 12.5%.[111] Of note, most studies utilized cephalosporins or clindamycin for antibiotic coverage.[34] Current British Thoracic Society recommendations advocate the use of aseptic technique for TT insertion (recommendation class C) and prophylactic antibiotics in trauma cases (recommendation class A).[34]”
Short answer: It is a wise idea to use some sort of natural or other type of antibiotic before during & after chest tubes…(Natural like colloidal silver or something like that)…
Here is the citation for that article:Thoracostomy tubes: A comprehensive review of complications and related topics
Michael Kwiatt, Abigail Tarbox,1 Mark J. Seamon,7 Mamta Swaroop,1,7 James Cipolla,2,7 Charles Allen,2 Stacinoel Hallenbeck,2 H. Tracy Davido,3 David E. Lindsey,4,7 Vijay A. Doraiswamy,5,7 Sagar Galwankar,6,7 David Tulman,4 Nicholas Latchana,4 Thomas J. Papadimos,4,7 Charles H. Cook,4,7 and Stanislaw P. Stawicki4,7
What to do if you have pleural effusion? With chest tubes or not?
Here is answer from someone who succeeded in clearing fluid from her lungs…
“My pleural effusion stuck around for three years or so. What was left of my left lung
barely moved air. This past fall I participated in the Livestrong program at my local YMCA. A 3 month ct taken near the end of the program showed that the effusion was almost gone and at the end of the physical my dr congratulated me and told me that I was getting good breath sounds out of that LUL. I credit the exercise with that restoration.
So l strongly recommend that program if available to you.”
(ed. note:Note: dear anonymous person…I hope it is ok that I took your wise words to help other women…Please write to me if you want me to remove this comment, or if you want me to add your name & credentials to it…ps. Thank you! & I hope you are thriving!)