Post Surgery - Is this normal?

[tbird412]

I had a large lump under my left upper lip. It was blueish in color. My doctor at first thought it was a cyst and sent me to a surgeon to have it removed. During surgery the doctor said "This looks like a hemangioma" and proceeded to remove it. The lump has been there for a few years. And sometimes would grow quite large (could see my lip/cheek expanded even on the outside). And gravity seemed to make it increase like if I laid down on my front side it would expand some).

Anyways, long story short. He removed it Friday afternoon. Went home. Was in some pretty good pain. He put in a few stitches (removed it from the inside, it was right in my lip up about where my lip is about to meet my gums).

That first night it wasn't so bad other than pain. Then on Saturday I wake up to find my left side looking like Angelina Jolie. Lip area is swollen. Not like a golf ball or anything, but definitely puffed out and fat. And I could start to see a little bruising pool up at the end of my lip.

Now today I wake up and it's still really fat. My lip and cheek area all around it. With a nice size lump where the surgery site is. And now even more pooled up blood (brusing) at my lip and even extending down a slight bit past my mouth crease.

I had called my doctor on his pager line Saturday and he said just put some heat on it and prop myself up with a few pillows at night. I did this and it was still worse today.

So here are my questions and concerns.

1) Is this normal? I am uninsured and very scared that this could be getting worse or I am having some sort of complication. Never had anything like this before so am I just being a chicken or is something wrong here?

2) The lump where the hemangioma used to be. Is that just swelling? It feels a bit harder than the rest of the "puffy area". But I didn't think a hemangioma could just return that quickly. So is this lump also normal swelling?

3) The blood pooling up (bruising). Is that normal and will it stop getting worse and go away anytime soon? I am supposed to work tomorrow and if I look like this I can't.

My doctor wasn't very informative and I was sent home with no information on what to expect. Which left me thinking this was very minor and would be fine by the end of the weekend. Now I am worse off than I was the night of surgery.

Please help

I will try to take some pics and attach them ....

[tbird412]

Pic attached ...

[smurph]

Hi there. I am sorry you are going through so much. I can imagine it must be so difficult! My daughter had surgery on her lip hemangioma 2 years ago and it did take awhile for the swelling and bruising to go away...I would say it was at it's worst at day 2 post-op.

With that being said, she was 5 years old and I think it was a totally different situation. As far as I know, hemangiomas do not just form when you get older. They grow very soon after birth for about a year and then start to involute/fade slowly over the next few years....so I'm wondering why the doctor said that it was a hemangioma? There are many different kinds of vascular anomalies which require different treatments/approaches so I was going to suggest that you go see a Vascular Anomaly specialist to get a second opinion (maybe it's a different kind of malformation?), but you said that you are uninsured so I don't know if that would be possible for you.

So, what I would suggest is to email one of the experts on this website...go to the Ask the Experts link and tell them exactly what happened and send them the photo. They will be able to give you some good information and suggestions. They also might be able to help you figure out what is going on with your post-op swelling, pain, etc. based upon the info you have given them.

Finally, you could also contact "Basia Joyce" on this website because she is the insurance expert here and maybe she might have some suggestions of how to get care if you don't have insurance??

Good luck and I hope you feel better soon! Keep us posted!
Shannon

[abatie]

I agree with Shannon that I think the doctor didn't actually know what they were dealing with since hemangiomas are present at birth or shortly after. I was just on the CMTC group and someone was asking about venous lakes and I didn't know what they were. I went on the Internet looking for images and your post came to mind when I looked at the images. Check it out. I don't know anything but it sounds similar to what you describe.