Thyroid surgery

[June2008]

I've just been told that I need to have surgery to remove a lump on my thyroid. Does anyone have any experience of this, ie how long I'll be in for, how rough I'll be feeling, and when I'll be fit to look after my little ones again? How likely am I to need to take long terms drugs afterwards? Anyone have any figures on the likelyhood of it being malignant even though the fna suggests benign as I know thats a risk?
Thanks

Hi,
I had a benign colloid nodule in my right thyroid about 10 years ago. They removed the entire right side of my thyroid. I didn't have to take any drugs - I still have half of my thyroid which works just fine. You haven;t said whether your entire gland is coming out or not, and that would make a difference in terms of drugs.

The surgery was fine. I was in for about 5 days. They needed to make sure that the remaining half of my thyroid upped its production enough to compensate for the missing half. My blood pressure was a bit dodgy afterwards (more to do with the GA than the actual surgery) and that needed to resolve before they would let me go. If it wasn't for the BP issues I think they would have kicked me out after about 3 days. I did feel pretty rough - but GA always knocks me for 6. The wound was closed with staples and I had these out just before I went home. The wound was long and the staples did make it look pretty freaky, so if you are squeamish you might want to try to avoid looking too close at your neck in the mirror, or just avoid mirrors. If you aren't squeamish, then it's actually pretty cool ! After the staples came out the scar was raised and red and twisted and looked awful. And it looked pretty ugly for a while. But, I promise you, this is temporary, and I now have a beautifully flat and very thin white line where the incision was which is hardly noticeable.
As I say, I did feel pretty rough afterwards, but generals always make me feel like that. If it was me, I'd want some help for about 2 weeks after the surgery. But you might bounce back quicker than I do.

I can't comment on the risk of malignancy - some of the cancer support networks might have some information on thyroid cancer and how common it is. But if your biopsy looks good and they're not worried, I'd hang on to that. Hard I know.

Good luck! X

Thanks Cardamomginger

Its good to hear positive stories. Like you, it should be half of my thyroid they remove, so that sound good in terms of long term drugs. I too have a benign colloid nodule on the right side but its quite big at 7cm. Can't believe that I didn't notice it was there until my GP pointed it out after I went to see her about something completely unrelated.

From what the surgeon says two weeks seems to be the time to have my parents around to help with the littles, esp while dh is at work. Was it a problem lifting things for you - I ask that as I have 2dds, one and three, so both want picking up regularly! Were you able to eat normally afterwards?

And thanks for the heads up about the scar, hadn't really thought too much about that but I guess winter is a good time to be wearing scarves:) I'm a secondary school teacher and I'm not too sure of what the kids are going to make of my new look!

Mine was huge too - in face I had 2 . And on the right hand side! Like you I only found out about it when I went to the docs about something unrelated and she asked me if I knew I had a huge lump in my neck and what was I going to do about it . As for lifting, I didn't have any DCs at the time so could get away without doing that much. From what I remember the main thing that slayed me was the GA - once the staples were out it was pretty much OK. There's no incision that effects your core, so I would have thought it would be OK. Eating was fine - felt a bit sick for the first day or so, but swallowing was OK. In fact better than it was before I had the surgery - it got to the stage where I couldn't swallow properly and was having difficulty turning my head (no idea how I didn't notice this huge lump on the side of my neck!!). Word of warning - when the staples are still in, don't try and lift your head up straight - my surgeon took a lot of skin either side of the incision to get the best result for the scar, so I couldn't actually straighten my neck. Sounds really gross, but it was fine. Have they spoken to you about numbness on your neck? Basically they sever some of the nerves and you can end up with a numb patch round the incision. If that happens, don't worry - the nerves do regenerate and sensation will return. But another word of advice - you might find that having anything on or near the scar feels really nasty - not painful, just horrid. So scarves or turtlenecks might not be possible all the time. See how it goes though. As for how the kids at school will take it - they will love it and will be awestruck. In the immediate aftermath it is a seriously impressive scar to have!! You can cultivate all kinds of myths about how you came by it . When are you having the op?

Sorry - when I said the surgeon took a lot of skin either side fo the scar I meant that he put the staples in taking a lot of skin from either side of the incision so that where the staples went in was as far away from the incision as possible IYSWIM.

i did pure silk (not fake) scarves after my surgery. i found that worked for me. so did alcohol a week later, helped my neck relax very well.

i had a whopper as well amd omg it felt so much better to eat and just breathe after it was out.

Cardimomginger, thank you for all your advice. Hadn't really thought that it might be uncomfortable to have things touching my neck. They did talk to me about changes in my voice and the possible effects it has on my ability to absorb calcium, but didn't mention that I might have numb areas. Have to ask at my next appt. Still have to go to see the ENT people as well as having a CT scan and the pre-op thing, so I'm waiting on lots of dates before I can get the date for the op. It should be sometime before christmas though. Did you have to wait long? And another question that you may not be able to answer - I'm still bf my youngest, I'm assuming that I'll not be in a fit state to do that for a while after surgery so will have to think about stopping before?

jjgirl, thank you for the advice about silk scarves - I'll have to start looking out for them!

June2008, just out of curiousity why do they need to remove the lump if it is benign, does the lump bother you, can you actually feel it, I dont know why they need to remove non-cancerous lumps in the thyroid gland, can anyone answer this please?

Hi Bea, its being removed as its so big, 7cm, I guess the size of an orange, and its pushed my wind pipe out of place. And yes I can feel it and other people can see it too. (How I didn't notice it I have no idea!) If left it will continue to get bigger and its likely to eventually make it difficult to swallow then breathe, or so I'm told! And to be honest now I know that its there I just want it gone. That added to the fact that it still has a 20% chance of being malignant because its so big, even though the fna came back ok, means I'm going for the surgery. I did talk to the consultant to see if leaving it was an option but he said that it isn't going to get any smaller and with the risks associated with such a big lump there are no other options. Hth x

i had my thyroid lump removed for exactly those reasons. they were going to do a fna but decided not to as it had to come out. a fna is not entirely acurate anyway. it can only acurately tell if it is cancer not if it isnt. you have to take it out to look at it better.

mine grew rapidly and i ended up in intensive care because i had put the op off a couple of months due to teaching commintments. i had breathing and swollowing dificulties.

a few years after having mine out i was lucky to meet one of the UK's leading pathologists and a well respected leader in this field. I asked him what the difference was between a folicular carcenoma and a folicular adenoma and apparently it can just be a matter of time for some of them.

if its big and growing it must come out.

i was also told about possible voice problems but i have not noticed any difference. i did lose feeling in my skin on the end of my chin and on sections of my nck but this is a small price to pay for having that huge thing removed and averting any chance of cancer from it.

Hi there,
I had the right side of my Thyroid removed in March this year. It was a parathyroid adenoma (2cm). So I had the right side removed and 2 of the 4 parathyroids that are attached to the back of your thyroid. My lump was also picked up out of the blue when being investigated for something else.

I waited 6 weeks from the surgeon saying he would book me in till the day of my surgery(my fna was also clear but showed some calcified bits in it which can indicate the nasty c). I went in for my surgery on the Friday and left hospital on the Saturday. My pain (and i'm a wimp) was bearable with paracetamol and codine, though I did have a bit of morphine post surgery which was nice :). I went back to work on the Monday (I could have had 2 weeks off that was reccommended by the surgeon, but I love work and they are really flexible so I could come and go as I wished and I was fine). I talk alot in my job, my surgeon knew this and was a little worried in surgery because my lump was wrapped around one of my vocal nerves. I remember him coming into the ward afterwards (I was really groggy) and making me talk to him (cant remember what I said, probably I loved him lol, he had that really nice surgeon presence) :). My voice was fine and still is.

I had a drain in my neck overnight, this was removed the next morning before I left hospital. My wound was stapled and looked like a zip - really cool if you have it done around halloween :). I was supposed to go to the nurse after 5 days to have the staples removed but the hospital gave me the removal tool so I got my friend to remove them for me (they were really pulling on one side and I couldn't get in to our constantly unavailable doctors on day 5). I went to the docs 3 days later for a wound check, everything was fine.

Blood tests were taken while in hosp to check calcium levels, thyroid hormones etc and I have them done every 3 months at the moment. Really not as bad as I thought it would be and I didnt use the scarves I bought to cover my scar - I figured its part of me, sod what anyone else thinks - and I did joke when a couple of people asked that my OH had slit my throat lol!

I did take some pics of various stages of my scar - if you would like to see them please let me know and I will put them on (if its possible on here?) good luck and try not to worry.

xx

Hi - sorry to have been AWOL for a few days!
We have health insurance, so I was able to go privately. So sorry can't answer your question about timings.

As for the calcium - you're still going to have half of your thyroid, so will still have half your normal number of parathyroid glands which are responsible for calcium absorption (which sit right on top of the thyroid). As I understand it, in normal circumstances, the remaining glands just step up production until you are back at normal hormone levels again. They keep an eye on you for a few days to make sure the remaining thyroid and parathyroids pump out the right levels.

I was warned about my voice too, now I come to think about it. But I was fine. Have they put the (very very tiny and I promise I didn't feel it) fibre optic or whatever it was down your nose to look at your vocal chords and make sure these aren't involved? Mine were clear, so maybe that's why I was OK?? Dunno.

As for BF - didn't have any DCs so don't know. How old is she/he? I would have thought the main consideration post surgery (any drugs you are taking aside - check on these) would be whether your DC is curious enough and able to start fiddling with the scar. You might just have to see how it goes on that one. If this is a time when you want to think about stopping BF, then fine. But I wouldn't let the fact that you are having surgery dictate that. You could try posting on the bottle and breast feeding thread - I remember there have been quite a few threads about how to continue BF when having surgery. Lots of advice and good ideas and some women have managed it.

XX

Just a quick update for anyone interested - had my surgery on Tuesday this week and while very sore atm am glad its all over. Have quite a large scar - lump was larger than the surgeon was expecting (scar approx 10cm) - but I'm told it'll fade. Some issues with allergies to dressings but all sorted for now. Thank you to all those who replied with your experiences. DD1 keeps making me cards - and DD2 is very curious but in a lovely one year old kind of way! xx

Hi! Glad to hear that you're through the other side of it OK. Are you home already? Has the pathology on the lump come back yet? Glad the DDs are looking after you and hope you'll manage to have a nice Christmas. Well done for getting through it! XX

Hi Cardamom, yes I came home the next day, albeit later on. Thyroid levels need to be checked over next few weeks but my calcium was fine (thanks to the chap who woke me at 5.20 to take blood!) Have not officially had the pathology back but I know someone who knows someone and it had all come back clear thankfully :) So happy christmas all round!!
Thank you for all your replies and hope you have a happy christmas too!! xx