Hello and thank you for your enquiry. I'm sorry to read that you are still experiencing pain following your lobectomy surgery that you had last year. This must be a difficult time for you.

I'm afraid as we are not involved in your clinical care I can't tell you if you will always experience pain. You really need to discuss this with your specialist team or GP as they have all your medical details and are familiar with your individual situation. If you still have a hospital lung specialist nurse involved in your care, then perhaps they can provide you with further information. Sometimes there is superficial nerve damage after lung surgery, and this can take a long time, sometimes years, to improve. 

I'm not sure if you are taking any painkillers to manage your pain. The most commonly used painkillers I’m afraid do not help much with nerve type pain. The sorts of medicines used to tackle nerve pain are usually used either for depression or in people with epilepsy and you can read more about these drugs further down the page at this link,

www.cancerresearchuk.org/.../other-drugs

These drugs can take a while to work and the doses may have to be increased, but this has to be done gradually under medical supervision. Your lung cancer team or GP can assess you and prescribe something that will hopefully manage your nerve pain better. They can also refer you to a hospital pain clinic service for further specialist advice on managing your pain.

Perhaps contacting them or asking your GP to refer you, may be helpful for specialist advice. You may also benefit from some physiotherapy input, so do ask your GP about this.

I hope this is of some use. Please get back to us if you need any more information or support.  You may find it helpful to talk things through with one of the nurses on our helpline.  The number to call is Freephone 0808 800 4040 and the lines are open from 9am till 5pm Monday to Friday.

Kind regards,

Vanda