Hello Gemma1313 and a big welcome to Cancer Chat, 

Poor you that sounds rather painful. It's good that you are having the stitches removed on Monday so that they can check if everything is healing properly. Make sure you mention it is is still painful and tender when you have your appointment on Monday to remove the stitches or feel free to call your GP to discuss this and ask if is common to still feel a lot of pain 10 days after the WLE. There is information on our website on the wide local excision on this page with a small paragraph specifically on problems which might occur after a wide local excision - it is not uncommon to experience some mild pain at the wound site and if paracetamol is not helping it mentions that you should contact your doctor for stronger pain relief. Signs of infection to look out for would be, according to our website, if your wound looks red, is very sore and getting more painful or has fluid/discharge leaking from it. If you are concerned about anything, the best thing to do is to get in touch with your GP.

I hope that you will hear from other forum members who have had a wide local excision and that they will be along shortly to share their experience with you. I hope it all heals well and quickly and that everything goes well on Monday when you have the stitches removed. 

Best wishes, 

Lucie, Cancer Chat Moderator

Hi Gemma, 

A very warm welcome to our forum. I am so sorry to hear that you are still in so much pain, following your WLE. I found that mine settled from day to day, with no increase in pain. I would agree with our Moderator, Lucie, that it is possible that you may have an infection.

It might be fortituous that you have an appointment on Monday, to check this out. I sincerely hope that something can be done to lessen the pain for you. Please keep in touch and let us know how you get on at your appointment. We are always here for you.

Kind regards,

Jolamine xx

Thank you both for relying to me, since my intial post the pain does seem to be gradually declining even without the use of painkillers. I had some very tight internal stitches put in and because of the angle of the incision on my chest and the tension on the site I think this is what was making it more sore. Thankfully it does seem to be lessening now but I am glad that my appointment is tomorrow and someone can just check it out for me :)  xx

The only other thing I didn't mention is when I am sitting still I have no pain whatsoever, it's just when I stand up and move about, again I feel like this is when tension is put on the site. If it was infected I would have thought the pain would be constant? 

Hi Gemma,

I am glad to hear that you feel the pain is lessening. Whatever it is, it's not long now until you find out.

I shall be thinking of you tomorrow.

Kind regards,

Jolamine xx