Skin Graft Appearance and Sensation - 04-29-2012 09:15 AM
I am only six weeks out of my 2nd surgery. It was a revision to my tongue to free up adhesions that anchored the left side of my tongue to the bottom of my mouth.
This time I recieved a skin graft that runs from the back of my lateral left tongue to my tip. It is white/grey in appearance as it should be, smooth at the back but up mear the tip it is firm, leathery and has many folds. I have one lump that is visible but until this week couldnt be felt through the thickness of my tongue but now is, when I run my teeth across the top of my tongue. I now feel a small rice/pea size firm hard lump. To which I may be feeling pain from. (due to numbness and chronic nerve pain its hard to pin point where this new pain is coming from.)
Also in the last couple days, I developed some new and obvious pain at the base of tip of my tongue/floor of mouth (last 48hrs) where the graft is not smooth but full of wrinkles and ridges. All this pain is different from my nerve pain (in which I take T3s and gabapentin for, with min to moderate results)
Is this leathery wrinkly effect of the graft at the tip typical? Has anyone else been bothered by the firm leathery ridges? Anyone else experience pain?
I have moderate to severe nerve pain at the tip that persists as a result of my first surgery. My cancer was very superficial so my 'complications' (anchoring and nerve pain)were not expected by my surgeon.
Firm leathery feeling typical?
Lumps and ridges common place with grafts?
Pain as a result of a graft??
This time I recieved a skin graft that runs from the back of my lateral left tongue to my tip. It is white/grey in appearance as it should be, smooth at the back but up mear the tip it is firm, leathery and has many folds. I have one lump that is visible but until this week couldnt be felt through the thickness of my tongue but now is, when I run my teeth across the top of my tongue. I now feel a small rice/pea size firm hard lump. To which I may be feeling pain from. (due to numbness and chronic nerve pain its hard to pin point where this new pain is coming from.)
Also in the last couple days, I developed some new and obvious pain at the base of tip of my tongue/floor of mouth (last 48hrs) where the graft is not smooth but full of wrinkles and ridges. All this pain is different from my nerve pain (in which I take T3s and gabapentin for, with min to moderate results)
Is this leathery wrinkly effect of the graft at the tip typical? Has anyone else been bothered by the firm leathery ridges? Anyone else experience pain?
I have moderate to severe nerve pain at the tip that persists as a result of my first surgery. My cancer was very superficial so my 'complications' (anchoring and nerve pain)were not expected by my surgeon.
Firm leathery feeling typical?
Lumps and ridges common place with grafts?
Pain as a result of a graft??
the lump doesn't sound normal to me (maybe a pocket if infection?) - it wouldn't hurt to have it checked out - wrinkly and leathery - sounds normal - they're putting tissue from somewhere else into your mouth so it may be a bit larger than the area - hence the wrinkles -- leathery? You may have some dead skin try using a soft tooth brush to clean it very gently and give it more time to heal. Since the skin put in there is not from your mouth and used to being wet all the time it may not behave normally for a while but it does adjust. I'm almost a year out of rads and other than a fold in my tongue from where it was stitched - it feels like a regular tongue and has very similar mobility. the fold sticks up a bit like a skin tag almost - but it's soft etc... Color wise it a pale whitish pink... A little lighter than my real tongue. I'm blessed in that I don't have pain... I would occasionally get a twinge here and there - when the nerves were regenerating - but for me real pain is a good indicator to have it checked out - particularly if you haven't had rads (rads causes all kinds of unexplained issues)