Arm lymphedema affects approximately 40% of mastectomized women with axillary hollowness, increasing limb weight and volume, with subsequent professional, domestic, sexual and psychosocial problems. Current study analyzes the experience of women with post-mastectomy lymphedema and aims at understanding the meaning that foregrounds their experienced suffering. Analysis was based on an anthropological and interpretative approach, whereas data were submitted to thematic content analysis. Fourteen women, attending a rehabilitation unit for mastectomized women, where authors of current paper work, participated in the study, were selected. From the participants' point of view, characterizing a stigmatizing problem, lymphedema brings about concern with treatment and its maintenance, difficulty in daily life and work, emotional alterations, habits changes. The subjects identified institutions, such as science, place of work, health services and society, which develop negative conditions by their questioning, bias, isolation and embarrassment. The family and the support service they attended were institutions that favored social approximation.
Breast neoplasm; lymphedema; suffering experience