Think Pinker

On a previous post, I talked about that thing so many women avoid or forget–the breast self exam. I didn’t give any directions on how to examine yourself, I just discussed the importance of doing them. In this post, I am once again not going to tell you how to examine yourself. There is a perfectly good set of instructions on that at The Mayo Clinic Website.

So what do I intend to point out with this post? I’m going to give two things. First, what are you looking for in a breast exam? Second, what happens to women who find a suspicious lump or abnormality?

Obviously, when you examine your breasts, you are looking for lumps. But that creates quite a conumdrum because breast tissue is lumpy and bumpy anyway. Some women have a benign breast condition called fibrocystic breast disease, which makes it even harder to distinguish between normal breast tissue and potential problems.

As you do your exams, you get more familiar with your own breasts than anyone else. If you feel a lump, you will know it wasn’t there before. So, the answer to question one is that you are looking for a lump that wasn’t there before. Now some people will tell you that if it hurts, it isn’t cancer. That’s an old wive’s tale. Cancerous lumps may or may not cause pain.

To answer the second question about what happens to women that find a suspicious lump. Well, that obviously depends on whether or not they have cancer. One interesting common finding studies show about women who do regular self exams is that they are much more likely to find a lump while it is still small and treatable. Treatable cancers found early are more likely to be survivable long term.

So do those breast exams and look for anything that wasn’t there before. If you find something, don’t bother with denial but rather get yourself to the doctor.