How appropriate. About a week after my doctor diagnosed me with fibrocystic breast disease (not really a disease, really, but a condition), a news story breaks about possible new recommendations about mammograms. Part of these recommendations didn’t surprise me, that is, that women 40-49 don’t need to routinely have them. Not surprising, because women in this age group (mine!) have notoriously hard to read mammograms. Actually, younger women have even harder to read films, but from 40-49 there’s increased risk of breast cancer, yet the breast tissue has not become easier to read in mammogram, as it does after 50. Another recommendation, that women over 50 only get mammograms every two years, didn’t surprise me too much either. But what really kind of blew me away was the recommendation that women shouldn’t be taught to do self-exams.
What?
Actually, I think what they actually found was that when women do regular self-exams of their own breasts, survival rates are not significantly better than if they don’t examine themselves at all. In any case, this seems wrong to me. I mean, if you’re going to tell women over 40 who don’t have other risk factors that they don’t need to get a mammogram every year, I can maybe get on board with that, as long as they’re still examining their own breasts. Because otherwise, what are they saying – just take your chances for a decade?
You know, I have a funny relationship with all these tests. Last year, I had my first mammogram, and then was told I had to come back for a second, diagnostic mammogram and an ultrasound. Of course, in the weeks before this second appointment, I was terrified. My mother died from breast cancer in 1994. I was adopted, so I’m not necessarily at higher risk because of her diagnosis, but still, it was awful, and I’m very vigilant about my own health as a result. The second mammogram and ultrasound showed I had a cyst (or cysts). Recommendation: do nothing, have another mammogram in a year. That anniversary is coming up in a few months. In the meantime, I started having awful, burning pain in my breasts/armpits/upper inside arms. I was sure it was cancer, even though I couldn’t feel any lumps. That’s when I went to my doctor and got the fibrocystic diagnosis. She started me on evening primrose oil capsules, change me to a lower dose birth control pill (which I’ll probably be taking continuously), and told me to hold off at least a month or two on the mammogram, in hopes that these steps will help make my eventual film more readable.
Then these new recommendations come out, and I’m not a bit surprised. On one hand, I don’t want to take any chances. I’m one of those people that, if I got genetic testing and found out I had the gene that predisposes women to breast cancer, I’d have NO PROBLEM whatsoever having a preventative mastectomy. Just get them off, please. Take away the cancer pillows, just rebuild me some newer, better, bionic boobs afterward (and hey, how about a tummy tuck while you’re at it? ha). On the other hand, false positive results are the story of my life – witness my issues last year. And I know that my breast tissue is hard to read on an x-ray, and I have a high chance of having yet another false positive, which could lead to more x-rays, another ultrasound, maybe even an unnecessary biopsy.
What’s a woman to do? Other than feel confused and frightened, of course – I got that covered.
More reading:
CNN: Task force opposes routine mammograms for women age 40-49
American Cancer Society Responds to Changes to USPSTF Mammography Guidelines
Mammography: What to Do Now?
