Breast Self Exams - Do Them!

Today’s topic: breast self exams (BSE). I recently came across this little teaching model someone gave me in medical school: it gave me a tactile memory of what a bad lump feels like. I never forgot. 

19 years later, when I felt my own lump, it almost made me vomit - I knew the second my fingers rolled over the hard knot that it hadn’t been there before, and that it wasn’t good. Sure enough, it was breast cancer. 

There are some conflicting statistics and articles about the utility of BSE in breast cancer prevention. Most people don’t argue about the utility of mammography, but I’m an example of where routine screening utterly failed. 

I had really dense breasts, and a lobular cell tumor - a set up for missing the cancer that was likely there for years before I felt it. I religiously got a mammogram every year. It did nothing to detect my cancer earlier, or to save my life. My BSE, however, did. 

I wouldn’t say I’ve been diligent about doing BSE, but I was comfortable enough with my own breasts to recognize something new, and that’s really all you need. Get to know your breasts, examine them, feel every lump and bump. Even with dense tissue, I could still feel my lump. 

Don’t get me wrong - get your mammograms too (and colonoscopies, cholesterol screenings, and BP checks). But don’t let that be the end of your breast cancer prevention - get to know your breasts. 

I wish I could get every woman one of these models, because knowing what a tumor feels like isn’t knowledge only a doctor should have - it should be something every woman knows, so she knows when to be concerned. If you feel something, say something.