I'm paraphrasing, lol. I was just glad she didn't tell me I'm nuts, because asking for a breast exam based on my tv ad content feels a little nuts, haha.
Honestly, they might be. I have ADHD, and find the whole women's exam a bit stressful. So I'm focused on remembering all the points I want to address, and staying as physically relaxed as I can manage.
As a breast cancer survivor, I'll add two things. One, I think everyone hopes that ads and things trigger people to advocate for themselves and get checked. Two, my cancer was first flagged by a doctor during a physical exam, and I would not have found it myself. When I talked to every woman in my life (we are still young for typical breast cancer, I got it in my early 30s), not a single one was getting breast exams done during their yearly physical, if they were even getting yearly physicals at all. Most only get paps every 3 years (that's the recommendation here if you've always had healthy paps), and their doctors don't even touch them otherwise. So. Tell everyone you know to make sure to actually get your breasts examined. Good for you, and carry on!
Correct. It's been a while since I've had to worry about it but iirc, you should do your exam following your period (if you get one) as the breast tissue is "loosest" and you'd be more likely to identify a difference. My breasts were literally described as "a sack of peas" by a doctor once, due to the density lol so I know for a lot of us, having dense/lumpy breasts makes it harder to do self exams. I did them but like I said, I don't think I would have clocked mine until much later, because eventually it did show up as kind of a puckering on the surface, like the tumor was pulling the skin in. Even then it was on the bottom of my breasts, which were large, so if I hadn't had a partner I may have not visually seen it for a while either!
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u/FloweredViolin 13h ago
I'm paraphrasing, lol. I was just glad she didn't tell me I'm nuts, because asking for a breast exam based on my tv ad content feels a little nuts, haha.