With follow-up MRIs or ultrasounds, mammography began the process of finding deep, non-palpable invasive breast cancers for me, my mother, and my sister.
The question FOR ME is whether routine mammography is likely to reduce my chances of dying from breast cancer. The studies help with that question, but they do not decide the answer to that question for an individual woman.
For me the results were an overwhelming yes.
Yes, I have the same question, of course. Well, I care whether it will reduce MY chances of dying from breast cancer, and whether it will increase my chance of other problems.
(I already wasted several days and many many hours of worry over an irregularity that proved to be nothing, fwiw. That’s actually something I found from a manual exam, not a mamography. But it makes me aware of the risk of over-diagnosis.)
And… it’s recommended, so I’ll probably do it. But for me, the results are an extremely feeble “probably”.
Unless the mammogram detects cancer, preferably a stage 1 like mine. Then you’ll be glad you did. And didn’t wait until it was big enough to feel with your fingers.
If I do, I will always wonder whether that cancer would have grown or not, though.
In case it helps you decide, the UK NHS is pretty keen on not wasting money on unnecessary procedures, and tries to take into account harm vs benefit. These are their recommendations:
And it’s not a comfortable position, it’s a weird position with the machine poking at you while you’re off balance. And not breathing. And being squished in pain. If they must squish my boob that far, surely there should be a way to do this without recreating trying to pick up channel 43 from a UHF antenna.
Surely there’s a way to more ergonomically engineer the machine.
I did a pin up shoot for my 50th birthday (it was a hella lot of fun), and the instructions of the photographer had a lot in common with the mammo tech. “Move this foot here, no, not that far. Arch your back a bit. Stick your butt out. OK…hold it…”
Interesting. We are urged to get one every year starting at age… 40, i think. There’s probably some upper limit, but I’m not there.
I think I recall the upper age being 75, but I’m not sure. Going by the “worth it if you expect 10 or more years” rule of thumb I mentioned up thread the cut off would be around 78-80 for women in the US.
US medicine tends to push screening and testing a lot harder. I have heard it’s because doctors and hospitals can get sued if they don’t do a test and miss something, but the consequences of over-treatment are generally indirect and therefore not considered.
Well, if your mammogram finds something like my IDC that was less than 1 centimeter, you don’t have to do anything about it. In the interest of science, you can just wait to see if it grows.
If your mammogram finds DCIS, some surgeons and oncologists are suggesting that it’s not unreasonable to wait and see.
A friend of mine found DCIS in one breast and immediately had a bilateral mastectomy (which seemed like overkill to me at the time), but in fact the cancer did appear again in a tiny bit of breast tissue that had not been removed by the mastectomy. So go figure.
You make your decisions and you take your chances any way you go.
These say every 2 years and start at 45. It’s certainly not clear cut that following US guidelines is the best choice, but they do all recommend some screening.
I just got one today. Like my others, it was kinda uncomfortable and awkward, but not painful. In the past I have found them somewhat ouchy, but post menopause I don’t. I’m an A cup.
Because I had read the start of this thread beforehand, I asked the tech if most women found it painful and she said, “usually one or two a week tell me it hurts.” She does this all day long and she isn’t young. Just another anecdotal data point. I perfectly well believe those who find it traumatically painful.
It occurs to me that many women are taught not to complain, especially to medical personnel.
For myself, I was out shopping the day they gave the Nice Girl lesson. 
Yeah, that occurred to me too.
I don’t think i generally complain to the technician that it’s painful. Why?
My last technician did something where she squeezed the plates to certain point, and then just before taking the image squeezed down the rest of the way. It made the painful part a shorter duration. She acted as if she knew it was likely to be quite uncomfortable to painful.
When I had the abscess, I told my doctor and the technician that I was scared of the pain. They didn’t do anything differently. Other than that time, I haven’t told a technician that it was painful. And when they ask how I’m doing, I say “fine.” It’s not like they’re going to do anything about it.
Also, for people like me, who had an additional factor making it excruciating, it really highlights the lack of consideration for the pain. I mean, the comparison to testicles has been made. What if the only way of imaging a testicle was to press it between two metal plates. Now imagine a guy comes in with a very painful incarcerated inguinal hernia. (A hernia into the scrotum that’s stuck there.) Any chance that guy gets offered some anxiety meds or sedation before they squeeze it between the metal plates? (Not to mention the teams of researchers that would be working on another solution.)
I am the object lesson for why you don’t want to skip a mammogram. I got them religiously. Then–long story why–I skipped one. Just one. I did SBE’s, but I didn’t realize breast tissue reaches to the collar bone, so I didn’t find the mass until it was fairly large. Had I not skipped the mammogram, the cancer would have been discovered in situ (contained within the duct), like my sister’s was. Instead it progressed to IDC. I kick myself every damned day.
My sister has a small scar. I have a big battle scar, plus the scars from reconstructive surgery. My surgeon said “lumpectomy” for cancer is a misnomer: it’s ALWAYS more than the lump because they have to cut until they get clean margins. (BTW, I had genetic testing done and don’t carry the BRCA gene. The test runs $10k, and insurance doesn’t cover it. A nonprofit covered mine.)
Once you hit 50, you’re playing Russian Roulette if you skip mammograms. You have a 1 in 8 chance of getting breast cancer, the same as I did: the gun has 7 empty chambers and one bullet, and you don’t know how many times it’s already been fired. I guess you could say, Well, I probably have plenty of time even if there is cancer. But at what precise point does it become invasive, like mine? How much longer before mine would’ve metastasized? Nobody can say.
I had DCIS. They did one biopsy on me. They determined whether cancer has invaded milk ducts (both breasts) by an MRI and (one breast) ductography, not multiple biopsies. Surgeons get a clear, detailed picture of what’s going on before surgery. (Mine was 3 years ago. )
And one more thing: an ultrasound is useful for those of us with dense breast tissue, but it’s insufficient on its own because it can’t pick up microcalcifications. Certain patterns of microcalifications can be an early sign of cancer.
Sorry this is long. I guess I had a lot to say.
And I am taking it all to heart. Thank you.