Need a Mammogram Re-Check. Keep Me From Freaking Out...

[Dogzilla]

@Scarlett67

I got called back in . . . 2009? . . . for a recheck on my second mammo ever. They saw some stuff that they wanted to check with a needle biopsy. Nobody likes to hear that word. I was scared shitless. Went in for the biopsy and they couldn’t get a good enough image to take the sample. So they scheduled me for a surgical biopsy that same week. That was actually a huge relief, though, because (1) I didn’t have to worry anymore about whether I needed surgery (sounds weird, I know, but it’s true) and (2) it was day surgery, and the sample tissue area would be slightly larger (though still quite small), and even if it was problem tissue, it would all be removed during the surgery.

So I went for the surgery and it turned out to be just funny cells, nothing to worry about. I had a follow-up mammo 6 months later, and then 6 months later they said I could go back to my regular yearly mammos. I have a faint scar about an inch long, and I’d have to be a total whore for it ever to show in public.

So I will tell you what my online peeps told me back then. Do your best to relax. It is highly likely to be nothing at all, even if you end up needing a little treatment. But I also understand how very hard it is to relax! Just be good to yourself, and surround yourself with people who will do the same. Mr. S was awesome – joking about how I needed to go “into the shop,” despite the fact that he HAD to have been worried, having lost three immediate family members to cancer in the space of 5 years (just before I met him).

So just remember: BREATHE.

I had to check the user name because I could have posted this exact same post, pretty much word for word except the part about Mr. S – I had no awesome Mr. S. In fact, I really didn’t have any support at all and that makes the worry and fear much worse.

I’d say, confide in your SO or someone who is close to you and let that be the one safe place where you express all your fears and worries. And when the conversation is over, let it go. I know it’s hard, but try not to obsess about it. At this point, you don’t have enough information to know what to obsess about, so you’re really just making shit up in your own head. Try really hard not to do that. Remind yourself: I don’t have any concrete information yet; I am just making shit up.

[F.Pu-du-he-pa-as]

The false positive rate for mammograms is quite high. I quote, from an article on Science-Based Medicine:

In other words, 2500 women [below the age of 40] would need to be screened over a 10-year period for 1 to avoid death from breast cancer. What happens to the other 2499 women who had to undergo screening to achieve this benefit is also relevant. Estimates of harm vary considerably. In the United States, more than 1000 women would be expected to have at least one false positive result,7 a number that would be considerably lower in Europe.8 Less frequent but more worrisome is the problem of overdiagnosis. Somewhere between 5 and 15 women would be expected to be needlessly treated for a condition that was never going to bother them, with all the accompanying harms.9,10

These numbers (1000 false positives for 1 life saved) are for women under 40, but the odds are very good that if you get a call back on a mammogram, it is not panic time yet.

[Dogzilla]

In other words, 2500 women [below the age of 40] would need to be screened over a 10-year period for 1 to avoid death from breast cancer. What happens to the other 2499 women who had to undergo screening to achieve this benefit is also relevant. Estimates of harm vary considerably. In the United States, more than 1000 women would be expected to have at least one false positive result,7 a number that would be considerably lower in Europe.8 Less frequent but more worrisome is the problem of overdiagnosis. Somewhere between 5 and 15 women would be expected to be needlessly treated for a condition that was never going to bother them, with all the accompanying harms.9,10

After what I went through, I’m beginning to suspect that my surgeon just wanted to make an extra boat payment. I have a very good idea that they could have just waited and watched and I wouldn’t have had to have surgery and get my boob all mangled up. Because what they took out turned out to be benign. Now the mammogram place gets to make another boatload of money because I’m labeled (stigmatized, IMO) as “high risk” so that means I have to have the mammos twice a year, and my boobs are fibrous and dense, so that usually means a callback.

I am not unconvinced that all the excess exposure to radiation (Mammos twice a year from age 38-40, not to mention the 6 or so required for the needle biopsy and the other 12 or so required for the surgical biopsy… not to mention several x-rays I had last year for a broken foot and for dental x-rays once a year.) isn’t actually going to cause cancer. I keep thinking of those pictures of people from Nagasaki and Hiroshima. When you expose people to a bunch of radiation, nasty shit happens.

And yeah, all kinds of docs have said to me “Oh, well, it’s a *very small *dose of radiation.” Yeah, but I’ve had at least 30 mammograms in four years. It’s a small dose if you have it done once a year and get just two films. They always do 4-6 films on me twice a year, more when there’s a callback.

I tell those docs, “Oh, well, the radiology people have a vested interest in convincing me it’s safe, don’t they? You do, too, don’t you? You don’t get to ping my insurance company for another $100 if I don’t go back for follow up mammos so you can read them and tell me there’s nothing there, right?” At that point my OB/Gyn shut her mouth, conceded that I had a point, and proceeded with the exam.

I’ve seen data supporting either viewpoint: that it’s good to be proactive and get lots of mammos young so you can catch it early. And if you do catch BC, you want to catch it early. It’s damn near completely curable at the earliest stages. On the other hand, that is *exactly *the fear tactic used to get you to buy into the solution, which is excessive exposure to radiation.