How to breast self-exam

You may perform monthly breast self-exams to check for any changes in your breasts. It is important to remember that changes can occur because of aging, your menstrual cycle, pregnancy, menopause, or taking birth control pills or other hormones. It is normal for breasts to feel a little lumpy and uneven. Also, it is common for your breasts to be swollen and tender right before or during your menstrual period.

You should contact your health care provider if you notice any unusual changes in your breasts.

Breast self-exams cannot replace regular screening mammograms and clinical breast exams. Studies have not shown that breast self-exams alone reduce the number of deaths from hereditary breast cancer

[katarina777]

Jacobintl says: 'Breast self-exams cannot replace regular screening mammograms and clinical breast exams.'

I think that self breast care exams are often way superior to 'clinical  breast exams', when you consider that many doctors in fact have practically a phobia about touching a woman's breast.

I don't know if they see 'the lawsuit about  sexual abuse in the back of their paranoid minds', or if they are just too afraid for other reasons, or ashamed, or disgusted, or whatever.

But it happens an awful lot. As a consequence, nothing gets felt, and the 'clinical breast exam' is hardly a clinical breast exam except for the white coat.

For that reason it is very important for women to bring up when they feel something, as the chances are better for them to get evaluated for what they can point to, or have  felt,  than the probability of an 'anally retentive' MD finding something you did not find yourself.

[wondering1719]

ditto what katarina said.  i had an oncologist do an "exam" last week and for starters, she did not even ask the date of my last period.   second, she barely touched them, and said everything was totally normal.  that's funny, my very good ob-gyn said she had "never seen anything like this before" and that i should get a second opinion.  needless to say, i need yet another opinion and i'm going to get one or more until i get an answer that makes sense to me.