October is Breast Cancer Awareness month, and it’s the perfect time to start doing regular breast exams on yourself.
I have been doing them since my freshman year of college, when I noticed a pronounced lump the size of a large grape in my left breast. As a woman of Ashkenazi Jewish descent, I know that my chances of developing breast cancer are higher than the average woman. Even though my maternal grandmother has tested negative for the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, I went to the health center and got it checked out anyway. The good news is that the lump is benign. The bad news is that I need to be careful to check my breasts regularly in case new lumps develop suddenly, indicating possible cancerous growths.
But wait, there’s more good news! Breast exams are super easy to do by yourself. Here are some tips on performing an at-home breast exam.
1. Get comfortable. It’s best to do a breast exam while lying down in bed, but you can do the exam while in the shower or even in front of a mirror if that’s what you prefer.
2. Use the pads of your three middle fingers to check for lumps. Remember Katniss’s Hunger Games salute?
Yeah, do that. Gently work your way around the outside of your breasts (be sure to check all the way by your armpits!) and then move to the central tissue and nipple area. Take your time and get familiar with any fibrous, knotty tissue or pronounced lumps that you might encounter.
3. Be sure to check for any strange discharge from your nipples or any obvious differences between one breast and the other. Naturally, most women’s left and right breasts don’t match perfectly, but if one breast is noticeably more dimpled or puckered, get it checked out.
4. Only conduct an exam once a month. It can be easy to become obsessed with checking on a particular lump, but it’s better to space out your exams so that you can actually notice a difference in the breast tissue. If you perform exams too frequently, it can be hard to track changes in lump size or growth.
What happens if you do find something strange with your breasts? You can go to a health center and ask for a diagnostic exam. From there, your physician may refer you to a specialized breast diagnostic center, where they can perform a breast ultrasound to look at the tissue more closely or conduct a mammogram to detect a tumor.
If you do find a lump, try to not get too anxious. Very few lumps are actually cancerous, and many women have naturally lumpy breasts due to the thicker fibrous tissue around the edges of the breasts.
Even though it might be embarrassing to talk about breast health, breast exams only take a few minutes and can help you to be more aware of your own health.
They’re simple, easy, and are incredibly helpful to know more about your future breast health.
Take some time today, collegiettes, and get to know your breasts!