Mammography Maddness

If you need more time to reflect on this....do phone in and make your excuses on this occasion. You may well be fine but your state of mind is of the greatest importance. This will give you the opportunity to fully consider your position on the matter.

Marey is right, postpone and do some research for yourself.

As I said I had 2 back in my 50's and they were questionable, I hear this a lot from women, they have to go back for more testing, etc....a vicious cycle.  A lot of fear and anxiety we women go thru....

Talk to others if you have not....most of my alternative thinking friends do NOT get them and they may have had a couple yrs ago but don't now.   

Here in the U.S. they are pushing them on women as early as 30's I'm hearing......I'm too suspecious of the industry.  But this is me.  

I'm no expert but have done a LOT of research for myself over many years.  

I won't put myself thru this anymore and have not for a lot of years...I take iodine drops daily to help with breast health.    when I miss my drops I would get a little pain so I'm faithful.  

Thank you. I am 41 and due to additional health challenges all occurring at the sane time as hypermobility fibromyalgia chronic pain syndrome my g.p. due to family history as well as put me forward for full screening. I have always worked with alternative treatment but due to having emergency treatment for a broken ankle and this c weekend an asthma attack (in not asthmatic) I feel I have been forced to accept this and combine it with my alternative care too. I live in the UK and it is very new for us here to have such high duty of care in this area for women particularly highlighted by celebrities and media.

I feel that if I dont take this opportunity now I will then worry. 

All of this has occurred in past 18 months. I am not a worrier, am highly proactive and resourceful however due to my company letting me go and major benefit delays I am really limited to funds to invest. I have tried making herbal remedies myself for pain relief etc but there is only so much I can do.

Not sure?!

couldn't agree more Joy. Its an industry set up to benefit the contracting service provider and its staff...not the patient. Patients have to be drawn in, enticed, harangued, and as those tactics have been insufficient in terms of uptake, ultimately threatened, bullied and cohersed.

There is just no benefit to the patient. I would not get involved in that scenario if you paid me. No-one should feel that any medic has a hold over them or that as a grateful patient they owe a duty to undergo investigations. The patient has a duty only to themselves and in iniaiting investigations of value to themselves and 

to further whatever is needed in terms of understanding so that the patient can take control of their health. 

It is so important to feel happy and confident about any investigations and to have either initiated them or followed a line of enquiry which makes sense to the patient. If the slightest doubt exists best to call in sick/advise of an emergency or whatever and get out of it...this is catered for by hospitals so no guilt should be felt and certainly no obligation to go ...to benefit someone else/or the health care practioner. Its really hard when we feel we might be letting someone down but a quick call first thing in the morning gets one off the hook and gives time to consider all angles.

I agree with you Joy about the unwarranted risks and cannot remain silent.

Hi Ech

I was wondering whether you perceive some benefits to the testing? What might these be from your viewpoint?

I saw an integrative MD some years back and she had a thermography machine in her office for her patients, it is out of pocket testing, but not invasive at all...I never did one of these either.....I just CHOSE to believe my breasts are healthy and fine.   My MD often does a manual exam when I see her once a year.   

Plus when I got on pycnogenol back in 1995, we were told it MAY prevent cancer, can't get that line out of my mind.   I've read where cancer research centers now use pycnogenol and grape seed extract in their cancer research......you can search that on line too;;;

google:  pycnogenol and grape seed extract and cancer

makes sense.

Hi Suzanne. One thing that stuck in my mind was a patient with breast cancer. She has had it for years and just lived with it. What i thought remarkable at the time was she was in her nineties and had had it over 20 years according to her daughter. It never seamed to bother her at all. 

Wilma

fascinating wilma....i remember patients like that too. kind of a protective enclosure mechanism going on in some instances....not necessarily something to be feared...unless one attacks it ...then all hell can be let loose.

Yes i agree. Its a common thread that if you make cancer bleed it would spread. I always felt sad for patients who had terminal type cance and trying to cut it out to give them more time. Inevitably i believed it was a death warrant for many. 

Wilma. 

sounds horrific

yes agreed. I felt that saddness too x

I know of a friend of a friend who is 81 I think and she knows she has B/C but is doing NOTHING....my friend says she is fine and still works as a greeter at one our discount clothing stores....

well done her she will proberly be better of for it.

Yes, increased aggressiveness in cancers when we intervene is typical, but not often discussed in conventional medicine.  There is no doubt that conventional cancer tx buys a little time, then the cancers usually return worse than ever (though this is not true with all cancers as a few have good treatment outcomes).  And cancer often grows along the biopsy lines, so this is also evidence of disruption in the encapsulated cancer.  I like the new research that is conceptualizing cancer as the body's attempt to keep living and regression to earlier evolutionary states of being when threatened by toxins.  It may be a disrupted attempt to keep us alive.  So, anything that we can do to encourage health in our bodies may give our immune system the best fighting chance of properly regulating those abberant cells.  Breast cancer research is now going the way of prostate cancer--that there are slow growing types that are best dealt with wby an approach of "watchful waiting" rather than aggressive intervention.