Right to worry or totally overreacting?

Posted , 3 users are following.

Hiya, I’m an 18 year old female and I suffer from a lot of health related anxiety, which often makes it difficult to know if I’m worrying for nothing or should really be concerned. For about 2 weeks I’ve had a small rash on both my breasts, one worse than the other but both definitely have the same rash. It seems to be on a patch on the areola and just underneath it, not on the nipple though, it would seem, on both. There doesn’t really seem to be any discolouration, maybe slightly red on the areola but nothing much, you can only really tell when looking at it as it looks a bit more dry than the rest of the skin, and to touch it isn’t as smooth as the rest. I did notice it came up a couple of weeks ago but didn’t think much of it until last night, I had a piece of dry skin on the nipple that kept catching on my clothes. Once removed it was okay, but I’d made the whole rash itchy/irritated by touching the area so much. I then did the dreaded thing; googled my symptoms. The first thing that came up was Paget’s disease, and I later saw IBC come up, both sending my head in a frenzy. Last night it was very red as I’d irritated it so much, and for a while it’s been quite itchy (maybe for a week?) but thought nothing of it until last night. I got my partner to check me and the symptoms and we both agreed the only symptoms I had of either was the rash and occasional itching. I calmed down a bit, put some moisturiser on both breasts, and then went to bed. This morning I woke up and the rash has responded incredibly well to the moisturiser, it now isn’t red (as mentioned above), and the patch seems to have shrunk, so the ‘worst’ bit is very small, the rest looks and feels almost identical now to the rest of my breast, only slightly more dry. It hasn’t been itchy all day, but I’m still worried. I do suffer very badly from eczema/dry skin elsewhere on my body (my arms, legs, ankles and wrists are all covered in patches of it with varying severity) and my mother also suffers from eczema so my partner keeps telling me that’s all it’ll be, but I can’t help but worry and really wanted some advice. Thank you!

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1 Reply

  • Posted

    I think in all probability these are patches  of eczema,as you say you do have patches of this elsewhere and you are only 18.   We all start to think the worst when we have something wrong with our breasts,but usually it is something quite benign. 

    It may also be a fungal infection,.....especially if you sweat a lot, so if it gets worse then do see your doctor,but please dont worry.

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