I posted this on the “have I got breast cancer” thread, but thinking some of you here may haave some experience to share. I have just finished all my treatment (with exception of tamoxifen) for a diagnosis of ICD and DCIS . Initial diagnosis April of this year. I’m taking the tamoxifen religiously with few side effects luckily. I never panicked with my first diagnosis and just plodded through rads etc. I declined chemo which was offered prophylactically as was not needed for treatment. This was only offered because I’m young apparently (Amen to that - at 43 yrs I’ll take that thank you very kindly!) Last week I found a small, hard, painless lump / mass in my right breast (original in left). It feels exactly the same as my original lumps and is in exactly the same place as the IDC tumor. Logic tells me that I’m being histrionic as it is sooo unlikely to be anything heinous, especially when I’m on tamoxifen. If I’m honest think it is more likely to be a fatty collection of chocolate and bailey’s given my diet recently! My B.C. Nurse has been lovely and advised me to tell the oncologist when I see them for routine review next Tuesday. Has anybody else had a similar experience. Can you get cancer again whilst on tamoxifen and can you get non hormone receptive tumors when your first one was ER+ ??
Its very unlikely to get a second cancer so soon after the first but unfortunately you can get a new cancer while on tamoxifen.
I was on tamoxifen in 2006 for a small node neg Er pos cancer, but was found to have a new primary in the other breast whilst taking tamoxifen… My consultant said it could be tamoxifen resistant or hormone neg… Both are much less common than hormone pos but turned out to be ER, PR, HER2 Neg (TNBC). After my treatment for that cancer i continued to take tamoxifen for the first one… I got a recurrence of the TNBC 2 years later, then went back on tamox to complete 5 years, almost seven years after i started it… Then changed to letrozole in feb and discovered the TNBc had come back again in august this time to my right lung.
In between these i have had a number of scares… Lump thought to be cancer, which turned out to be benign fat necrosis, inspissated cyst, fluid cysts, prominent breast lobule… Many many ladies have lumps and bumps in their breast following cancer which turn out to be benign.
The chance of getting a cancer in your other breast is very low… About 5% of ladies get BC in the other side unless your a gene carrier like me when its around 60%.
So try not to panic (famous last words) and get your onc to check it out and hopefully its just a prominent lobe or a cyst.