Hello and welcome to the Breast Cancer Now forum.
Our forum is a safe space to connect with other people, learn from other people’s experiences of breast cancer, and perhaps share your own. It is open to people aged 16 years or over, and is available 24/7.
Here is a clip about the main points on the forum. Below you can find more points that will help you use the forum.
If you are new here
A special welcome if you’re browsing our forum but you haven’t registered yet. You can read messages without being signed in, and that’s cool with us too!
If you’d like to post messages on our forum, you will need register as a user. It won’t take long!
We recommend that you don’t use your full name as your username. It helps maintain a degree of confidentiality on our forum.
As soon as you register, we’ll send you an email confirming your registration.
Tip: If later on you realise you’d like to change your username, please email us on moderator@breastcancernow.org – our team can do this for you.
Start a conversation or post a reply
Registered users can join conversations on our forum, or start new ones.
To start a new conversation, navigate to the board that you wish to post to, and choose New Topic.
To reply to someone, scroll to the bottom of the message you wish to reply to, and select Reply
Tip: To protect your privacy and safety, please don’t post any personal details. Everything posted on our forum is available for public view.
Great. But where do I post?
There are many categories and boards on our forum, so it depends what you’re interested in.
Here are some suggestions to familiarise yourself with what boards exist:
- If you have a question for one of our Nurses
- If you have been recently diagnosed
- If you are currently going through breast cancer treatment
- If you have been diagnosed with secondary breast cancer
- If you are a carer of someone living with breast cancer
We’re sure you will find more categories and boards as you get more used to our forum.
I need to edit my post
No problem – we too occasionally hit Send too soon! Go to the message you posted, scroll down, and select the pencil icon.
What happens next?
Once you’ve posted something, your message will be visible to the many people who use our forum every day.
You can take some time to explore other parts of the forum and read what other people are saying. Many people use our forum often – you’ll soon start recognising a few usernames, and hopefully make some friends too.
What does the Like button do?
You may find that sometimes you are not sure how to reply to a message, or you just want to let someone know you have read their post.
Tapping the Like button is a way of saying ‘I hear you’, ‘You’re in my thoughts’, or ‘I agree with your point of view’. This is what it looks like:
You’ll get a notification every time someone hugs one of your posts, and other users will get one if you hug any of their posts.
How do I send a private message?
Users can send private messages to other forum users.
Only you and the person you are sending the message to can see these messages. (Please note that as mentioned in our How and why we moderate post, moderators are able to access users’ private messages if we need to investigate allegations of abuse.)
Select a user’s name and a little pop-up will appear. You can select the Message button.
Now you’re able to enter your subject line and the body of your message.
Next to your private exchanges you’ll see a view count. Do not worry if that shows a number that is more than 2. Your messages are private, however when you or the person you are messaging access the message after an 8 hour interval, the view count increases by 1.
How do I change my password?
You can change your password here.
How do I change the frequency of emails I receive?
You can visit your profile icon at the top right of your screen, and select Preferences.
Go to Preferences, choose Emails from the list on the left, and select the frequency of emails - you can choose from every 30 minutes to every 6 months.
How do I make sure I know when someone replies to me, or uses my username?
Following the same steps above and choosing Emails from the menu, select ‘Always’ in the second drop-down menu.
How do I bookmark a post?
To bookmark a post, select the ribbon icon under a post.
A pop-up will appear. You can select 'None needed', unless you want to be reminded of a post on a selected day.
You can now visit your profile by selecting the icon at the top right of your screen, and selecting the ribbon icon. Your bookmarks will appear there.
How do I watch a topic?
If you’d like to be notified of every post in a board, you can select the bell icon and select from the options in the drop-down menu.
Who are the Community Champions?
You will notice that some users have 
after their username. These are people who have been on the forum for many years, and who help us keep it welcoming and friendly. They all have a lived experience of breast cancer.
They are extremely helpful to us Breast Cancer Now moderators, and our job would be a lot harder without them – so thank you Community Champions!
Tip: You’ll also see some users who have _BCN after their username, like mine does 
That means the user works at Breast Cancer Now.
What if I have questions?
We’re here to help! You can email us on moderator@breastcancernow.org.