Hi all,
Firstly I apologise as this may be a long post…
I am 24 years old, and about 5 weeks ago discovered a hard, immobile lump in the bottom half of my right breast. I was pretty alarmed as i’ve always wondered how people discover lumps etc, but there was no mistaking this. As I had breast implants 12 months ago I am pretty sure it hasn’t been there for too long. Up until July of this year I regularly massaged my breasts with bio oil to help scarring.
I went to my GP the next day who immediately located the lump (without direction) and given that my maternal grandmother had BC in her 30’s, referred my for an urgent appointment at the breast clinic.
The first thing the consultant asked me was ‘what can I do for you?’, which I thought was pretty bloody obvious given where I was! I explained about the lump, and advised him that it had gotten slightly larger in the 10 days since I had discovered it. He (very briefly) examined me, and concluded that it was ‘probably’ a fibrodomena as it is hard and doesn’t move. I then had an ultrasound where the radiologist said he didn’t think it was a fibrodomena as it didn’t have the right charachteristics, so it must be a cyst. It measured 11.5mm. Back to the consultant who diagnosed me with a cyst. As you can imagine I was slightly put out at his rapid change of diagnosis. He said usually they would do a biopsy to make sure but because the 'cyst; is too close to my implant they were unwilling to do it. I then said I want it removing, to which he told me that I should just leave it because I will end up with a big scar. I told him I didn’t care about a scar I just wanted to be sure. I then said well what if it grows? He said in 30 years he had never seen a cyst in a breast grow…despite me telling him before I was examined that it had already grown!
I feel they were both very dismissive of me due to my age, and felt like he had already diagnosed me ad a ‘time waster’ when I walked into the room before they even looked at me. Of course me challenging both of their conclusions didn’t go down particularly well either and I was more of less ushered out.
I felt a million times worse after the appointment than I had before I went in. I burst into floods of tears and the nurse came out after me and asked me what was the matter. She tried to reassure me that the consultant was one of the best in the country. I thought, well if he is so fantastic why is he so afraid of doing the biopsy??
I decided to go and see the surgeon that did my breast implants. He was fantastic. He spent a good 20 minutes examining my breast, manipulating the lump, squeezing etc. He was 99% certain that it is NOT a cyst, as cysts are fluid filled and this is too dense, also that it is clearly attached to tissue as it will not move. He said that the likelihood, given my age, is that it is benign, but agreed that the only way to be certain is to have the lump removed and sent to a pathologist. He said he would be more than happy to do this however as he is from Italy and only comes over to work privately at the cosmetic clinics I will have to pay, so advised me to go back to my GP and try to push it through the NHS first.
I called my surgery and spoke to a different GP explaining the situation. He was very nice and has re-referred me to the breast clinic to a specific consultant so that I don’t have to see the first guy again. So now I am just waiting for a letter from the Hospital about a new appointment.
I know and appreciate that I have been extremely lucky that not one but two GP’s have been so supportive. However I am left feeling very frustrated that the professionals I really need to help me are making this so hard. Yes I am young but BC does not discriminate. I know it is unlikely I have this awful disease but is it too much to ask to be sure? I don’t want ‘probablys’ and ‘likelies’, I want conclusive evidence that I am not in the minority of the extremely unfortunate population of under 50’s that this does affect.
I feel let down that my implants were used as an excuse not to treat me as he himself said I should have been. Yes it was a cosmetic procedure, but I actually had tuberous breasts (albeit not a lot of them!) which is a medical deformity. I could have had the operation on the NHS but chose to pay privately as I did not want valuable NHS £’s spent on something that did not affect my every day life. But why should I have to explain myself to him?
So sorry for thr long post and long rant, I guess it’s just difficult as friends/family just don’t understand how much the worry about something like this consumes you.
Am I overreacting? Am I right to persue this? Has anyone else out there experienced misdiagnosis after ultrasound?
Any advise would be much appreciated.
Many thanks for reading and wishing you all well,
Jaimie x
