Breast Cancer Now Forum

Hi. I last posted on this site about 5 years ago when I started to experience near constant pain in my right breast - I had been suffering from it for around 6months when I finally plucked up the courage to go and see my GP who sent me for a mammogram. All turned out to be fine and I was given no explanation for the pain other than a leaflet that explained different types of breast pain. So, recently I have started to experience pain again in the same breast. Sometimes it is just in the upper quadrant and other times in just the nipple itself. It can come and go during the day. I am 45 and am experiencing other symptoms that I have been putting down to the start of perimenopause (night sweats, difficulty sleeping, nausea, slightly irregular flow periods to what I have been used to) but am wondering if this pain could be linked to changing hormones now rather than cancer. Would pain associated with breast cancer materialize in different parts of the breast at different times? Surely it would always be in the same area? I never have pain in the other breast. Just so you are aware, I had a bit of a health scare in 2016 when they tried to find what they thought was an internal bleed somewhere leading to lack of iron in my body) which left me with significant health anxiety (panic attacks etc) - I've never been particularly good at being unwell and it has all impacted me to the point where I cannot even check my breasts for fear of finding a lump (although I do do visual checks). Help! ... View more

Hi everyone. I'm new here but have been experiencing symptoms that have been worrying me now for some time and I just don't feel able to talk to anyone about it (I usually just end up crying with worry and then nobody gets anything out of the conversation).   Back in October I started to experience discomfort in my right breast (I don't call it pain as it is more of an ache) that started suddenly one day and that would come intermittently during each day. I have in the past on a couple of occasions experienced painful breasts around the time of my period but this is defintely not the same. I wondered, because of my age (41), whether it was just a change in hormones or muscle damage so left it to see if it settled down. I couldn't feel any lumps on self examination.   Since the start of December I have started to have the sensation at times that my right underarm is swollen, again intermittently but have also had discomfort on my right hand side. I stopped using deodorant (I had recently tried a new type so wanted to rule out any disagreement with that). I have managed to convince myself also that my right nipple has changed and developed a slit like appearance. I am so panicked as I cannot think clearly as to whether it was like that before. It definitely seems to look different to the left nipple though. So I have been scared to do any further exams as I'm worried about what I might find and as I haven't been able to pre-book an appointment with my GP until this Friday (I phoned the first week of December!) have been fretting for the past four weeks and spending a lot of time crying.   I learned a year ago that I am a very big wuss when it comes to my health and medicine as I was seriously iron deficient and had to undergo various procedures in hospital, the experience of which effected me mentally especially as quite early on the GP told me that it was possible I had a cancer - and the only test they had done at that point was a blood test! For a while every pain I had I thought I was dying and I have serious issues with the thought of dying.   I am worried to the max and cannot think about anything else, it's on my mind from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to sleep.   Apologies for the long explanation    ... View more