Back from my mammogram....

It went well. Not too much pain this time. I do have red marks were the plate scraped across my collar bone for the one that is taken from the shoulder down. The first thing I did when I got home was to make a note on my refrigerator reminder board to do it again next June. If you haven't had a mammogram in the last year---call your doctor and get one set up. This is one of those things we dread, but is so important to do.

:bounce: :woohoo: :bounce: :woohoo: :bounce: :woohoo:

I skipped the hot fudge sundae and bought a new pair of sandals instead. Less calories.

i studied physics back in the day, there is NO safe dose of ionizing radiation to fatty tissue, which would include the breasts

the younger you are, the less likely that the benefits of mammograms outweigh the risk

i wonder how much of today's explosion of breast cancer among affluent women is caused by early adaptors of mammograms who got many of their mammo's on the older equipment, today's equipment is better and offers a lower dose of radiation but it is still a risk factor

a highly successful friend of mine started mammograms very young, in her 20s, which i thought was never advisable w/out risk factors, yep, she ended up w. breast cancer in her early 30s, so of course it's all anecdotal but i can't help but suspect cause and effect

check out the breast cancer "clusters" among educated affluent women who get regular mammo's, it's quite scary

no one would ask a man to have ionizing radiation applied to his testicles every year

they need to invent something else that doesn't smash the breasts and subject it to this kind of radiation but as long as women put up w. it then i guess they won't

a second and more horrid risk is the chance of false positives, they see something and have to take a biopsy, i know of a woman who lost breast, arm, and leg on that side of the body as a result of a biopsy because she was infected w. staph -- and in a cruel irony it turned out that the cyst was not cancer and she would have been fine if she'd just skipped that year's mammo

a mammogram is not an excuse to brag about how much pain we can endure and then go shoe shopping, it is not a cute gift for your mom on mother's day (i actually saw this suggested in our local newspaper), it is a serious medical procedure that carries risk

i have had mammograms now that i'm older but i was able to get my ob/gyn to put them off for quite a few years -- otherwise he would have robotically started them w. baseline at age 35, an age where there is almost no benefit in exchange for the risk of exposing the young breast to ionizing radiation!

finally don't just read an internet post and nod your head, do your own research and check out what i'm saying, you will see there is considerable debate about this that has been partly hidden from women in order not to frighten them from getting mammograms at all

about how much pain I can endure. I suffered very much last year from a burst appendix, and since then the thought of being in any pain causes me great anxiety. I am over 50 and this was the first mammogram I have had in four years. I am certainly sorry for what happened to your friend. However, thousands of woman die every year from breast cancer. The mammogram didn't kill her. A staph infection did. I would still recommend that every woman get a check up every year and get a mammogram if her doctor thinks she should.

And the shoe shopping thing? Sometimes when I go through something that causes me worry---I reward myself with a little treat. What's the harm? :shrug: