Breast lump & biopsy

[MJunderway]

Hello!

I'm new to the forum but a longtime reader of No More Panic posts. They've been a tremendous help in managing my HA. I had a bilateral ultrasound done yesterday and they found two small solid (?, not sure the correct term) cysts on my left breast and they recommended a biopsy to make sure things are ok.

I guess I had some fluid filled cysts there and now there is a nodule (again, don't know the terminology). Has anyone had a biopsy done on a previously fluid cyst that became solid and it turned out ok? Nobody seems particularly worried except for me. Kicked off a bout of horrible anxiety- headache, scattered thoughts, tense body, extra peeing, and gastro stuff. Miraculously I was somehow able to sleep last night.

The center kept throwing out statistics but my brain won't let them sink in through all of the anxiety, plus my rational self tells me that if I do hold on to those numbers as an indication that everything will turn out just fine then I am just engaging in HA magical thinking. Any thoughts are greatly appreciated. Thank you!!

[Leslie735]

I'm SO sorry you're experiencing this anxiety. :( I had a breast biopsy on a solid nodules last November. It came back as reactive scar tissue. The lump felt the ball and was very firm but moved easily. I also had cysts in the area. *Hugs* I know how scary this is. Let us know how it goes. Praying! Remember 80% of biopsied lumps are benign.

[MJunderway]

Thank you for your reply! I’m veering back and forth between panicked and rational thinking. If anything, it’s forcing me to practice letting go of OCD thoughts/habits. I really had no idea just how many of my thoughts were OCD driven ones. The procedure is a week away, so I’ll be getting PLENTY of practice in.

[thestruggle]

I'm waiting on biopsy results right now after I had 2 lumps (1 in each boob!) looked at on ultrasound last Wednesday. I have a few more suspected fibroadenomas, but they won't biopsy all of them as I have so many new ones that have popped up in the last 7 years! If it's any consolation, the procedure really doesn't hurt at all..and it's likely that your cysts are still benign! Were you told it was 100% a cyst before? Or was it just how it looked on ultrasound?

[MJunderway]

Hi thestruggle,

Thanks for getting back to me! Prior to this recent ultrasound, I had the same cyst which has never gotten any bigger in the last two years. The US I got 2015 came up as clear, so I think that they saw a cyst but not the nodule that they see this time around. Either way it didn't warrant a biopsy.

I'm a cyst-y kind of gal. I had a chalazion in my left eye when I was 25 that was surgically removed, I have a permanently enlarged lymph node on the left side of my neck that had been checked out by numerous drs and was written off as "not a concern". I also don't seem to sweat much which sometimes has resulted in cystic acne. I seem to have a problem letting go of things!

I'm trying very hard not to go to the worst possible scenario or connect what are probably, totally unrelated dots such as a cough I picked up over the summer, or hyper focus on the area either by prodding it or laser focusing it with my mind's eye.

Thanks for letting me know that the procedure wasn't too painful!

[ktdid2000]

I'm cyst-y too! All my cysts so far have come up as simple cysts, but I think standard protocol is to biopsy everything that's not a simple cyst, so there's a pretty wide set of things that applies to. What happens on ultrasound is that simple cysts are obvious but anything BUT simple cysts just have suggestive features of something else but they can't tell for sure until they biopsy it. I think features suggesting cancer are obvious on ultrasound so they'd be more worried if they had found that? I'm sure you'd be going in for another type of scan like MRI in addition to the biopsy if they were thinking about that.

They probably just want to be able to say what it is more than anything else!

[Leslie735]

I forgot to mention that my core biopsy wasn't painful at all. The only pain I felt was the initial pinch with the numbing shot but that wasn't any worse than other shots I've gotten, barely noticed it. After that I was VERY numb and all I felt was some pressure. From start (positioning me on the table) to finish (applying pressure to the area) was MAYBE 5-6 minutes if that? The actual biopsy was less than 2 minutes. It was WAY worse in my head than it actually was. Please keep us posted! Praying all goes well!

[MJunderway]

Trying not to but made the mistake of looking stuff up. My three OCD/HA go-to’s are: obsessively researching, connecting random dots to make things seem far worse than they are, and finally envisioning the worst possible outcome to “prepare” myself. I had a long car yesterday and fell prey to looking stuff up.

The place where I am going to get this done is putting in a biopsy marker, which seems to be standard but my mind is making me think things are much worse than what they are telling me. I’m also not happy about something being put into my body since I saw a couple of horror stories where people had reactions to them. Is a marker standard? Can you opt out of it?

[Leslie735]

Yes, my lump they biopsied had a marker put in. Its a VERY tiny titanium marker. I don't even know its there.

[MJunderway]

Hi Leslie735,

Thanks for the response! Good to know you haven’t had any issues!