Left breast pain - C worries

[Girl18]

I've been having anxiety over weird sensation in my left breast. It started with me noticing it laying down on my left side. It felt like a hard sensation under my skin so I examined my breast and my armpit but I don't feel anything. I'm compulsively checking my breast. I had my husband check it as well and he doesn't feel anything. It feels sore now every time I touch it or think about it, and I'm worried it's the big C or a tumor.

On top of all this, I've had acid reflux around the same time this has occurred. I had bad chest pains and my throat was hurting including just above my belly button. Usually with reflux my whole left side is in pain, down to my arm. Could this be related?

I also want to mention I've had lung x-rays for pain in my left side but it turned out to be from over working my arms during fitness, because it comes and goes after working my arms. It only occurs in my left side. I had two x-rays done, one last year, and one last month or so. There was nothing. Is it possible it's the muscle pain radiating to my breast?

I don't know if this is all in my head and I've become hyper aware of my bones against my skin when lying down, but it's sending me down a spiral of health anxiety, again. I'm 24 and am sick worried I have the breast C.

[CHELLEB1017]

Best thing to do is get your GP or gyno to check it out. I get pains and sensations in my left breast before and during my period and also during ovulation. I would say since you don't feel any type of hard structured lump you are fine but for peace of mine see a doctor.

[Allurelle]

I would like to let you know what it is like to have breast cancer to hopefully help with your anxiety. I had it in my left breast 10 years ago. It was in the ducts and I had it for 10 years before that with NO pain or other obvious symptoms. Then one day I was carrying a box, ran into the door jam and the box corner smacked me in the breast. The next day I had a lump the size of my index finger from the top knuckle to the tip. Before that happened, I had absolutely no idea. I did have other symptoms during that entire 10 years that I can only describe as aging symptoms. But I did breast self-exams every month and never felt any lumps until that day.

I know exactly when and how mine started, however I didn't know what was happening at the time. If I had, I'd have made some notes because the symptoms are strange and seeming unrelated to anything or each other. Nothing you would ever mention to your doctor.

Immediately after it started, I became completely fatigued overnight! I had been energetic and was a good worker, but once that happened, I would sleep until 2:30 in the afternoon and barely drag myself out of bed to be at work at 3:15. I felt like gravity had doubled or even tripled overnight and nothing I did helped. I went to my doctor who sent me for a CT scan on my brain, but there wasn't anything unusual. I thought it was the heat so I moved up north. That didn't help either.

Later I noticed I would lose a lot of hair every time I shampooed. I couldn't run my fingers through my hair, wet or dry, without having hair just fall out. Not clumps or anything visible on my head, but in my hands and brush. Like 10 in my fingers EVERY time. I thought maybe it was my thyroid. Then, before I was even 50, I began having dark brown "age spots" on my hands and arms. These splotches eventually got so bad that there was very little area that was flesh colored. My hands looked like those of an 80 year old. I also had a white crust on the tip of my left nipple every day. It didn't seem like anything and I certainly didn't equate it with lactating, but it actually was. That was the only Real symptom i ever had. Like I said, nothing to make an appointment with the doc over or that you would consider being connected. Also, this was over a period of a few years after the fatigue started.

I eventually did go for a full physical checkup and the blood work all came back just inside the "normal" limits. Everything was low. My doctor suspected thyroid but because the blood said it was 5 points inside the bottom limit for normal, the insurance wouldn't pay for treatment. But all my blood came back that way. Every test was inside normal by only 5% or just a few points. It was actually a month later that I had the box incident and it was all revealed.

My point is, I felt lousy all the time for that 10 years, but never once did I experience pain. It was stage 2 and I never knew it was there. And when it doubled again in size, I still didn’t feel anything. Even when feeling the lump, it had no feeling of its own.

So the box incident was a blessing in disguise and probably saved my life. I had a lumpectomy and the next day, I woke up with so much energy I felt amazing! I couldn't stay in bed! Over the next couple of months, the spots on my hands faded. Sadly I was convinced to do chemotherapy and radiation, so I lost all my hair and eyelashes, etc. But 10 years later, my hair barely ever falls out and only 1 or 2 at a time if it does. Same with my eyelashes.

The bottom line is that people get diagnosed every day with stage 4 cancers that they didn't know they had. They generally felt bad most of the time, but never knew they had it. Cancer is not a foreign object that has invaded your body. It is your own body's cells growing out of control. Most tumors don't have their own nerves, so you don't feel it until it is pressing on something that does have nerves. Only then do you have some idea of what's happening unless it’s found during some random medical exam.

So the pain you are feeling is probably NOT cancer. It may not even be in the breast. (What brought me here is stabbing pain through my right breast but I know that's not cancer. I think it's probably something going on in my lung underneath the breast from inhaling food and drinks. That's just an aside.) I joined here because I wanted to try to help put people that are having weird pains and stuff at ease. If you really think it's cancer, the best way to truly know is have a mammogram. If something shows up, they'll biopsy it and you'll know. Most lumps are actually fibroid so breast cancer should not be the first thing you think of. I hope having this knowledge will help those of you who are worrying over cancer needlessly. And if you really think that's what it is, then get it checked so you’ll know.

[thestruggle]

I would like to let you know what it is like to have breast cancer to hopefully help with your anxiety.

Thank you so much for sharing your story! To hear you were diagnosed after 10 years at stage 2 and you've now pretty much recovered is really great to hear I always thought you wouldn't know if something was going on in the body like cancer, but I guess there are subtle signs that tell you something is up. Like other women in this forum I'm worried about BC, so your story has reassured me quite a lot that my lump I'm waiting to get checked is probably alright.. I hope your story reassures all the ladies reading this post and original poster that pain isn't always necessarily bad and is just part and parcel of having two big glands on the front of your chest a lot of the time!

[nomorepanic]

Hi

This is just a courtesy reply to let you know that your post was moved from its original place to a sub-forum that is more relevant to your issue.

This is nothing personal - it just enables us to keep posts about the same problems in the relevant forums so other members with any experience with the issues can find them more easily.

[Allurelle]

Thestruggle - Your reply makes me know posting my story was the right thing to do. I don't have anxiety but my granddaughter does and it's terrible! If I can help even one person to be able to have some peace of mind, that makes me happy.

I read something many years ago that has always given me a comforting perspective. It basically said that worrying is a useless and destructive emotion. If you worry about something and it happens, then your worrying didn't help and if it doesn't happen, then you have been stressed out for nothing and may have even created other physical problems from the stress. In essence, worrying can be more damaging than the thing we worry about.

Reading some posts on here are heartbreaking and proves this point. Many fear having or getting diseases like cancer, but most probably won't ever get it. Take breast cancer for example, only about 13.4% of all the women in the U.S. will develop it. And the survival rate is somewhere around 90% these days. It is highly curable and in my case anyway, not even painful. The treatment was immensely worse than the disease! I know there are many cancers that are much more dangerous and probably painful, but breast cancer is not one of them.

Also, during chemo, I met a man who was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. After 12 weeks of intensive chemotherapy (daily), his tumor was gone! He survived stage 4 lung cancer! The best way to avoid this is having a healthy lifestyle by eating good foods, drinking lots of water, and I hate to even say this but not smoking and doing things we know hurts the body. Funny story, when I went in for my diagnosis, I was already sure it was cancer and was ready to get to work. I guess so many people are afraid that when the doctor gave me the diagnosis, I just said, “Ok, what’s next?” That seemed to irritate him that this woman didn’t fall apart and cry. So he got up and said, “Well, you have to quit smoking because you have cancer!” To which I replied, “Are you kidding? You just told me I have cancer. All I want to do is go outside and have a cigarette!” He stormed out in a huff and I never saw him again. It was fun.

I will admit that I smoked cigarettes when I was diagnosed with my cancer, but I will not give credit to that for my cancer. I know exactly how, when & where I got mine. I had NO predispositions for it and no one in the last 3 generations on either side of my family had any known cancers. So how did I get it? Well, I got my degree in electronics and decided to get into the semiconductor manufacturing industry. I had only worked there for one year, with all of those poisonous chemicals running through the plant, when the fatigue I mentioned earlier started. I believe the poisons I worked around triggered it in my body. That’s why I say I regret chemo. I haven’t worked in that industry since 2001, so I am no longer being bombarded with poisons like that, so I just knew in my heart it wouldn’t come back. And I was right, no signs whatsoever that the cancer will recur; skin still clear, hair intact, etc. However, the fatigue has never gone away because of the chemo and I have severe cognitive issues. The “chemo-brain” never went away.

I am grateful to have helped you be less stressful about your lump. I used to get those fibroid lumps around my periods. They say caffeine makes it worse. They normally go away within a week or 2, but in my 20’s I had one that stayed around for 3 months. I had it removed and it was a fibroid cyst. That is the most likely thing it is. And if it does turn out to be cancer, don’t be afraid. You are so much more likely to be in the 99.6% of survivors than on the other side. Please let us know how that goes.