countrygirl
31-03-11, 22:43
Due to my health anxiety and my mother dying of breast cancer and me getting to 49 yrs of age I decided to go to one of the private companies offering all the tests including infrared scan.
My mammo and ultrasound were perfectly normal but they said an abnormality had been seen in both breasts on infrared. The would not tell me where or what level of abnormality ( infrared will pick up alot of benign conditions from inflamation to effects of large breasts sagging against chest wall during scan). The letter I received from the company was minimal with no info and written as if it came from a breast surgeon with their recommendations that you have infrared scans every 6 months and mammos every year. I was rather disturbed that I could get no info from company and they had been very inefficient in lost results and charging me twice.
I received a reminder letter about next scan supposedly signed by the surgeon but when I contacted his sec it appeared that he was no longer working for them but he would see me privately.
It was very enlightening - he had disassociated himself from this company for the following reasons
He said telling women they have an abnormality but then not being able to say what it is so impossible to rectify was just scaremongering.
He said that the recommendations on the letters were not his but the companies and when he found out what they were recomending he refused to have anything more to do with them as he said he would never ever tell a woman to have a mammo every year as the cumulitive radiation dose over 10 plus years could be enough to trigger breast cancer itself.
He said other top breast surgeons were also stopping work for this company.
Of course this is his opinion and would be hotly refuted by the company concerned hence no names - the surgeon said would suggest for me with my anxiety and family history that I have a manual breast exam once a year with an ultrasound as that is harmless and have the mammo every 3 yrs on the nhsm he said that if an exam or ultrasound showed anything suspicious then have mammo but not otherwise. You can only have treatment on the nhs with a positive mammo or ultrasound.
So be warned that despite all the publicity private healthcare companies are there to make a profit.
My mammo and ultrasound were perfectly normal but they said an abnormality had been seen in both breasts on infrared. The would not tell me where or what level of abnormality ( infrared will pick up alot of benign conditions from inflamation to effects of large breasts sagging against chest wall during scan). The letter I received from the company was minimal with no info and written as if it came from a breast surgeon with their recommendations that you have infrared scans every 6 months and mammos every year. I was rather disturbed that I could get no info from company and they had been very inefficient in lost results and charging me twice.
I received a reminder letter about next scan supposedly signed by the surgeon but when I contacted his sec it appeared that he was no longer working for them but he would see me privately.
It was very enlightening - he had disassociated himself from this company for the following reasons
He said telling women they have an abnormality but then not being able to say what it is so impossible to rectify was just scaremongering.
He said that the recommendations on the letters were not his but the companies and when he found out what they were recomending he refused to have anything more to do with them as he said he would never ever tell a woman to have a mammo every year as the cumulitive radiation dose over 10 plus years could be enough to trigger breast cancer itself.
He said other top breast surgeons were also stopping work for this company.
Of course this is his opinion and would be hotly refuted by the company concerned hence no names - the surgeon said would suggest for me with my anxiety and family history that I have a manual breast exam once a year with an ultrasound as that is harmless and have the mammo every 3 yrs on the nhsm he said that if an exam or ultrasound showed anything suspicious then have mammo but not otherwise. You can only have treatment on the nhs with a positive mammo or ultrasound.
So be warned that despite all the publicity private healthcare companies are there to make a profit.