Posted on 04/15/2014 10:09:52 AM PDT by Oldpuppymax
Call them “breast-obsessed” if you like, but more than 3500 years ago, Egyptian physicians documented breast cancer on papyri that survive to this day. Some authorities claim that these documents could date back much earlier than that. A key entry describes “bulging tumors of the breast that have no cure.”
From Hippocrates on, causes of the disease were proffered by the leading minds of the day. These would include excess of black bile; lack of sexual activity; overly vigorous sexual activity; depression; childlessness, and sedentary lifestyle. Famed French physician Henri Le Dran was among the first to advocate surgical removal of the tumor and infected lymph nodes, and radical mastectomy remained the treatment of choice until the 1950s. It was also common to remove any gland that produces estrogen, as lack of this hormone was observed to retard tumor growth.
Treatment modalities gradually improved, and now tend to favor conservative surgeries, as well as radiation and chemotherapy. That being said, breast cancer is still—by far—the most common cancer in women. As to deaths from cancer, breast cancer is second only to...
(Excerpt) Read more at coachisright.com ...
Thermography is the way to go...but insurance won’t pay
My aunt has fibrous breasts. Over the last 30 years, she’s had five false positive mammograms.
Each one resulted in further imaging, biopsies, and untold months of stress and worry.
She’s approaching 60 and Lord help you if you suggest that she relax and realize that she’s never had breast cancer. She just *knows* that she’s going to get it someday and is thankful to modern medicine for saving her. (She’s NEVER HAD CANCER, but she has the mentality of a cancer survivor.)
There does come a point of diminishing returns. I’ve had 3 breast cancer scares. After the first one, I stopped reacting. I didn’t even mention the second one to my husband. (The second time I told him because I needed a ride to my follow ups) In my mind, it was another over reaction. But it took the full force of terror to get me to see that, the vast majority of the time, it’s just a boogeyman.
Be prudent, get the followups; but don’t let ‘them’ get to you until there’s a diagnosed problem.
I had a life insurance company tell me that fibrous breasts were a risk factor for breast cancer, and that they were going to have to charge me twice their base rate.
I got a letter from my breast specialist stating that there was no increased risk and they went back to base rate.
Breast specialist because my mother and her sister both had pre-menopausal BC - no “lump” scares for me for ten years now so I’ve sort of mellowed out about it.
I'd look into that.
Please don’t forget that miscarriages also add to the risk, as well as never having children.
Yes, miscarriages and never having had children. (If you’ve never had a child nor even been pregnant, that’s what they call G=0 P=0 -— zero gravidity, zero parity.)
Yes...those things are likely causative...but we’re talking diagnosis here....
True.
However, I’ve heard the single biggest thing a woman can do to reduce her risk of breast cancer is to breast feed her children. The longer the better.
All the warnings are what not to do. This is one to do.
Among many other blessing and benefits, breastfeeding rapidly returns the woman's endocrine system from pregnant-normal to non-pregnant normal. The breastfeeding blood-hormone levels tends to space out pregnancies to prevent a too-hasty follow-on pregnancy, and is a wonderful restorative to the woman on every level.
Besides, babies love Mama-milk!
Medicine is the modern religion... in America it is basically state sponsored religion (so much for seperatoin of church and state, huh?
Medicine, like religion, preys upon human fears of pain, suffering, dying and death.
Guess again......
This is amply supported by both statistical patterns, and clinical observation. With nighttime on-demand nursing, pregnancies average 2 1/2 ears apart. More or less.
O'course, I have my own anecdote to throw in, for what it's worth. We kept our newborn son is a blanket-lined Smithfield Ham basket next to the bed, and I could reach over easily and tuck him in next to me if he was restless with the Mama-milk munchies--- we always had a way for me to do nighttime nursing without getting out of bed.
Breast-fed into toddlerhood, and I never ovulated for 2 whole years.
Must have been those industrial-strength lactational hormones. :o)
Lucky you.
Some of us have industrial strength regular hormones.
I nursed each of mine as long as I could, and to the horror of the doctor’s staff, 4 months into the second and third pregnancy. It clearly had no effect in preventing another pregnancy.
I have many friends in the same boat.
Besides, the benefit is about the reduced breast cancer risk. If someone is banking on it as a form of birth control, they need to try something more reliable.
Breast feeding is still, today, worldwide, the biggest factor in postponing follow-on pregnancies, or so they say at the WHO.
And charting (with periodic abstinence) while postpartum/breastfeeding has gotten a lot better too, or so they say. I don't have any good anecdotes on that (and I know the plural of anecdote is not data!!) but my husband and I only used NFP to better achieve pregnancy, not postpone it.
Congrats on the kid! Deus vult!
Problem is, you're fertile before there's evidence if it, if you get my drift.
You can't use timing if you don't know you can get pregnant.
ooops.....
It gets down to, if God wants you to have that baby, you will, no matter what you try to do to prevent it otherwise.
I know lots of cases of even the (allegedly) best of surgeries, which have failed.
Anyway, breastfeeding's biggest health benefit for the mother, is it's protective action against breast cancer.
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