Left breast enlarged, pain & itching

grammyof3

Left breast enlarged, pain & itching

grammyof3

Last summer my left breast increased a cup size, began itching and I have intense pain.  My mammo and ultrasound were negative.  I just had another ultrasound & mammo which was negative and the only thing the mammo showed was the dramatic increase in size in my left breast since mammo of last Sept.  The only other symptoms I have is now the pain has moved to my armpit and I have some very pronounced ugly looking veins.  My only history of breast cancer in the family is my maternal grandmother.  My gyno has scheduled me for an appt with a surgeon as a precaution.  Can IBC linger for this long?  I understood that the symptoms are very rapid.

shrink

Good that you are checking this out.  I think that if this has been going on for a year with no other symptoms, you might be OK.  My onc told me that without treatment I would have been very, very sick within 9 months.  However, the swelling in your breast and pain in your arm pit are nothing to fool with.  No one in my family has had breast cancer but here I am.  Hope it's nothing serious.

DianeE

Glad that you are following up.  I agree with shrink that IBC would probably have presented itself in a different way after so much time.  Other forms of breast cancer can have similar presentations, and the pronounced veins can also be a negative indicator.  I am going to think b9 thoughts and prayers for you that this is just another hormonal thing that women have to deal with.

Keep us posted,

Diane

grammyof3

Thank you both for your comments.  I am also thinking positive thoughts.  I think my gyno just wanted me to see the surgeon as a precaution.  I am 45 yrs old and had a total hysterectomy when I was only 29 yrs old.  So maybe my hormones just decided to go crazy and didn't realize there were two breasts that it needed to respond to.  Sorry, I'm just trying to find some humor to keep myself from going crazy!!

mrs_X_Sunneedazee

grammy,

It is good to be concerned and follow up if you have changes in your breasts.



I have IBC, however mine must be a little bit slower growing than the normal IBC. I first discovered a lump in Jan 06 and had severe itching. I was pregnant at the time. I tried everything, benadryl, hydracortisone,lanolin, etc and nothing helped.



Then in June 06 in just a couple of days my breast went crazy and showed the red, inflamed, sore, tender, swollen breast. I was actually breast feeding, so this was diagnosed as mastitis. My baby primarily fed on my left side because my milk would never flow out of my right breast. It got caught in that clogged duct of cancer. (Wish I would have known that it was cancer at the time) I tried a couple of different antibiotics, and actually ended up in the ER with IV antibiotics. My breast was expelling a thick milk that was the color and thickness of tomato soup.



Gradually, the redness went away, however the swelling stayed. The color turned to a mottled purple, and over the next 6 months it grew larger and larger, until I had a baseball sized mass in my breast. The skin thickened and my nipple inverted and changed to a yellow white color. My dumb DR. kept on telling me I was engorged with milk, even though I was no longer breastfeeding.



I was finally diagnosed with IBC in May 2007. I was indeed VERY SICK by this time. I was tired, had diarreeha, and I had so much pain in my back and hip. When I was diagnosed my cancer had spread to too many spots in my skeletal system to count, as well as my right lung.



When I had my biopsies, they came back as 3 different cancer cells:

Lobular Cancer Cells

Ductal Cancer Cells

and Inflammatory breast cancer cells.



We will never know if mine started out as a ductal or lobular cancer, that when it ruptured out of the duct (causing the above mentioned tomato soup milk) it spread so much that it became an inflammatory breast cancer.



Sorry this is so long, I just hoped to let you know that IBC is not always the same level of agressiveness.



I pray that your problems will just be benign, but this site is wonderful for getting help you need. I know that if I hadn't of visited this site, and was given the advice and thoughts of others, that I wouldn't have gotten diagnosed when I finally did.



GOOD LUCK, and please keep us posted.

grammyof3

Bless each and every one of you.  I am so sorry that you had to go through so much.  I get so upset when doctors do not listen to their patients.  We know our bodies better than anyone.  I will definately keep everyone informed as to what I find out.  I am post menopausal ( I am 45 yrs old and had a total hysterectomy when I was 29).  I also have not been feeling well for awhile now and I've lost 8 lbs.  But then again the weight loss could just be stress related.