Injury or breast trauma before diagnosis?

sunny8

I accidently poked myself in the chest with a pole while cleaning. I forgot about it but then 6 months later I felt a lump in the same spot and then later diagnosed with invasive breast cancer.. Has anyone else had a previous injury in the exact spot of your cancer

MelissaDallas

I don't believe that falling into your bicycle handlebars, or any banging about, has a thing to do with developing cancer.

sunny8

I just read a book called; the Things your Doctor may not have told you about Breast Cancer. The doctor mentioned thatsometimes trauma causes mutations in the DNA / genes and after several times of mutating, you get cancer. It's not a proven fact but they don't know what causes cancer and don't have a cure so how can they rule it out completely? The book says that it's not specifically one thing but as you are exposed to different carcinogens or or enviromental factors, it adds up and after multiple mutations, it causes cancer. i.e. x-ray as a child, birthcontrol pills as a young adult,then pesticide exposure etc. these things add up over time.

Moderators

Hi Sunny,

We can certainly understand the need to identify the reasons why you may have gotten breast cancer, but you'll drive yourself crazy trying to get to the bottom of things. The most important thing now is to focus on your treatment and healing.

Here're the risk factors we DO know about, from the main Breastcancer.org site, and we can use these things as guidelines to live by, to reduce the occurrence or reoccurrence of breast cancer cases: Breast Cancer Risk Factors. Unfortunately, we have no way right now to prevent cancer -- but we can do a lot of things to help reduce the risk of it.

We hope this helps ease your mind a little, and you can now focus on your treatment instead of trying to gain 20/20 hindsight.

Thank you for posting!

--The Mods

MelissaDallas

Then why don't we get butt cancer or elbow cancer or knee cancer from all the times we fall if an injury can "cause" breast cancer? Makes no sense to me.

The fact that the title is "Things Your Doctor Doesn't Tell You..." makes the information suspect. Your doctor isn't "hiding" medically relevant knowledge from you.

sunny8

It says in the book the reason why breasts are more susceptible is because they 1. they can fluctuate with yourhormones. They grow with your menstral cycle. Your legs and butt don't. Therefore, the DNA in your breast are more sensitive. 2. this sensitive organ is not protected like our internal organs so injury can affect them

sunny8

Of course I did my treatment but as there is no 'cure' and they aren't sure why people get it does it mean we should not bother searching? If you got hit by a car or shot, you should get treatment but does that mean i should not look for who did it?

sunny8

MDallas,

There is skin cancer! UV light and perhaps other factors damage the DNA in your skin.

MelissaDallas

You don't develop skin cancer every place you ever banged or bruised yourself. Every guy (and I would venture to say it is most of them) who ever banged himself in the balls doesn't develop testicular cancer.

Sunshineinky

For what it's worth, I worked in the mental health field for 26 years. I worked with a lady for about 8 years who had mental illness and developmental disabilities. Her aggressive behavior was to always grab at or bite your breast. One day, she bit my breast and it left a bruise that lasted over 2 months. This doesn't include the repeated times she hit or pinch the same breast. My cancer is in the exact same spot as that horrible bite was. Whether it had anything to do with it or not one will never know. However, my breast surgeon who removed it did ask me if that area of my breast had ever had any trauma.

sunny8

Dr. Lee, the author of the book who is Harvard educated says that it is seen often in oncologists office to be a noteworthy cause. It alters the DNA of the tissue and if all the other elements are aligned then it can trigger the last 'blow' and activate the cancer.

His book is really amazing and summarized so much about breast cancer and he was willing to talk about it because he had retired.

Sunshine, thank you for your response. It is very interesting because my cancer is in the exact spot as my injury and 8 months before, I had a mammagram it was clear. I have very small breasts and it would have been easy for me to notice if it happened over time

labelle

According to the MDs my cancer, a slow growing kind, has been at work inside of me for 7-9 years before becoming large enough to be seen on the mammogram. I can't remember a trauma to my breast during that period of time, but it's certainly possible. Sometimes this is a problem when trying to figure out how a breast cancer began. If it really started years ago, who would remember a regular bump or bruise to the breast that may have happened that long ago? Although, I definitely would have remembered being bitten. And I thought I had problematic clients, dang!

funthing42

Hi

I had just had imaging 4 months before all neg.

Then fell on a space heater and a fatty necrosis developed. I went into surgery to remove it and came out with breast Cancer.

Since I have had it 3 x in 5 years.

regatta21

I used to keep my cell phone in my bra. I got cancer in the same exact area where the phone was.

39andhip

Any time there is damage to an area, the cells must divide to repair the tissue in that area. The more times a cell divides, the more likely it is that enough mutations will accrue for that cell to become cancerous. That's why cancer is more common in older people; over their lifetimes, their cells divide more times. I am certainly no expert in trauma-related cancer, but I am a cell biologist, so from a purely biological standpoint, it makes sense that tissue that has undergone trauma could be more likely to develop cancer.

debiann

About 3- 4 years prior to my dx I had  injury to my breast in the same location as my tumor.