lump for a few years now

meme31

i'm 39 have had several mammos and a few US the last several years for lumps i have felt. I have my US and mammo on Monday and they will be seeing if a complicated cyst i had a few years ago is still there or not. And i have a lump that they have never been able to see with the US or mammo, i'm told it's just breast tissue. The 1 general surgeon i saw for it said he thought it was maybe a cyst full of thick stuff so we couldn't drain it and because we coudn't visualize it so if i insisted on an excisional biopsy that i would likely be disfigured from it. So i just let it go and get a mammo each year and feel every few months to see if it has changed. This time it's bigger and much easier to feel, feels like a tootsie roll sort of and is horizontal in my breast, which is nice because the nurse easily felt it and before i really had to dig and show them where and even then most couldn't feel it. I need to be sitting up to feel it though. She thought she felt another spot as well. I've got dense breasts and it's in the 1 or 2 oclock position and that's a dense area anyway. So the nurse today said we may be able to get an MRI ordered if they don't see it if i ask them to and i'm not sure who to ask to order it since the techs do the imaging and the radiologist doesn't even normally see me otherwise i'd ask him if he would request one. Im going thru a clinic since i no longer have insurance and luckily there is a program here called the early detection works that is paying for the tests. But they likely won't cover an MRI and i'm thinking they wouldn't cover a biopsy as well if neither tests can see anything unusual. If i can't get a cheap enough MRI i don't think i'll get one done. What does someone do in this situation? It's very likely not cancer and that's why i've been ok with just checking each year but i don't like it getting bigger and would like to know for sure it's just a cyst or benign lump.

meme31

And here's what it said about the cyst in 2014-

In the 330 radial of the left
breast 1 cm from the nipple there is a complicated cyst measuring 0.4 x
0.3 x
0.5 cm in diameter.

6 months later the repeat US said this-

Additionally, there is a stable, circumscribed, benign hypoechoic mass at
3:30, 1 cm FTN measuring up to 0.5 cm in diameter. No further imaging
followup is recommended.

I'm just wondering why they use different wording on this one? Why do they call it a cyst then a mass? It would be nice if they used the same wording on each.

Georgia1

Hi there Meme. A cyst is a kind of mass, and stable, circumscribed and benign are all good findings. But when you go in on Monday I would ask the techs if they'd consider your breast tissue dense, insist on waiting to see a radiologist, and ask for the MRI. Certainly there's no harm in asking, especially if you still feel uneasy. Best wishes to you.

meme31

Thanks Georgia, i know at my last mammo the tech said my breasts were dense and the nurse who did my breast exam the other day also said dense so I'll try to make myself ask for the radiologist. If not i'll at least ask the tech if she can ask the radiologist if he can suggest the MRI.