Eureka : fibrocystic breasts - your help needed

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alicki
alicki Member Posts: 661
edited September 2014 in Benign Breast Conditions

hello all,

Over a year ago, my left breast swell and hurt like mad due to lymphatic obstruction. Edema, pinholes, very slight skin thickness, fatty lymph nodes (one was analysed), redness, I have all or quite a lot of the symptômes of IBC. 

I was convinced I had IBC and even got a breast reduction which told me I had a lot of fibrocystic changes, hyperplasia skin, thickened skin but no malignancy. For me it just didn't add up, because I didn't understand what was causing the lymphatic obstruction in the first place!!!! 

Today, reading a researchers report of wisegeek, I learnt that fibrocystic breasts are prone to lymphatic obstruction even more so when you were tight bras (my case).

My doc did put me on the right track last year but was speaking of lymphengitis that I know I didn't have. On the other hand, I have lymphedema on my left leg.

Now would anyone out there be able to tell me if they ve had lymphatic obstruction with fibrocystic large breasts without cancer. That would be great help. I'm trying to test this theory

Thanks for everything,

Alicki

Ps: it's not always because it looks like IBC that it is. As kicks always remind us :-), THERE ARE MANY possibilities 

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Comments

  • merryk
    merryk Member Posts: 3
    edited August 2014

    Start by seeing your gyn and having a mammogram and sonogram.  Your condition is nothing to fool around with.  Fibrocystic breasts often develop into ductal cancer.   I had14 normal mammograms before cancer showed up.  Have a mammogram every year, and you will catch the cancer early and be healed!   Find the best specialist breast surgeon...someone who only does breast surgery. Good luck!

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  • MelissaDallas
    MelissaDallas Member Posts: 7,268
    edited August 2014

    Merry, you are absolutely incorrect. Fibrocystic breast tissue is entirely benign and does NOT "turn"into ductal or any other cancer. 60% of women have fibrocystic breasts, so yeah, a percentage of them get cancer, but one doesn't have anything to do with the other.

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  • alicki
    alicki Member Posts: 661
    edited August 2014

    Melissa,

    You are correct but florid ductal hyperplasia increases the risk of cancer but I wouldn't say often because that would mean that no longer one out of 8 women but something like 5 out of 8 women would get cancer. Thankfully we are not there.

    Melissa: could you please put up here the diagramm you had on the various stages of normal breasts - invasive cancer. It was really helpful and I think it would be good to have it here for other women to see, it taught me a lot.

    I still would like to know if big breasted women had problems with lymphatic congestion, anyone out there?

    Thanks,

    Alicki.

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  • Blessings2011
    Blessings2011 Member Posts: 4,276
    edited August 2014

    alicki - for almost 40 years, I had huge, droopy, dense, painful fibrocystic breasts. Self-exams were impossible. Mammograms always came back normal.

    I never had any experience with lymphatic congestion.

    I was just the "one in eight" women who are dx'd with breast cancer.

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  • ballet12
    ballet12 Member Posts: 981
    edited September 2014


    Alicki, only atypical ductal hyperplasia increases the risk of breast cancer. One has to have the atypical cellular changes to have the increased risk.

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