Did I Cause Myself To Get Cancer?

No you did not give yourself cancer. Nobody knows why some people get it and some don't. Exercise and diet apparently helps but it is no guarantee of prevention. There are people who eat "healthy" and exercise like fiends who still get breast cancer. There are people who eat junk food while lying on the couch 24/7 who do not get breast cancer. Risk factors do not guarantee you will get cancer. My father smoked 2 packs of cigarettes a day for 30 years after having a collapsed lung from TB as a youth, and just died last year at the ripe old age of 83, from no other reason than old age. If anyone should've gotten cancer in my family, he was certainly the prime candidate. Yet he had no serious health problems his entire life. The reason you got cancer is the same reason we all got it. Because of freaking bad luck.

or "it's Gods plan for you" because "everything happens for a reason." I say that facetiously because I'm basically an atheist, and it's comments like that from God-believers who make me want to rip their face off.

I did have HRT for about 8 yr. after hysterectomy at 34. Maybe this was a contributing factor for my BC diagnosis this past November 2014? Will never know for sure, but does make me wonder as my mother and two sisters so far have not had BC. My MIL who I was a caretaker for the past three years since she had a stroke asked me, "did I cause your BC?" Because of all the stress with caring for her, and I might add she does a good job of causing the people that care for her alot of stress. She knows she is very difficult to deal with. I no longer care for her daily, as I am not able to with all the SE's from my chemo rounds and debilitating fatigue, I only go over there on Sundays now to do her pills for the week and do her blood test for INR which has to be done weekly. My stress level has gone down quite a bit not having to deal with her every day. She really needs to be in a nursing home but refuses it. I have read where chronic stress can be a contributer to BC, so it makes me wonder that too.

Co .worker recently said to me ....well you took HRT, your grandmother had breast cancer,

Really is hard moving on after getting a dx with breast cancer, without being made to feel we have caused it ourselves.....

My grandmother passed frombreast cancer and my mom took HTR for years and has not gotten it - she is 71. I never took HRT. I believe my Cancer was caused by the same thing that caused Meow's, stress from stupid people.

While reading through this thread it just strikes me of all the complicated factors of this awful disease. What may be a contributing factor for some is not for others. Someone can do everything "right" and still get BC. I hate the word "blame" because it goes with "guilt" and there is no place for either with BC. Why my husband and not me? At least as yet. I do know that in reading all of the personal stories on this site and watching what my husband has gone through this past year I hate this disease. I have only positive thoughts and good wishes for all that are dealing and living with this.

Morwenna, Thanks for the voice of reason

`Ladies! Ladies! Just stop there. You and I got bc because we have breasts! Everything else possibly might have been a contributing factor but we don't and cannot know for certain. There is no rhyme or reason to it - don 't beat yourselves up stressing over the past.. As far as I can gather from this thread we sure don't have dementia!

I hope I don't have dementia! Ha! Anyway, since BC doesn't run in my family, I've wondered about the years I was on estrogen and the stress issues .. actually, still do have a few plus some new ones. Maybe it was a combination of both. I do know that my ER+ was around 98 percent. My doctor also told me his wife and mother were on estrogen. Maybe a couple of us had the same doctor!

I did not use birth control, did not take HRT after hysterectomy, no smoking, drinking and had no family history of breast cancer. At age 65, I have IDC. ??????? So much for the golden years.

Just this morning, I came across this poem by the writer Grace Paley, who died of breast cancer in 2007 at age 84. It resonated with me, as I suspect it will for many of us here:

I had thought the tumors...

I had thought the tumors
on my spine would kill me but
the tumors on my head seem to be
extraordinary competitive this week.

For the past twenty or thirty years
I have eaten the freshest most
organic and colorful fruits and
vegetables I did not drink I
did drink one small glass of red
wine with dinner nearly every day
as suggested by The New York Times
I should have taken longer walks but
obviously I have done something wrong

I don't mean morally or ethically or
geographically I did not live near
a nuclear graveyard or under a coal
stack nor did I allow my children
to do so I lived in a city no worse
than any other great and famous city I
lived one story above a street that led
cabs and ambulances to the local hospital
that didn't seem so bad and was
often convenient

In any event I am
already old and therefore a little ashamed
to have written this poem full
of complaints against mortality which
biological fact I have been constructed for
to hand on to my children and grand—
children as I received it from my
dear mother and father and beloved
grandmother who all
ah if I remember it
were in great pain at leaving
and were furiously saying goodbye

You're welcome, Hydranne. I think it speaks to and for a lot of us.

honeybear....I too took HRT fro 8 years prior to my diagnosis. I asked my breast surgeon if they caused my cancer. He said most of his patients never took HRT. This is at a major NYC facility. I know it didn't help but no regrets!

Amen to that, blessings! Most women who take bc pills or HRT don't develop breast cancer. We know that family history is a factor for a very small percentage of those who get bc, so isn't a major risk for most.Being overweight is a risk factor, but most overweight women don't get bc. Doctors are not infallible, but they certainly are not guessing. Treatment reccomendations are based on what is known at a given point in time. When more or different things are known, recommendations change. That is how medical science moves forward and I for one, am glad!

I was diagnosed with DCIS stage 0 in January. Calcification was the annual declaration at my mammograms, but this year there was a significant increase in my left breast. On 2/28 I had a bilateral mastectomy. My surgeon said that this type of cancer grew aggressively from the hormone patch ( Vivelle dot) I'd been using since menopause, probably 8 years or so prior....

Needless to say, stopped using that immediately. But can't help wonder if it was a mistake to stay on it. And with year after year of the reports of 'calcifications', whymy doctor didn't even discuss the possibility of such problems?

I have not eaten red meat in over 50 yrs, never had a cigarette nor do I drink (not even beer nor wine). I exercise lots & am perfect weight. However I never had children, have dense breast tissue & did use topical hormones for about 5 years. I now have hormone sensitive cancer so I know the hormones I took were "feeding its growth." I had lumpectomy in Aug & just completed 30 rads. Unsure what caused (?) mine but it wasn't my lifestyle for sure.