Bluesky123:

It's always best to have any breast issues that are new to you or that cause you concern examined by your doctor, so I am glad you have already taken that step.

That being said, I always had lumpy breasts and all of my normal, benign lumps clustered behind the nipple. My breast cancer originally stood out to me as worrisom because it was not behind my nipple but in the upper part of my breast by itself where I had not previously had any lumps.

Bluesky, don't borrow the worries. It is easy said than done but breast tend to get lumpy before PMS, hormonal changes, etc. You are doing the right decision to have the doctor check, but until then, my theory is not to worry for what can be nothing.

Yes. Our bodies are not symmetrical so it would be natural that might be be differences in our breasts. While fibrocystic breast condition usually affects both breasts, it doesn't affect each breast exactly the same way.

Bluesky123,

I'm around this place for a little while now and can see from the responses you've received that you have good folk supporting you here. They know their stuff.

We all worry differently and just please know that we are with you all the way. That we can assure you of.

Bluesky, if a mammogram and ultrasound found normal breast tissue, I personally would not ask for a biopsy. Continue to do monthly self breast exams, emphasis on once a month. As you do exams each month you will learn more and more about what is "normal" for your breasts and become better prepared to recognize any abnormality. Also, if you limit to once a month you will be able to know when/if any pain or soreness occurs that it is not due to too frequent examinations! Don't forget that most of us are at least a bit lopsided with one breast larger than the other.

Yours is very likely fibrocystic from what you have described, but I will tell you that I had a palpable lump, the size of a marble that was not seen by mammogram nor ultrasound. It was right next to the nipple. If you have a hard lump that you can feel that doesn’t go away, maybe you should ask for a biopsy. With your health anxiety, it sounds like your worry is not going away until you do so. Do you have any risk factors or family history?

First off, it is rare for the ultrasound not to find cancer. Secondly, mine was a hard, movable lump. I had a moron for a pcp and she called me and said the ultrasound was negative and did not recommend further testing. My twin sister had a tumor that was found with ultrasound but not seen on mammogram so I thought that meant ultrasound could rule out cancer. I assumed it was a fibroadenoma and didn’t get it out until 20 months later when it started hurting. Shooting pains, not what you have described. It had not grown in diameter, but inward so I didn’t think it had increased in size. However, I debated posting this as I didn’t want to increase your anxiety, but I would like women to know that it can happen that ultrasound does not always find the cancer. I am lucky as I am 5 years out now and hopefully the misdiagnosis will not affect my long term outcome.
You need to go with your gut and decide either to pursue it or forget about it because the anxiety is not healthy for you. I know this from experience. Best wishes and let us know what you decide.

That is my point - so were both of mine. I had ten years of clear mammograms, found a lump within a month of most recent mammo, asked to get it out, but pcp said let’s do ultrasound first. Ultrasound was negative, as well. I know this is rare, but it does happen. In hindsight, I should have gone to my gynecologist, but in my small town, one lady who was a nurse did all of the breast exams and she missed my sister’s breast cancer, so I didn’t have a lot of trust there. I trusted my pcp who I had been with for 15 years and I shouldn’t have. She was criminally negligent in my opinion for not recommending a biopsy. I don’t post about this often, but I also don’t want to see someone go through what I did. Blue sky, I am not suggesting you get a biopsy, but maybe give it a little time to determine if this is really cyclical or not. Perhaps you should take your concerns to a gynecologist who is more familiar with breast issues.

Bluesky, this is a breast cancer website. People who've had those rare situations where a mass was not found by imaging are going to be on this site - but their experience is their experience, it is not yours. None of the people who've come here with situations similar to yours - and who turned out to be perfectly fine, with no diagnosis of breast cancer - are hanging around this site. So these people aren't here to reassure you.

Based on everything you've posted to-date about your situation, there is no reason to believe that your situation will be the same as the scary cases. Here's why. There are three factors that you mentioned in your first post that are important. First is that your pain is cyclical. Second is that your mass feels glandular. Third is that you have a similar but smaller mass in the same place in your other breast. All of that, together with your age (just entering peri-menopause) suggest that what you have are normal lumpy breasts that are experiencing normal pre-menopausal pain and changes.

Now, importantly, you've had both a mammogram and ultrasound. It's critical that you've had two modalities of screening. Both the mammogram and ultrasound have come back clear. It sounds as though the Radiologist was thorough - making sure to feel what you are feeling, ensuring that she focused the ultrasound on that area, and showing you the results. So other than the fact that other people have had masses that have been missed by screening, there is nothing in your situation that suggests that anything is being missed.

Do you have a copy of your imaging reports? It may be helpful to see what they say, and to see the BIRADs rating. It won't be a BIRADs4, since a biopsy has not been recommended. If it's a BIRADs3, that means short-term (usually 6 month) follow-up with a repeat of the screening. With a BIRADs 3 you may be able to get insurance approval for a biopsy, but maybe not. Certainly you could get in to a breast surgeon for a second opinion. If it's a BIRADs2, it's unlikely you will get approval for a biopsy. In either case, if you are able to get in to see a Breast Surgeon, in all likelihood he/she will either recommend a redo of the screening, or if the mass feels glandular and normal, recommend nothing at all.

You of course need to do what makes you comfortable, but you should make this decision based on the specifics of your situation, not anyone else's. I think that monitoring your mass and the pain - to see if it is cyclical and if the mass seems to be more or less noticeable depending on your cycle - is a logical next step, perhaps combined with a 6 month follow-up screening.

Bluesky123:

I did not have a 3D mammogram, just a conventional one. My ultrasound was done first by a technician and then the radiologist. My lump though was different from yours in that I did not have any pain associated with it and I had nothing similar in my other breast. It was also very solitary, wherase feeling behind my nipple felt like feeling a bag of marbles due to the benign glandular tissue there.

Beesie is probably correct that your lump is benign. I just wanted you to be aware of all of your options.

Just to clarify, my lump was mobile. After diagnosis, I read that early cancer can be mobile, so don’t assume that just because it is movable that it cannot be cancer. Another misconception that led to my misdiagnosis.

WC3, no problem.

Peregrinelady, the thing about breast conditions and breast cancer, and probably most other health conditions, is that nothing is ever certain and there will always be exceptions. You can have a perfect screening and be diagnosed with breast cancer 3 weeks later (yup, that's me). Or you can spend months or years anxiously trying to track down what's wrong, having test after test and seeing doctor after doctor, and in the end it turns out that the doctors were right and nothing is wrong - I've been around here long enough to have seen this situation happen too many times. In the end we each have to make the decisions that balance our risks, decisions that we can live with. As for Bluesky's risk, I'm a stats person, so all I know is that if someone exhibits several symptoms that all point in the same direction and each symptom has about a 90% certainty, the odds are pretty high that we're looking in the right direction. But it's never 100% certain, because that's impossible.

Bluesky, good luck deciding what to do. I suspect that this discussion, and particularly my part in it, is not very helpful to you at this point, so I will bow out.