To have found my first mammogram really upsetting?

Looks like the klaxon i mentioned on the carers allowance threads has gone off

And yet if you are rich you can pay for a less painful procedure

Actually, there is a need for this sort of comment. The NHS is a publicly funded healthcare provider. There’s oodles of preventative and curative cancer care available to everyone. It’s one the last remaining g jewels in the UK’s crown and you only have to live in a country without such a system for a few months to know this. The NHS has also been extremely mismanaged and underfunded for decades now. That’s on the politicians and management, not frontline healthcare workers. These are not the people who can make those things right.

It’s not okay for patients to give feedback, and complain about invasive and demeaning treatment after what sounds like a completely routine mammogram. Why didn’t the OPdo the bare minimum of googling what a mammogram would be like? Takes 5 minutes. But no, easier to shove responsibility onto someone else. Or “vent”.

Patients have a responsibility too. The NHS isn’t there to make us feel loved and treated with kid gloves. If we have the good fortune to be seen by a nurse or doctor with a personality that gels with us, that’s a bonus. But it simply is not okay for a patient to expect that any and every healthcare provider should at all times mind-read, or enquire as to each patient’s level of self-education about the procedure they themselves are having, and attempt to make them feel good.

I mean come on. Complaining about the size of the room and the machine looking intimidating? Seriously?

That's why I wondered if it was a new type of machine, but it comes just be different radiographer techniques too.

OP, there is far more to worry about than manhandling!

assuming this was a screening mammogram without suspicion of malignancy, here's some numbers:

Acceptable safe limit (radiation) per year for the gen pop = 1mGy

Average absorption in background per year = approx 3mGy

Dose given to Xray both breasts with some NHS equipment, up to 4mGy

An exposure to radiation increases the risk of .....?

Tis why screening mammography is banned in Switzerland and not used widely in lots of countries, the increased risk outweighs the benefits.

before being compressed like an old car at the scrapyard.
@MyOtherHusbandIsAWash 🤣🤣 That perfectly describes the feeling!

We've just had different experiences then @EBearhug . The radiographers have moved the machine and positioned me when I’ve had them done. 🤷

Of course it was a mammogram 😂 TBF it was done privately so there would have been more time than an NHS appointment. I had a load of different views taken to get a better image of the suspect mass but the radiographer explained very clearly how I was to position myself before being compressed like an old car at the scrapyard.

But I didn't- she moved the machine to the right height and then changed the angle for the second picture of each breast.

I'm sorry but I can't relate to this.. I couldn't care less about the niceties, I know what I'm there for. I don't enjoy them either but would enjoy breast cancer much less.

There really is no need for this sort of comment. The OP was just venting her shock and upset.

Just don’t go next time.

Jesus wept, indeed.

@EBearhug You must’ve got yourself in just the right position, I’ve had several mammograms and I’m always moved around. Mind you, I do have to have 3D images due to my dense breasts so they may be more tricky.

I don't remember mine being touched. I was expecting to have to lay my breasts on a horizontal metal plate, but the plate moved - angle and height, and I was told where to stand and place myself for each image. Maybe it's a new style machine? I've only had one, so could only compate with stuff online

When I went to the breast clinic years back, they did ultrasound and a needle biopsy, no mammogram. But the consultant did make quips about my breasts being small which I did not feel was necessary.

@pelotonaddiction I also have dense breasts and it makes it harder to detect lumps ( according to my doctor) so we really DO need to get mammograms. I have to have 3D imaging rather than the standard ones. Please don’t avoid them, I had a cancer scare a couple of years ago and I had no idea that anything was developing as I couldn’t feel it. Luckily everything was ok.

I’m sorry about your experience, OP. Everything you describe was standard procedure so that the radiographer can get clear images, unfortunately- except for their brusque manner and not explaining what they were about to do. I’d focus on those aspects in your complaint. 💐

@CombatLingerie you complain about being asked about soreness under your breasts. We have to ask as some people’s skin is very fragile underneath. There was a complaint at a nearby breast unit from someone because she hadn’t been asked about it beforehand-we can’t win!

Whatever you had wasn’t a mammogram. It’s impossible to do a mammogram without touching or compressing your breasts.

I’m a Mammographer. For screening, we have six or seven minute appointments and we have to get 4 high quality images in that time so we don’t have time for lots of chit chat. If it’s someone’s first time, I tell them I have to manipulate them into position and they will be pulled to get the back of the breast on. We have to push other body parts out of the way-if someone has a big stomach, it has to be out of the way so it’s not on the image. Would you rather someone pussy foot around and not pull you on and miss a cancer? Or not compress you enough so the image is blurred? Most of us do a physically demanding job with great tact and sensitivity within that seven minutes. It’s a good idea to watch a video of a mammogram beforehand if your first time so you know what to expect.

We are fortunate, but it is not a privilege, we voted for it and we're paying for it. And people who don't treat patients with common courtesy are in the wrong job.

I am so disappointed by some of the responses on this thread. It is becoming much more well known that women are generally subjected to a poorer experience than men when accessing healthcare and here on this thread we have women excusing it and blaming the OP for it. It’s really sad. You do not have to, and shouldn’t, put up with such a poor standard of care, compassion and communication. It’s simply not good enough.

On the one hand you say you’re autistic and “needed” to know what to expect etc. On the other hand you say you don’t consider yourself to have SEN. Which is it?

As someone who doesn’t have SEN, showing up to an appointment for a mammogram = knowing and gratefully pre-consenting to the fact that radiographic images of my breasts will be taken. How else is that going to happen to breasts other than by ultrasound wand or the equivalent of an xray machine for tissue which is attached to your breast? How many women and men do you think these HCPs see every day? How much do you think they notice or care that this is your first or 20th?

As for complaining about the size of the room, that the machine didn’t look friendly… Jesus wept. Just don’t go next time. It’s not like anyone other than you is going to benefit from this 🙄.

I have only had one mammo and the radiographer never touched my breasts, she just explained how she wanted them positioned on the machine. I even had to have a number of extra ‘nontypical’ views taken after the first images were reviewed. I would have been horrified to have been manhandled like this with no warning and I was/am neither anxious nor ND.

It sounds awful. I'm sorry that was your first experience. They are not my favourite things to get done, but last one I had the radiographer was so lovely I felt so considered and cared about. I've had all sorts of less lovely radiographers, and my very first one, I swear she was as an actual sadist.

But what you experienced, with no consideration, deference, respect for you as a human, or talking you through what she was about to do in terms of touching and shifting your body about, that is unusual, and unacceptable.

That's not the issue.

Your comment is irrelevant.

A foot pedal? Christ i had no idea. Im nearly 51 and yet to have my first. HH cup size

You should have been treated with kindness and respect - it’s a real shame that didn’t happen. Don’t let that put you off in future though - it’s not always like that.