Aibu to say don’t be scared of a mammogram?

Glad it all went ok @Cardhey as you say it’s not something you’d do by choice but is totally worth being a bit uncomfortable for

at the end of my first one I asked ‘is that it’ because I was expecting something worse after all the horror stories

Just wanted to say I’m back from the mammogram today and it was fine. Not something I would choose to do by choice but there was no pain, some uncomfortableness at times, but much much better than I expected. Lady doing the test was lovely too.

if anyone else is worried about having one, don’t be.

I’m not scared of them, and always attend. My mum died of breast cancer even though it was diagnosed early (it was very aggressive).

however I do find them painful and uncomfortable. I’ve been ‘blessed’ with large boobs and getting them into the plates really hurts.

I’ve got a mammogram this week and this thread has been useful as I’ve started to worry about it… less concerned now and like others said, if you don’t go and the worst case happens, that’s when it really gets tough and a mammogram will be a walk in the park in comparison!

If it's any comfort, I find smear tests v difficult but mammograms have been ok

I had my first one ever in August and was dreading it, but honestly would rather know. I'm very small busted and found it uncomfortable and a little embarrassing, I'm not comfortable being touched by random people.
was glad though when i got the negative results 2 weeks later.

I had my first one yesterday. It was very uncomfortable rather than painful..

Which is her absolute right of course.

I was shocked at what was involved. I'd somehow imagined it would be like every other "scan" I've ever had, where the machine effectively just takes a picture. I wasn't expecting to be manhandled like that, but agree uncomfortable more than painful.

That's a ridiculous wait! I was done inside 3 weeks and even then the wait was awful, I had low dose valium for that time. I thought there was a 2 week pathway for cancer but guess that must be for diagnosis only. All the best to your friend. As caught early she may not need chemo, fingers crossed.

@LeftBoobGoneRogue unfortunately @Zov will never be talked into having a mammogram. She ( for what ever reason) would rather take her chances.

I’m 62 with no family history of breast cancer. I have attended every single mammogram I have been called for. I was recalled after my routine one in July and have subsequently been diagnosed with a 24mm hormone+ HER2- grade 2 breast cancer. I had surgery on 16th September the tumour was removed and lymph nodes were clear and I’m healing well. I have my radiotherapy planning appointment next week.
@zovmy tumour couldn’t be felt by my surgeon so how big would it have to have grown and possibly spread, before I realised, if I had not gone to my mammogram.
Yes it hurts for a few seconds but it’s better than getting an incurable stage 4 diagnosis.
Always go for my smear tests too and I don’t find them painful fortunately.

I had my first mammogram this year aged 46 due to a lump and it turned out to be breast cancer. Sad to say I found it really uncomfortable, and then it had to be redone as my breasts were dense so they had to do a 3D one (I then got a third after the biopsy had been taken but thankfully they don’t clamp as hard for that). I’ll get annual ones for the next 5 years now. Can’t say I’m massively looking forward to it but needs must and all that.

My mum happily has fillings without injections as she doesnt like needles, cracked on at 65 with a fractured skull for 2 months before going to hospital. Shes hard as nails as says mammograms are so so painful. Like lots of things it depends on the woman. I have never had a period than has been more than uncomfortable, doesnt mean other women aren't having awful periods.

I have had many mammograms and argued against having them when I knew the cyst was too big to take the compression. The only one I found uncomfortable was the 3D one and that was more the time it took than the clamping.

Having said that I have always refused the routine screening and will continue to do so. I think it does more harm than good.

I’ve had a few smear tests, but I haven’t had one for five years and I might never have one again. My husband and I are each other’s only sexual partners ever. (Seeing as this is Mumsnet, I’m sure someone will tell me that he’s probably secretly having an affair, but honestly? He doesn’t leave the house often enough to have an affair. 😂) It seems like a waste of time when I have a family history of other (unrelated) conditions, and apparently it’s not important enough to test for those.

The whole rhetoric around smear tests strikes me as dishonest and coercive. “They don’t hurt” - no, it did hurt, so stop lying to me and acting like I’m not the best judge of my own pain level. “You need to get one, it’s important” - no, I’m the one who decides if anyone’s going put anything in my vagina, and I say no. “But what if you die because you wouldn’t have a smear test” - well, then you’re free to gloat, aren’t you? Stop telling me it’s my duty to lie down and have things put in my vagina when I don’t want them there.

My friend turned 50 beginning of this year and in June had her first mammogram, she’s got breast cancer, luckily it’s been caught very early, unfortunately she’s had to wait 16 weeks for surgery!!!

The nurses at my local mobile unit in the car park are from the specialist breast cancer nightingale centre in my area

i do think, like a smear , it depends on who does the exam

I had no problem with smears but went for a general Saturday appointment from any practice one, never again it was awful, I now only book appointments from my practice nurse

They don’t. I have had many and I always struggle. Not one member of staff has said they can drop it down. Perhaps I need to be more forceful next time in case they can drop the machine down.

Oh I don't think I'm invincible. Very far from it. I just don't have the confidence that the BC screening won't cause me harm by a false positive result and unnecessary treatment. This is a greater probability than my life being saved from a screening. And this is information given by the NHS on their own leaflet - it's not Dr Google scaremongering.

I am definitely not invincible and I know it. I also know that if I do get BC people will blame me for it because I didn't go to screenings. And I'll have to live with that and possibly die with it

I had to have a bronchoscopy a few months ago. Everyone told me how awful they are. The doctor came in to chat with me beforehand and even he warned me of certain aspects of it, said that not everyone can tolerate it etc. It was absolutely fine. Didn't bother me at all. I wouldn't then announce to everyone "oh it's nothing". Clearly I was lucky. It doesn't mean other people are just making a fuss because they have struggled with it. You were lucky OP, that's all.

I won't have a mammogram for the reasons other pp's have stated. I remember getting the invite and leaflet and I remember being hugely shocked by what I felt was a large percentage of women who end up having treatment they may well not have needed. And that was in the NHS own leaflet encouraging me to go!

I firmly believe you can go looking for trouble. The whole reason I had the bronchoscopy was because I took "advantage" of a mobile chest x ray (they were screening for TB). That led to a CT scan which has led to close to 18 months of various tests. Apparently there is "something" wrong with my lungs. They don't know what. It doesn't affect me, I have no symptoms. I'm having my 4th CT scan soon. All that radiation in a relatively short amount of time does worry me! And still no diagnosis. But now I started the whole thing, I'm stuck. I can't ignore what they found. But at the same time, I'm increasing my cancer risk with all these scans. I do think I'd have been better off not knowing if and until there was actually a symptom of something.

That may be because being diagnosed with breast cancer is on a different level of torture than a mammogram. And unless you have experienced both then you can’t compare. The reality is that you can’t prevent cancer but prognosis is so much better if caught early. The definition of screening is to “separate out”, they separate out those who have bc.

Having a sibling diagnosed with bc at 34 was very frightening, we all know that your risk of developing bc increases if you have close family members with bc. When I started having mammograms in our local family clinic, it was purely for reassurance that I didn’t have bc. My bc is/was unrelated to my DSis bc, but as a youngish ( 38) woman it was never far from the surface. Mine was found on routine screening when I was 57, nearly 20 yrs after my DSis was diagnosed.

My yearly mammograms meant that I knew if it was picked up it would be early on and therefore I would have a better prognosis.

In addition having a long timeline of mammograms, it is much easier to spot early changes or lesions. As I have said in a previous post, mine would have been picked up 12 mnths earlier but my 3 truly, post 50 mammogram was delayed due to the pandemic.

We are fed a lot of statistics about cancer but going through the diagnosis and treatment process highlights the fact that every one of those 1 in 7 women are actually real people. They are not just numbers. Each with their own experience, good or bad, but nearly every one of them wishes that their cancer could have been detected at the earliest stage possible, before it presented as a lump or in their bones or liver.

All the treatments leave you with a daily reminder of what you’ve been through. I try not to look back but since I had my annual mammogram last week I am in limbo again until that letter drops through the letterbox. Prior to bc it never bothered me. I was invincible and trusted in the stats.

That's not relevant to the discussion though, as men don't get invited to BC screenings

I know breast cancer prevention isn't the role of screening. I'm just mentioning that because some posters have been saying things like "getting breast cancer is a lot worse than having a mammogram" while true, this comes across as a bit spiteful and is unnecessary, as going for mammograms isn't BC prevention.

Much as I support your choice, treatment of breast cancer, particularly late diagnosed is soul destroying. Mastectomy with reconstruction, chemo and radiotherapy are really not comparable to a 2-3 minute mammogram. They are all incredibly invasive and dehumanising experiences despite the wonderful care you receive in bc units.

Even caught early you are subjected to surgery, chemo ( sometimes) and radiotherapy. But with potentially a better prognosis.

I hate my annual mammogram, not because it’s painful but because it triggers the nightmares, the sleepless nights and terror of going through diagnosis and treatment. It’s very much a psychological fear since I had textbook treatment and journey. I had a breast surgeon whose professionalism, empathy and skill meant that my boob looks better than before I had bc. Early diagnosis means that I have a less than 3% chan of it returning. But every year I have to look over my shoulder and face that fear again. I do it because the alternative of ignoring it or “taking my chances” is far more frightening than a quick mammogram to reassure me that all is well for another year.