To beg you ALL to read this, for the sake of your health, please ladies.

[Vallhala]

Inspired by a thread currently in Chat, PLEASE take a couple of minutes to read this and a couple more to act on it, for YOUR sake and that of those you love.

I'm (I hope!) a reasonably intelligent woman, I'm fairly health and news aware, I knew about breast cancer. I knew that it is rarely found in someone with no family history of it, who doesn't eat meat, who is slim and fit, who is under 40.

And I know that women like that generally think the same way. And as a result, like me when I was under 40, they don't check their breasts, they go about life each day informed of an issue which doesn't concern them personally.

Just like I did... until I got to the age of 37 and discovered a lump in my breast by chance when I was having a bath.

I'm one of the lucky ones.

I had a lumpectomy and subsequently my ovaries removed to prevent my body producing oestrogen that could kill me. I've a dent in my boob, was hurled into instant menopause following the ovarian surgery with all the horrible and very pronounced effects that go with it but I'm alive and my children still have a mother.

If this inspires just ONE woman to check her breasts, one woman who would otherwise think as I did that it can't happen to her, I've done right, as painful as it is to me for the memories to be brought back. I'll show my scar off, talk about it to strangers, nag folk, do whatever it takes to prevent someone else's children from losing their mother.

So please ladies, no matter how young, how fit you are, how good you feel... check your breasts and tell every other woman you know my story.

I feel silly, but I just find my boobs always feel "lumpy" so don't bother as I'm not sure what I'm looking for. I mentioned it to a doctor once when I was discussing a different boob related ailment and she said some people just have lumpy boobs :( I would have no idea if something were there that shouldn't be

Loudlass - you can also have regular mammograms from 40-49 if you have one first degree relative who developed breast cancer before the age of 40.

As my mum died of a different fairly rare cancer 12 years after having BC they started screening me before 40. I have had annual mammograms since my late 30s. I think that part of the issue with screening before 40 is that the breast tissue is more dense so the mammograms are harder to read.

SouthernFried - I have been to the docs a couple of times with lumps - they are cysts, which yours might be too.

Other things to look out for are pains in the breast tissue, change in nipple shape and colour, dimpling in the skin on the breast etc

This is a helpful link

I am glad to hear you have beaten this Vallhala and thank you for raising the topic.

Thanks, Iwant, that's very helpful. Scared myself silly as a teenager the first time I read an article on breast self-examination and went running to the doctor. And then was too embarrassed to explain why I'd thought there was something wrong. So I've never liked to ask again. Which is extremely daft but you know...

Thank you reindeer