Page 11 | Has anyone decided not to go for a routine mammogram?

hattie43 · 2023-03-09T15:21:00+00:00

I'm curious to know . I have mine next week and will attend but last time was a nightmare as I was recalled and health anxiety went through the roof . Luckily no cancer . I was reading that about 30% of women don't attend Apparently mammograms don't pick up everything and aren't foolproof , but surely they are better than nothing .

WiseUpJanetWeiss · 09/03/2023 20:40

Nimbostratus100 · 09/03/2023 19:13

You don't understand what I am saying

There is often no lack of clarity about a cancer which is aggressive and life threatening, it is very clear, accept the treatment or die

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If identified as definitely life threatening, then yes.

If it isn’t possible to tell whether you’re in the “die soon” or “will outlive this cancer” you’re statistically more likely to be in the “will outlive this cancer” group, and therefore statistically more likely to be unnecessarily harmed. Unless you have some evidence to the contrary, the breast screening programme at the moment is resulting in far more of the latter than the former.

I am therefore happy to take my chances. If I do detect a breast cancer that’s still not necessarily a death sentence. If I don’t, my risk of harm is zero.

HundredMilesAnHour · 09/03/2023 20:41

Alphabet1spaghetti2 · 09/03/2023 20:39

@HundredMilesAnHour you make quite an assumption that some of us have families or loved ones.

Yes, how outrageous of me.

Alphabet1spaghetti2 · 09/03/2023 20:45

HundredMilesAnHour · 09/03/2023 20:41

Yes, how outrageous of me.

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It is, especially as you’ve used phrases from my posts. I don’t have any family. Luckily my partner and I have long since talked about our ageing health and have agreed on what we are prepared to accept or decline going forward. All legal requirements have also been filled and are very explicit as to our desires, should they need to be invoked.
But some people still seem to think they know us better than we do.

jannier · 09/03/2023 20:48

Alphabet1spaghetti2 · 09/03/2023 20:36

@jannier my original post.

Alphabet1spaghetti2 · Today 16:10
I’ve chosen not to have mammograms.

I am older and have seen too many people who have had cancer both survive it and die from it, they all had very unpleasant treatment and were often pushed into treatment they didn’t want and regretted with awful side effects, both at the time and later on.

I would not attend numerous hospital appointment or remember to take long term medication - neither are in my nature, not even if my life depended on it. (I would not go on a transplant list for the same reason) So for me it would be a waste of scarce resources that are better going towards someone who can and wants to benefit from them.

My choice is to live in blissful ignorance of cancer and enjoy my life day to day.

Everyone should have a right to decide for themselves, and that choice should be respected.

Of course it's individual choice but some just go on TV or read something which I struggle to understand. Some think cancer is cancer be it in breast or skin, some that there is one drug every patient gets and you will be throwing up exhausted etc
My BC isn't hormone affected so no long term drugs for me and consequently my options were very limited op, chemo rads each step was op you now have no cancer what do you want next? Here are your risks stopping, chemo rads....I had chemo what next stopping or rads...between each chemo how are you any side affects your now at x % I felt very informed and in control.
But I get some would rather take the risks again life experience determine your choice. For me my diagnosis from a needle biopsy so only knew it was a cancer not anymore threw me into I want to see my child graduate I want to see them happy not leave them alone at 21

JussathoB · 09/03/2023 20:48

Alphabet1spaghetti2 · 09/03/2023 19:49

@IceFair thats a little unfair. The op asked for reasons why people would opt to not have screening - which people have answered. No one has spread misinformation as it’s information given freely on the uk government website and on the nhs website for mammograms and in the leaflet that is sent with the appointment letter. Unless I’ve missed a post which says BC can be cured by drinking urine.
No one is trying to put people off either - they are just giving their experiences and reasons as asked. Not everyone will experience the same thing regarding interactions with staff, feeling of pain or lack of, or anything else.

You are not trying to put people off?

Alphabet1spaghetti2 · 09/03/2023 20:48

JussathoB · 09/03/2023 20:48

You are not trying to put people off?

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No not at all. Just answering the original post.

ArcticSkewer · 09/03/2023 20:49

😂

WiseUpJanetWeiss · 09/03/2023 20:49

Alphabet1spaghetti2 · 09/03/2023 20:11

I assume all of you refusing the screening will also be refusing the investigations and treatment (which will make a mammo like swimming in the sunshine).

You assume correctly, that I wouldn’t accept any treatment. @Bunnyfuller
I can’t say for others on this thread.

Why would you assume that?

jannier · 09/03/2023 20:50

WiseUpJanetWeiss · 09/03/2023 20:40

If identified as definitely life threatening, then yes.

If it isn’t possible to tell whether you’re in the “die soon” or “will outlive this cancer” you’re statistically more likely to be in the “will outlive this cancer” group, and therefore statistically more likely to be unnecessarily harmed. Unless you have some evidence to the contrary, the breast screening programme at the moment is resulting in far more of the latter than the former.

I am therefore happy to take my chances. If I do detect a breast cancer that’s still not necessarily a death sentence. If I don’t, my risk of harm is zero.

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There are no stats I can find that agree with you re this please can you give me the link? In fact I've found one study saying 2.3% and one 10% of DCIS cancer

ScentOfAMemory · 09/03/2023 20:50

HundredMilesAnHour · 09/03/2023 20:36

I have my annual mammogram tomorrow afternoon. Of course I will be going. It would never cross my mind not to.

I have been having annual mammograms for almost 20 years now. I started in my mid-30s as I'm high risk for breast cancer due to my family history so I'm under the care of the breast clinic at one of the big London teaching hospitals.

There is a LOT of scaremongering and ignorance on this thread. Some of you really need to get a grip. I appreciate that my message won't be well received but I don't really care. My mother died from breast cancer at age 51. She had breast cancer twice and was in remission each time when it came back. Finally the cancer came back as secondary cancer in her liver and stomach and she was dead within 12 days of finding out. She had cancer on and off throughout all my teens and early 20s. We spent a lot of time in hospitals and she suffered greatly. My father and I (I'm an only child) put on brave faces but it devastated us, and when she died it ripped our relationship apart and it took another 2 decades to rebuild it. It changed me forever, in far too many ways to list here. So those of you saying you'll just live with the cancer and you'd rather live in ignorance and what will be will be, think about your loved ones and what impact this might have on them. Think about your children and what it will do to them. I was one of those children and I promise you that you don't want your child to go through what I have been through. My mother fought the cancer with everything she had. She was young when it started and had everything to live for but back then treatment wasn't as advanced as it is now and not many women were breast cancer survivors. She had seen her older sister die a year earlier from breast cancer. I lost my mum and my aunt within a year of each other to the same awful death. It's different these days. Survival chances are much higher. So I ask you to grab the opportunities offered to prevent this cancer from taking you away from your loved ones. If you won't do it for yourself, do it for them.

I am emotional writing this. I will be emotional tomorrow when I go for my mammogram. It brings back deep feelings of loss and pain that I try so hard to bury the rest of the time. I am so grateful to still be here, and I carry some guilt for that. I would give anything to have my mother and my aunt back here with me now. Mother's Day is looming, The anniversary of both deaths are looming. My birthday is looming - my aunt died on my birthday and my mother was told the cancer was back and she was going to die on my birthday. It is a shitty shitty time of year and an especially shitty time to have a mammogram. But I will go. Because I can. And because I must.

So now I try to pull myself together a bit, and say that in almost 20 years of NHS mammograms, no member of staff has ever been rude to me. They have never been anything less than helpful. Occasionally I find the experience a little bit uncomfortable for a few seconds but that's it. Certainly no physical pain (some emotional pain perhaps but...)

good luck for your mammogram tomorrow and thank you for sharing your story.

WiseUpJanetWeiss · 09/03/2023 20:51

jannier · 09/03/2023 20:50

There are no stats I can find that agree with you re this please can you give me the link? In fact I've found one study saying 2.3% and one 10% of DCIS cancer

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I’m using the NHS leaflet as my source.

fairypeasant · 09/03/2023 20:52

@HundredMilesAnHour

One of the issues with breast screening is that it's not about preventing cancer.

I'm sorry for your losses.

Your mum died. Despite all the treatment, she died. Some women don't want to spend their final years "fighting cancer" with all the side effects that entails, if they're going to die young anyways. What if you'd lost your mum sooner, but with less time in and out with treatment and the complications of treatment? That's a valid choice some women and their families make.

Some people do want to "fight cancer" however small or unlikely to kill them.

Very few women are strong enough that when they're told they have cancer, they don't bow to the pressure and decide to wait and see what happens. These could be cancers that would never harm, yet they're pushed into treatment by emotions.

Some women want screening. Some weigh it up and don't.

There's no point getting emotionally wrought about other women's risk/benefit analysis.

Screening is almost never clear cut at an individual level. It's a choice. It's offered to populations, because for populations a committee has decided the benefits outweigh the risks, at that population level. Individual risk is completely different, and personal. For some women, mammograms are intolerable. Others see them as minor. Everyone is an individual, and should be allowed to weigh up pros and cons without being shamed, or told that if they decide against screening they don't deserve treatment- the latter is particularly out of order.

CementTrucker · 09/03/2023 20:53

It is sad that so many women on MN dismiss and invalidate any experiences that do not tally up with their own. It is rife on threads about health screening for women... threads about smear tests always take a nasty turn.

Couldn’t agree with your post more, @XenoBitch, and this part especially. I’m still too young for mammograms, but I recognise the belittling, dismissiveness, outrage that someone would use the NHS if they’ve turned down screening and the threats (‘if you don’t like screening, you’ll really hate cancer treatment!’) from the smear threads. Oh, and the disbelief that other women have been treated badly by medical professionals.

Alphabet1spaghetti2 · 09/03/2023 20:53

WiseUpJanetWeiss · 09/03/2023 20:49

Why would you assume that?

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@WiseUpJanetWeiss the first paragraph is a cut and paste from Bunnyfullers post, which is why I @Bunnyfuller In my post to which you are now referring.
I cannot not ever would
assume on behalf of someone else.
I posted to say that bunny was correct to assume on my behalf that I would not accept any treatment.

so you need to ask Bunny why they would assume. Not me.

ScentOfAMemory · 09/03/2023 20:53

JussathoB · 09/03/2023 20:48

You are not trying to put people off?

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Every time there's a thread about important screening tests for women, a pack of posters arrive with eyebrow raising reasons as to why we shouldn't.
Heaven forbid we'd like to stay alive.

fairypeasant · 09/03/2023 20:58

@ScentOfAMemory

I've never seen shame, belittling and infantilising tactics for encouraging men to do screening. It's only saved for women. It's usually these tactics that people object to, not the screening.

At a population level, screening has been decided to make sense. Individuals can decide that for them, it doesn't, without the shame, belittling and infantilising, or the high emotion. I've never seen the high emotion over bowel screening and colonoscopy refusal as is seen over smears and mammography.

Alphabet1spaghetti2 · 09/03/2023 20:58

@ScentOfAMemory bevause the thread title says it’s about not going to screening and the op was curious?

maybe if it was a thread about why you do go, then the replies would be very different!

HundredMilesAnHour · 09/03/2023 20:59

Alphabet1spaghetti2 · 09/03/2023 20:45

It is, especially as you’ve used phrases from my posts. I don’t have any family. Luckily my partner and I have long since talked about our ageing health and have agreed on what we are prepared to accept or decline going forward. All legal requirements have also been filled and are very explicit as to our desires, should they need to be invoked.
But some people still seem to think they know us better than we do.

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@Alphabet1spaghetti2 I don't even recognise your name let alone your posts. If anything I wrote is similar to your posts, it's entirely coincidental. Given the content of this thread most posts are going to include "breast cancer", "mammogram" "death" "pain" with some filler words in between.

I wrote from heart and hoped my own experience might help others. No need for you to be a dick.

XenoBitch · 09/03/2023 21:00

CementTrucker · 09/03/2023 20:53

It is sad that so many women on MN dismiss and invalidate any experiences that do not tally up with their own. It is rife on threads about health screening for women... threads about smear tests always take a nasty turn.

Couldn’t agree with your post more, @XenoBitch, and this part especially. I’m still too young for mammograms, but I recognise the belittling, dismissiveness, outrage that someone would use the NHS if they’ve turned down screening and the threats (‘if you don’t like screening, you’ll really hate cancer treatment!’) from the smear threads. Oh, and the disbelief that other women have been treated badly by medical professionals.

It really is sad.
It has not been too bad here considering the board, but if it had been posted in AIBU.... oh boy!
There was a thread there about smear tests and someone said that any women who do not go for smear and go on to get cancer, should be denied NHS treatment. She later then said that her own sister did not have smears, and had cervical cancer. Unbelievable.

Alphabet1spaghetti2 · 09/03/2023 21:01

HundredMilesAnHour · 09/03/2023 20:59

@Alphabet1spaghetti2 I don't even recognise your name let alone your posts. If anything I wrote is similar to your posts, it's entirely coincidental. Given the content of this thread most posts are going to include "breast cancer", "mammogram" "death" "pain" with some filler words in between.

I wrote from heart and hoped my own experience might help others. No need for you to be a dick.

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As you referenced some things which only my posts spoke of, then it is reasonable for me to reply as such.
No need for you to be so defensive or rude.

goodsea · 09/03/2023 21:02

@Eightiesgirl I had one this week and no I didn't have to raise arms above shoulders, just in line with shoulder to hold a handle

Bunnyfuller · 09/03/2023 21:02

When cancer is found early it is more curable. It is more easy to cure. Screening identifies tiny cancers that MAY never spread. But they might. Whilst there are those more obvious (lobular seems to have more propensity) there’s as yet no sure way of telling. If there were, then of course you can bet there wouldn’t be overtreatment. Read ‘The Emperor of maladies’ and it is fascinating (and horrifying) what a sophisticated and adaptable disease it is, which is precisely why, yes, screening doesn’t prevent, but the longer it’s allowed to evolve in the body, the less chance there is of winning. Breast cancer likes to go hide in the brain, where chemo doesn’t pass through the blood/brain barrier. Then blossoms feverishly in the brain, impossible to stop. My DD’s mum died of this a couple of years ago. Their notice of it popping back up washer collapsing, fitting, in front of her then 12 year old daughter.

but mammograms, right?

HundredMilesAnHour · 09/03/2023 21:03

ScentOfAMemory · 09/03/2023 20:50

good luck for your mammogram tomorrow and thank you for sharing your story.

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Thank you for being kind @ScentOfAMemory . 🌸

There are some nasty people on this thread so that's me out.

WiseUpJanetWeiss · 09/03/2023 21:03

Alphabet1spaghetti2 · 09/03/2023 20:53

@WiseUpJanetWeiss the first paragraph is a cut and paste from Bunnyfullers post, which is why I @Bunnyfuller In my post to which you are now referring.
I cannot not ever would
assume on behalf of someone else.
I posted to say that bunny was correct to assume on my behalf that I would not accept any treatment.

so you need to ask Bunny why they would assume. Not me.

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Sorry - I really shouldn’t MN on my phone! I thought I was quoting Bunnyfuller.

jannier · 09/03/2023 21:03

WiseUpJanetWeiss · 09/03/2023 18:38

Can you explain why the NHS leaflet says:

About 3 in every 200 women screened every 3 years from the age of 50 up to their 71st birthday are diagnosed with a cancer that would never have been found without screening and would never have become life-threatening. This adds up to about 4,000 women each year in the UK who are offered treatment they did not need.

Is this not true? If it’s not true, please could you post the evidence?

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So 1.5% meaning 26,666.66 get treatment they need to save them