Breast Cancer Awareness Month is a great time to learn about self-exams

As we enter October, pink ribbons — the symbol for breast cancer awareness — are prominent. This is because it’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and the most important thing every woman can do for herself is engage in all-important self-care. This means performing a monthly breast self-exam, scheduling — and keeping — her mammogram appointments, and talking to her primary care provider about her individual breast cancer risk factors, which influence when a woman should get her first mammogram, and how often she should get them.

Sometimes women don’t feel confident about doing breast self-exams, either because they’ve never been taught or they’re not quite sure what they are looking and feeling for. Every woman is the expert on what’s “normal” for her own breasts, so what you’re trying to identify in terms of abnormalities include palpable lumps in the breast, any skin changes like dimpling or puckering, and changes to the nipple, like discharge that isn’t breast milk or an inverted nipple. Watch also for any redness, swelling, a rash, itchiness, or pain and sensitivity. During a breast self-exam, you use your senses of touch and sight to reveal any unusual changes.

The simple five-step process of performing a breast self-exam is straightforward. This is how Breastcancer.org explains it:

1. Visually examine your breasts in the mirror, while holding your shoulders even and with your hands at your hips. In addition to looking for any changes like I described above, do the breasts look fairly symmetrical and even? No woman’s breasts are exactly alike, but they should look fairly similar.
2. Raise your arms above your head and look for similar changes.
3. Now focus on whether any discharge is coming out of the nipple. Abnormal fluid can be clear, yellowish, or bloody. It can also sometimes appear milky, but if you’re not breastfeeding a baby, consider this abnormal.
4. Lay down and do a digital exam of your breasts. Use your right hand to examine your left breast, and your left hand to examine your right breast. Press down on your skin firmly using the pads of your first few fingers and keep your fingers together and flat. While pressing gently down, move your fingers in a circular pattern that’s about one inch around — about the size of a quarter. Examine from the area of your collarbone to the top of your stomach, and from your armpit to the cleavage. It’s alright to either follow a pattern that begins at your nipple and goes outward, or you may examine your breast in an up-and-down pattern, from top to bottom.
5. Examine your breasts while standing or sitting. Use the same techniques as in step 4 to feel for abnormalities. One way to do this part of the exam that’s recommended is to perform it while in the shower, because it’s easier to spot lumps when the skin is wet and more slippery.

In terms of pressure, you should apply light pressure when examining your skin and the tissue just underneath it, then use medium pressure for the tissue in the middle of the breast, and finally, apply firm pressure for the deeper tissue in the back of your breast, feeling down to the ribcage.

Another thing to remember: If you’re menstruating, it’s best to do your self-exam the week after your period ends, since breast tenderness is often present before and during your period.

The idea behind self-exams is to become familiar with your breasts and to understand what feels or looks abnormal. You know your breasts best, and then you can follow up with your doctor if you notice anything unusual. Remember that if you find something, this doesn’t indicate that there is anything seriously wrong necessarily, just that you should pursue it and get it checked out.

As I noted earlier, in addition to doing monthly breast self-exams, always schedule your mammograms. These are so important because we know that early detection means earlier treatment if a woman is diagnosed with breast cancer, and these factors are associated with increased survival. In addition, Transylvania Regional Hospital (TRH) offers ABUS (Automated Breast Ultrasound System) for those with dense breast tissue, as well as diagnostic breast ultrasound.

Here at TRH, we want to do all we can to promote breast cancer awareness and breast health for women. After a woman receives their mammogram here, they receive a free self-exam instruction card that they can hang in the shower as a reminder to do their monthly self-exams.

I would also like to give a shout-out to our TRH mammogram technicians. These experienced healthcare professionals do their jobs with grace, compassion, and the highest level of expertise. Our breast program is also MQSA-certified, meeting the standards set forth in the Federal Mammography Quality Standards Act.

We’re invested in your whole health, but this month, we concentrate on the importance of your breast health.

Michele Pilon, MS, BSN, RN, NE-BC, is the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Nursing Officer of Transylvania Regional Hospital. Her diverse professional experience includes service as a bedside nurse and over a decade as a leader at healthcare institutions in Virginia, Florida, and North Carolina. Ms. Pilon earned a Bachelor’s in Nursing from Ohio’s University of Akron and a Masters in Health Services Administration from the University of St. Francis in Illinois; she is also a Board-Certified Nursing Executive.