Breast cancer is the form of cancer that occurs from breast tissues in women. Signs of breast cancer may include a lump in the breast, changes in the shape of the breast, dimpling of the breast skin, a fluid coming out of the nipples or development of red scaly patches on the skin. There might be pain in the bones, swollen lymph nodes, shortness of breath, or the skin turning yellow and pale.

Breast cancer is a fatal mode of cancer in women, and one must try to abstain from this cancer in all possible ways. Here are 5 ways you can decrease the risk of breast cancer.

1. Keeping a check on your weight: although the process is tough to maintain, keeping up a sound and healthy weight is a critical objective for everybody. Being overweight can expand the danger of a wide range of cancers, including breast cancer, particularly after menopause in women. Exercise is very important for maintaining a healthy body and lifestyle. Women who exert physically regularly are fitter than others and are at a much lower risk of acquiring diseases of any kind. Regular exercise decreases the chance of getting breast cancer and also keeps the body weight in check.

2. Maintaining a healthy diet: maintaining a healthy and balanced diet is a key for keeping away from any kind of cancer or major health problem. Include a sufficient amount of fresh fruits and green vegetables in your daily diet to ensure the supply of all vital nutrients to your body. This would increase your immunity.

3. Avoid smoking and consume less alcohol: smoking is a very unhealthy and harmful habit. Smoking lowers the quality of your life, and causes numerous diseases. Heart diseases, stroke and many kinds of cancer, including breast cancer can be caused from smoking. If you drink alcohol, you should moderate your drinking habits and drink less, as drinking in excess may lead to breast cancer.

4. Practice breast feeding: breast feeding your children for a span of one year or more is likely to reduce the risk of breast cancer.

5. Avoid taking birth control pills: birth control pills, in spite of having several benefits are associated with risk factors as well. Birth control pills have got worse effects in younger women than older aged women. Using birth control pills may cause breast cancer and these pills should be avoided.

There are many ways, adapting which you can lower the chances of getting breast cancer.

5 Easy Ways to Decrease Your Breast Cancer Risk

Though breast cancer has become very common, the good news is that more women than ever are living a healthy life to tell their survival stories. They have not just survived, but are thriving. Let us take you through a couple of survivor stories which not just gives strength and hope, but also the immense courage to stand up and fight it. The names are, however, changed to prevent identity.

Help yourself and others too: For most women, getting diagnosed with blood cancer can mean the end of life. While for the medical person, it is just another individual, for the individual, there is an entire world to think of, her world. What will happen to her family, her job, her life in total. Each person is different, and so the approach has to be different. It should not be a routine combo of surgery, chemo, and radiation. While some hospitals do it, giving a personalized touch helps. That is what happened Susan, who had a complete set of people including dietitian and psychiatrist to help her. The change that she saw with this approach led her to give a helping hand to others. She presently helps people fight and overcome breast cancer and has an extremely fulfilling life.

Shrink the tumor, not your life: For a person with two kids, Tina was aghast when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She was just 31, and her second daughter was just turning 1, she was extremely distraught. But, her family stood with her through those testing times when she would not have time to run with her daughter or walk along with her mother. With immense support from her family, she is now free of cancer and is a Zumba instructor and now spends quality time with her daughter.

An experiment that worked: At 46 years of age, Maya was diagnosed with stage 3 breast cancer. She found a lump in her breast, which turned out to be breast cancer. The doctor said she would need it removed, and she also opted for surgery. What worked for her, though, is the fact that she was advised to try tamoxifen, which was not so strongly recommended during the initial times. She went ahead and tried, and even after 30 years down the line, is still free of cancer.

Two lives saved: At 23, Sonia was diagnosed not just with stage 4 breast cancer, but also with pregnancy. Re-testing yielded negative results. So she went ahead with chemo and radiation, but the abdominal fullness continued, and when tested again, the tests confirmed her pregnancy. She carried it through, and delivered 4 weeks prematurely but is very healthy and cancer-free now.

Breast Cancer Survivor Stories - Get Inspired!

A breast lump is a restricted swelling, projection, lump or knot in the breast that doesn't feel like a breast tissue. There are diverse reasons why breast lumps occur.

Not all lumps are cancer. These can also be breast conditions that are not harmful and which can be easily curable.Knots that feel harder or are not the same as the rest of the breast need to be checked. This kind of irregularity might be an indication of breast cancer.

A self-examination should be your starting point. This is how you can detect a lump on your own:

Step 1: Begin by taking a look at your breast in the mirror. Keep your shoulders straight and your arms on your hips.

This is what you need to search for:

    Breasts that are their typical size, shape, and shading
    Breasts that are uniformly formed without distortion or swelling

In the event that you see any of the changes mentioned below, convey them to your doctor:

    Dimpling, puckering, or protruding of the skin
    A nipple that is not in its initial position
    Redness, rash or swelling

Step 2: Now, raise your arms and look for the changes mentioned above.

Step 3: While you're in front of the mirror, search for any indications of liquid or blood discharge from the nipples.

Step 4: Next, examine your breasts while resting.Use Your right hand to feel your left breast and use your left hand to feel your right breast. Cover the whole breast from your collarbone to the highest point of your mid-region, and from your armpit to your cleavage to search for any lumps.

Step 5:Examine your breasts while either standing or sitting. Many women find that the easiest approach to examine their breasts is when their skin is wet, so this step could be done while taking a bath as well.

Diagnosis:

    Mammogram: Mammography is a technique using X-rays to diagnose and locate tumours of the breasts.
    Breast ultrasound: Breast ultrasound utilises sound waves to create pictures of the breasts from the inside.
    Breast MRI:This involves using an effective and attractive field, and radio frequency pulses to create photos of the insides of the breasts.
    Ultrasound-guided biopsy: During this sort of biopsy, utilising ultrasound imaging to discover the bump, a radiologist will give you anesthesia and afterward insert a needle into the lump to evacuate some tissue for assessment under a magnifying lens. Stereotactic biopsy and an X-ray-guided biopsy may also be used.

Possible treatments:

    In case the knot turns out to be cancerous, surgery is typically performed.
    You may have a few discussions with different doctors for additional treatment, including radiation treatment and chemotherapy or hormone treatment.

What You Should Know About Breast Lump Detection

While you cannot cure breast diseases, family history and maturing, but there are some hazards or risks that you can control. Keeping in mind the fact that there is no certain approach to forestall breast cancer, there are things you can do that may bring down the hazard. Here are five approaches to ensure your breast's well-being:

Watch your weight: Being overweight or hefty expands breast cancer chances. This is particularly true after menopause and for women who have put on weight as grown-ups. After menopause, the vast majority of your estrogen originates from fat tissue. Having more fat tissue can heighten your chances of getting breast cancer by raising the estrogen levels. Additionally, women who are overweight have a tendency to have more elevated amounts of insulin, than other hormones. Higher insulin levels have been associated with a few tumors, including breast cancer.
Exercise routinely: Many reviews have found that exercise is the sign of having a healthy breast. Studies show that one to two hours of energetic walking each week, lessened a woman s cancer risk by eighteen percent. Walking ten hours seven days decreased the hazard all the more.
Constrain liquor: Women who have two to five mixed beverages every day have a higher danger of breast cancer than women who have just one drink a day or none . As much as three to six glasses of wine seven days have been found to somewhat increase breast cancer chances. It is not clear how or why liquor raises the hazard. In any case, constraining liquor is particularly essential for women who have other hazard variables for breast cancer, like, breast cancer running in their families.
Restrain time spent sitting: Research has shown that sitting time, regardless of how much exercise you get when you are not sitting, increases the probability of growing cancer, particularly for women. Women who sit six hours or more a day outside of work have a ten percent more serious risk for breast cancer compared to the ladies who sit under three hours a day, and an increased hazard for other cancer types as well.
Stay away from or confine hormone substitution treatment: Hormone Replacement Treatment (HRT) was utilized frequently in the past to control night sweats, hot flashes, and other troublesome manifestations of menopause. In any case, specialists now realize that postmenopausal ladies who take a blend of estrogen and progestin might probably create breast tumors or cancer. Breast cancer disease seems to come back within five years in the wake of ceasing the blend of hormones. Therefore, get a breast cancer test even if you feel a small lump.

5 Ways to Decrease The Chance of Breast Cancer 

Fibroadenomas are benign non carcinogenic tumors that occur in the breasts of women. Although the condition may affect females of any age; spanning from pubescent girls to middle aged ladies, yet it is most commonly diagnosed in young women below 30 years of age. Fibroadenomas can be described as a stiff, smooth, supple marble under the skin of your breasts, which move when touched. These tumors which occur in varied sizes, may shrink or expand with time. Diagnosing through biopsies and treatment by surgeries are commonly employed for such a condition.

Types of fibroadenomas
Fibroadenomas are of two types: simple fibroadenomas and complex fibroadenomas. The simple tumors are usually harmless and almost look the same under the lens of a microscope. On the other hand, the complex tumors are comprised of macro cysts (large fluid-filled sacs) and calcifications (deposits of calcium) which can slightly increase the chance of breast cancer.

What is the primary cause of fibroadenomas?
Doctors aren't able to pinpoint the chief cause of fibroadenomas, but they have reasons to believe that the condition may pertain to the reproductive hormones. The condition may occur during pregnancy or during the use of hormone therapy, owing to which, the tumors may increase in size. The tumors are usually seen to shrink postmenopause, when the hormone levels start to dwindle.

Fibroadenomas are apparent and you may be able to detect them even without a doctor. The marble like tumor within your breasts are usually:
1) painless
2) firm
3) rubbery and elastic
4) easily movable

These tumors can range from being too small to as big as 3 inches or more in diameter. These lumps, which are usually harmless may be a cause of concern if they start to grow or change. Consulting a doctor is duly advised in such cases.

Risks
Fibroadenomas, only in the rarest cases, increase the likelihood of breast cancer. A complex fibroadenoma comprising of cysts or thick tissues called calcifications may aggravate your condition. Causes of concern could be if the tumor pains, a family history of cancer or an event of a questionable biopsy report.

Causes and Symptoms of Fibroadenomas

Breast pain, also known as mastalgia, can be termed as any type of discomfort, pain or tenderness in and around the breast or the underarm region. It can also be accompanied by a sharp pain or a burning sensation. 
There are two major types of breast pain
Cyclical Pain: As the name suggests, this type of pain occurs on a cyclic basis and is linked with one s menstrual cycle. It may happen when one is going through her periods and is influenced by hormonal imbalance. This type of pain is generally not a cause of concern.
Non-Cyclical Pain: This is generally not common and its cause can be linked to a variety of reasons; cancer or a malignant tumour in the breast being the most severe consequence.


Causes of Breast Pain
Lumpy breasts along with soreness and pain can be caused due to fibrocystic breast tissue.
Hormonal imbalance can also lead to pain or discomfort in and around the breast region. Abnormal prolactin limits can also be a contributing factor.
Breast cancer can also lead to pain, mostly in the left breast. Along with the pain, it can also induce a dull ache, tightness or heaviness in the chest.


Treatments for Breast pain
The various treatments for cyclical breast pain include:
Making modifications in the diet
Administering Vitamin E and calcium supplements
Including thyroid hormonal supplements in the diet
Reducing sodium intake in your diet
For non-cyclical breast pain, which is often the cause of cancer, a thorough examination is recommended. A clinical biopsy will be advised if the lumpy tissues make the tumour harder to be detected through a mammogram.
If the pain is on account of an injury, then appropriate painkillers will have to be administered to reduce the pain.


Breast Pain - Understanding the Types and Reasons Behind it

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