Beating Breast Cancer | Symptoms And Breast Cancer Treatment

Breast Cancer - It's All About Soul Isn't It

If you love great music with a soulful twist then take a look at - and a listen to this.

Anders Holst -jazz singer - was so moved by the effect that breast cancer had on two of his friends that he has decided to devote a whole month of his life to supporting breast cancer charity.

During the entire month of March 09 he will work to support Susan G. Komen For The Cure ®.

He is using his music, to raise funds for the advancement of breast cancer research, education, screening and treatment and any money raised will be devoted to projects trying to eradicate breast cancer as a life threatening disease.

Anders has recorded a song called “All About Soul” - a jazzy take on the Billy Joel original and all proceeds from sales downloaded from itunes will be devoted to the Susan Komen fund.

His style has been likened to Sting, Seal, Leonard Cohen, Boz Scaggs, Bryan Ferry, and Robert Palmer. His latest album, Romantika, was released at the end of January, and has been praised by the likes of Billboard Magazine, Quincy Jones, Jazziz, and SmoothJazz.com.

Please help if you can. For a direct link to purchase “All About Soul” on iTunes, please visit:

www.andersholst.com/komen

and follow the links from there ....

Labels: anders, breast, cancer, charity, holst, jazz, music, track

posted by Marjory @ 8:02 AM 3 comments

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Breast Cancer Questions and Answers

Gordon and I have been busy this week. We've been working to create a new medical advice question and answer site that we think you'll enjoy and find helpful.

Ever since we started this site we've struggled at times to keep up with your emails and your questions left in the comments section of each blog article. We try - but time is precious at times and its not always easy. Gordon too, with his blood pressure website has the same kind of issues.

So .... here's our idea. We've decided to open up Ask Doctor Cameron - a new style site where you can post your questions about breast cancer or about any other medical issues. If you leave a question about any health issue then you have the benefits of getting health information and answers from the wider community as well as from either (or both) of us.

After long late night hours (and a lot of shouting at times :-) - at computers, not each other) we are finally up and running. Pop over and take a look. We hope you like it.

Here's the link: Ask Doctor Cameron

More soon.
Marjory

Labels: breast-cancer-advice, breast-cancer-questions, medical-advice-online

posted by Marjory @ 7:16 PM 1 comments

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Hot Flashes in Breast Cancer Patients

Here's an article that Gordon recently wrote for another website. We've reproduced it here because it's one of the most common health questions that breast cancer sufferers ask about. Do you have hot flushes or hot flashes? Well, if you do, there may be some hope of relief. Read on .....

Hot Flushes in Breast Cancer Patients
By Gordon Cameron

Hot flushes or hot flashes in breast cancer patients are a common problem.

Many breast cancers are sensitive to circulating estrogen levels and for many women, suppressing the production or the effects of estrogen on the body is a major strategy in their treatment. A lack of estrogen will produce symptoms identical to the menopause and the most unpleasant of these are hot flushes, sweats or hot flashes.

A new research project has looked at the effect of a drug called Megace or megesterol acetate in treating hot flushes in women with breast cancer.

They studied nearly three hundred patients with breast cancer who had completed surgery and chemotherapy and at least four months of tamoxifen treatment for their condition.

Before they took part in the study the women had to have experienced at least ten hot flashes of any severity or at least five severe episodes each week.When the research data was looked at, eighty five percent of the women who took part were on tamoxifen, and forty percent had more than sixty hot flushes per week. Three quarters of them had experienced sweats and flashes for more than six months before they started in the study.

The women were divided into three groups. One group were given a placebo tablet, one group got 20mg of Megace and the other received 40mg of Megace each day. They all took their medicine for three months. A good outcome was defined as completion of treatment with a seventy five percent or greater reduction in hot flushes from that womens starting point.

If the treatment they were on worked well the women were given another three months of the same medication and dose. If they did not get benefit after three months then they were given 20mg a day of Megace on top of what they were already taking.

Reduction of flushings of seventy fiver percent or more was reported in

• only 14% of those women who were on placebo medication
• 65% of those women who were on the 20 mg dose
• 48% of the women who were on the 40 mg dose of drug

In addition, most successes at three months were maintained at six months in seventy seven percent of the women on 20 mg and in eighty one percent of the women on 40 mg per day - but there was no significant impact on other menopausal symptoms like vaginal dryness or joint pains.

For the women taking Megace the main side effects were fluid retention and weight gain, fatigue and sometimes mild depression.

The researchers concluded that Megace was very successful in alleviating sweats and flushes in breast cancer survivors with lasting results at 6 months. They recommended the twenty milligram dose for most women and said that this treatment should be considered for all women with menopause flushing symptoms after breast cancer treatment.

Gordon Cameron is a physician in Edinburgh Scotland. He has a special interest in the symptoms of breast cancer.

Article Source: EzineArticles.com/?expert=Gordon_Cameron
EzineArticles.com/?Hot-Flushes-in-Breast-Cancer-Patients&id=1294228

Labels: breast-cancer, breast-cancer-symptoms, cancer-support, hot-flushes

posted by Marjory @ 8:25 PM 0 comments

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Mammogram - What is a Mammogram

What is a mammogram - do you know the answer?

A mammogram can help to detect breast cancer at the earliest stage and it's an important part of our fight against the breast cancer epidemic - whether or not symptoms of breast cancer are present.

Some of these tests are performed when there is nothing at all to find on breast examination - no lumps and no suspicious problem areas. This is called a screening mammogram. Some women find the procedure uncomfortable - either in the breast itself or they experience shoulder pain because of the arm position. Any discomfort however is short lived and the procedure overall is not too unpleasant.

The other kind of mammogram is called a diagnostic mammogram and this is done when a screening test shows a suspicious area or when the person is aware of a lump in the breast or of some other symptom that could relate to breast cancer.

New digital techniques allow the images to be enhanced and make the screening and diagnostic tests easier for doctors to read. Digital mammography is probably more accurate at picking up problems in women under the age of fifty, or for those who have not yet had their menopause.
The latest versions of breast cancer guidelines say that if a woman over the age or thirty discovers a lump in the breast then both a diagnostic mammography test and an ultrasound scan of the breast should be performed. Ultrasound is a good test to show if a lump is solid or full of fluid - like a simple cyst might be for example. A lump with fluid in it looks dark or black on ultrasound - a solid area looks white because of the way that the sound waves from the ultrasound bounce off it.

When a breast mass is solid, its alignment and shape provide clues as to whether it is benign or cancerous. Usually a benign mass is horizontally aligned with smooth borders, while one that is malignant is vertically aligned with irregular borders. The nature of a solid mass can be clarified by performing an image-guided core-needle biopsy. During this procedure, ultrasound or mammography is used to help a radiologist extract a tissue sample from the mass with a needle. A pathologist evaluates the sample.

But ... for some women who have found a lump in the breast, both the mammogram and the ultrasound might be normal. This is obviously good news but if the lump persists then doctors advise having repeated checks - and in rare cases, if the lump is still present after a month or two - a minor operation to remove it or biopsy it should be performed.

Mammograms and breast ultrasound can save lives. So can self examination of the breasts. When did you last check yourself? Are you breast aware?

Labels: mammogram, mammography, what-is-a-mammogram

posted by Marjory @ 6:07 AM 0 comments

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Symptoms of breast cancer

The Symptoms of Breast Cancer

I often get emails or have comments posted on this breast cancer blog site asking about the symptoms of breast cancer.

Here's a brief summary but please remember - if you have any doubts at all then please go see your doctor for a check as soon as possible.

In most women, breast cancer is first noticed as a painless lump in the breast.

Other symptoms of breast cancer may include:

changes in the size or shape of a breast
dimpling of the skin of the breast
a thickening in the breast tissue
a nipple becoming inverted (turned in)
a lump or thickening behind the nipple
a rash (like eczema) affecting the nipple
a bloodstained discharge from the nipple (this is very rare)
a swelling or lump in the armpit.

Please remember that a pain in the breast is rarely a symptom of breast cancer. In fact, many healthy women find that their breasts feel lumpy and tender before a period.

But some types of benign breast lumps can be painful - so I'm going to say it again and this time in big writing:

Labels: a-lump-in-the-breast, breast-cancer, breast-cancer-symptoms, symptoms-of-breast-cancer

posted by Marjory @ 5:52 AM 1 comments

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Breast Cancer T-Shirts

Labels: breast-cancer, breast-cancer-t-shirt, cancer-sites, cancer-support

posted by Marjory @ 8:42 PM 0 comments

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Breast Cancer and Hip Size

Yikes - can it really be true that hip size is a predictor for the risk of getting breast cancer? A new study suggests that it might be.

Scientists from the UK's Southhampton University have shown that women whose mothers have wide and round hips could be seven times more likely to develop breast cancer

It seems that a women's hip size is a marker of her oestrogen production.

Wide, round hips represent markers of high sex hormone concentrations and if your mother has wide hips then you - the daughter - could be at increased risk of breast cancer.

The study looked at the health of over 6,000 Finnish women born from 1934 to 1944 and comparing it with information on their mothers' hip size. The measurement used was the intercristal diameter -- the distance from hip bone to hip bone.

According to the findings, a woman's risk of breast cancer went up by 60 per cent if her mother's hips were more than 30 cm across. The risk increased with hip size and with the length of time the baby was in the womb.

I'm not sure how this fits into the big picture of breast cancer awareness but it's certainly food for thought.

Labels: breast-cancer, breast-cancer-risk, living-with-cancer

posted by Marjory @ 2:12 PM 4 comments

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Weight Loss and Cancer Risk

Can Losing Weight Reduce Cancer Risk

New research hinting that losing weight cuts the risk of breast cancer is the latest development in the cancer - healthy lifestyle debate.

At a conference in Birmingham UK earlier this month the National Cancer Research Institute heard that middle-aged women who lose weight and exercise twice weekly are 40 per cent less likely to develop breast cancer.

It seems that weight loss was the key factor, followed by a low-fat diet with plenty of oily fish.

Scientists believe weight gain prompts inflammation in fat stores, in turn stimulating breast cells to become cancerous.

Evidence of another link between diet and disease is more ammunition to the growing body of opinion that says the way we conduct our lives has an overwhelming bearing on our future health.

Now all of this is good and well but of course many people who have an exemplary health diet will still develop cancer. The food issue is only a part of the jigsaw in my view - not nearly the whole story but still, I guess that it all helps.

What do you think?

Labels: breast-cancer, cancer-diet, living-with-cancer, weight-loss-cancer-link

posted by Marjory @ 2:01 PM 2 comments

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Too tired.....

As I said after my last Herceptin....I'M KNACKERED! Thank you to all the other Herceptin recipients who e-mailed me to say that I'm not abnormal. I seem to spend most evenings dozing off and feel washed out during the day.

On a happier note, my eyelashes are starting to grow back in again but I am aware they may fall out again. Joy. God, I'm feeling a bit sorry for my self today. Can it be the thought of Herceptin tomorrow? Or just longing for a European vacation? Bit of both perhaps.

Sorry to be less than cheerful. :-(

just joking :-)

Labels: about-marjory, breast-cancer-symptoms, chemotherapy, living-with-cancer

posted by Marjory @ 9:22 AM 3 comments

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Fabulous Day

Well I've just had the most amazing day. It started with Gordon and I meeting the lovely Mr Butterworth who is the plastic surgeon I was referred to for breast reconstruction. The surgery of choice is the Tram Flap-fantastic. As I mentioned before you achieve reconstruction from removal of fat and skin from your tummy. A tummy tuck!!



Now, like most woman my age I have a bit of a spare tyre but I was delighted to hear from the man himself that I barely have enough fat on my tummy for the planned reconstruction ( find that SO hard to believe!) so on no account have I to lose any weight between now and the op. As I was about to embark on a diet to lose about ten pounds this was music to my ears. Imagine, no guilt at over eating, then a nice surgeon removes all the said fat and gives me two lovely breasts!!



As he shook our hands and said he would be in touch nearer