subject: Breast Pain After Breast Cancer Surgery Or Radiation Therapy - Nurse's Report
[print this page] If you're currently a breast cancer patient or survivor as I am, you may be interested in a new study. If you're scheduled for or you've had any kind of breast radiation treatment or breast cancer surgery including radiation therapy, axillary lymph node dissection (lymph node removal), and/or breast conserving surgery, you may be interested in knowing about the recent study done by Danish scientists regarding breast pain.
The study was revealing and confirms what many women with breast cancer who've had surgery or other breast procedures think. The pain they're having in their breast or breasts is directly related to the treatment, therapy or surgery they had even if it occurs two years later.
The scientists were able to confirm that at least half of 3000 women in the study had experienced this pain. It's not likely that the women were aware they would be experiencing this post-radiation therapy or post-surgical pain or at least not two years later.
Following surgery, the average length of time when the pain started, was about two years. The pain was moderate to severe and only one in five of the women had told her doctor about it.
In breast cancer patients or survivors not in the study, the likelihood of reporting this breast pain to their doctors, went up if they were younger women or if they had several breast procedures, specifically radiation therapy, axillary lymph node dissection and/or surgery to conserve the breasts. It's not known how many women have never reported this pain not realizing there may be a connection.
It's already known that lymphedema can occur following lymph node dissection and women can feel a golf-ball size or tennis-ball size lump in their armpit, causing pain and discomfort ongoing.
There is a nerve that runs under the arm that may have been damaged while doing some of these breast cancer therapies, procedures or surgeries, in turn causing the breast pain later.
Doctors who know about the study may try to find ways to avoid damaging these nerves however there may be doctors and surgeons who aren't aware of this new study. If you're scheduled for any type of breast cancer surgery or radiation therapy, you may want to discuss this study with your doctor to make sure he or she is aware of it. You may be able to save yourself a lot of breast pain down the road. Also, many women today find they have more options and are choosing alternative treatments or methods for a more natural route to curing breast cancer, as I did, many years ago.
by: Helen Hecker
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