No doubt you’ve seen the headline: Breast self-exams (BSEs) to check for breast cancer don’t work.
I was pretty annoyed to find out that not only was the occasional halfhearted boob mauling that I did a waste of medical and diagnostic time, but worse, the guilt I felt over not mauling regularly was totally unnecessary too.
As a health editor I’m supposed to be a role model with positive habits—and that includes doing something as simple as squeezing my girls every now and then to make sure they aren’t harboring breast cancer. I felt even more guilty on those rare occasions when a friend (with obviously poor judgment) would ask me to be her boob-check buddy, because I would lie about my BSE commitment. “Yes! I checked my breasts in the shower this month,” I’d say. “A-OK. Not a bump to be felt. Pinky promise. And you?”
Now I know how my grandpa felt when he found out that Saint Christopher, who oversaw his safe travels for decades, was dethroned. He didn’t really believe in the guy, but he kept the little statue in the car, and that meant something, didn’t it? I may not have been as “self-examinatory” as I should have been, but my laminated BSE card was always there in the shower as a talisman, no matter how lax I was.
So now what? Instead of feeling good because I suddenly look smart (instead of just lazy), I feel inspired to new vigilance. I should be examining my breasts! I don’t care what the headlines say. I have a strong and sudden urge to feel myself up.
And so I should, some experts say (even in the face of the anti-BSE news), because that’s what it’s all about: being proactive and at one with your boobage. “I don’t want patients to get the wrong message from this news and stop paying attention to their breasts,” says Helen Krondiras, MD, assistant professor of surgery at the School of Medicine at the University of Alabama and medical director of the university’s Interdisciplinary Breast Center.
“Even if BSEs don’t impact survival rates, you still need to know your breasts well enough to be able to report to your doctor if something feels different,” says Dr. Krondiras. However you do that—examining your breasts, looking in the mirror, or playing some squeeze-the-melon game with your partner—it’s a good thing.
And Dr. Krondiras isn’t so quick to act on research done in another country (the subjects of the recent analysis were from China and Russia) with a different patient population, anyway. “We don’t yet know if we can extrapolate what happened in China to a big group in the U.S.,” she says.
So now I’m pumped. Tell me not to do something and I’m all over it. Excuse me now; I need to take a shower and make sure my BSE card is still there. Take this moment to get to know your own boobs, OK? Pinky promise?
(PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES)
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