Have you had a mammogram?
Are you afraid to get one because of how it may feel?
Are you worried about the results?
How did the Mammogram Challenge start:
In 2019 most of my friends turned 40, the age where most start getting mammograms. I wanted to challenge them to get mammograms but I thought it would be best to open this to women all over because I'm passionate about saving women from breast cancer or helping them through it. Either way, a mammogram is your start.
Why am I doing this?
It's simple, I am a breast cancer survivor and carry the Breast Cancer Susceptibility Gene (BRACA 1) Breast and Ovarian cancer runs through my family. My mom, sister and a couple of aunts are survivors. I've lost family to breast and ovarian cancer so needless to say, this is important to me. I don't want your family to feel what my family has been through.
Did you know?
Facts about Mammograms
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Finding breast cancer early reduces your risk of dying from the disease by 25-30% or more. Women should begin having mammograms yearly at age 40, or earlier if they're at high risk.
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Mammography is a fast procedure (about 20 minutes), and discomfort is minimal for most women. The procedure is safe: there's only a very tiny amount of radiation exposure from a mammogram.
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If you have dense breasts or are under age 50, try to get a digital mammogram. A digital mammogram is recorded onto a computer so that doctors can enlarge certain sections to look at them more closely.
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If you're at high risk of breast cancer, have a strong family history of breast or ovarian cancer, or have had radiation treatment to the chest in the past, it's recommended that you start having annual mammograms at a younger age (often beginning around age 30). Discuss your personalized screening plan with your healthcare provider.
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Mammograms can still miss 20% of breast cancers that are simply not visible using this technique. Other important tools — such as breast self-exam, clinical breast examination, and possibly ultrasound or MRI — can and should be used as complementary tools, but there are no substitutes or replacements for a mammogram.
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According to the American Cancer Society, about 10% of women (1 in 10) who have a mammogram will require more tests. Only 8-10% of these women will need a biopsy and about 80% of these biopsies will turn out not to be cancer.
-sited from Breastcancer.org
Facts about Breast Cancer
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One in eight women in the United States will be diagnosed with breast cancer in her lifetime.
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Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in women.
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Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death among women.
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Each year it is estimated that over 252,710 women in the United States will be diagnosed with breast cancer and more than 40,500 will die.
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Although breast cancer in men is rare, an estimated 2,470 men will be diagnosed with breast cancer and approximately 460 will die each year.
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On average, every 2 minutes a woman is diagnosed with breast cancer and 1 woman will die of breast cancer every 13 minutes.
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Over 3.3 million breast cancer survivors are alive in the United States today.
-sited from the National Breast Cancer Foundation, Inc. website