Anyone quit doing mammograms? (colonoscopy, cyst, painful, polyps)

[Sand&Salt]

Inspired by the colonoscopy post, I am curious.

I had my last one at 50, and decided no more. False positives and other reasons.

Anyone else?

ETA, I do get colonoscopies. Had polyps. Each cancer is different...

[Arya Stark]

Yes. I have never gotten one and I am not going to.

I have heavily researched the issue and come to the conclusion that they are not worth it for me. I am getting thermal tests and stocking up on vitamin D.

I think here is even more evidence that mammography can be harmful than colonoscopy.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4582264/

[WellShoneMoon]

Age 73, I still get one every year, because why not?

[PriscillaVanilla]

I still get them, but they aren't 100% accurate, that's for sure. But no medical test can be 100% accurate.

I still think women should get them and if they don't, they should consider an alternative of thermography, which doesn't involve radiation.

[cb2008]

I stopped because they are just too painful. I think there is a new method that is patient controlled which i might consider.

[oldgardener]

One of my sisters caught it so early with her annual mammogram, she didn't need to have her breast removed or need chemo....if she hadn't had the mammogram, she would have needed both, or eventually died from it like two of my other sisters who never got mammograms.


With four sisters and two aunts with breast cancer, why would I not?

[movinon]

If I still had breasts, I'd have mammograms, uncomfortable or not.

At 53, I was diagnosed with Stage 1 breast cancer. My routine mammogram found it. Twenty years later I'm still fine. I had a double mastectomy with no chemo nor radiation. I'd always had lumpy/fibrocystic breasts so I'd been getting thermograms as well for years with no other issues. Then my number came up. But because of my built-in lumpiness, I felt the best course of action was to remove the culprits as I viewed them as ticking timebombs from that point forward. I've never regretted my decision.

Just saying . . .

[Arya Stark]

I am considering doing this..

https://www.healthline.com/health-ne...mmogram-122815

[Parnassia]

Do we really need a repeat of the previous thread with different details? Gotta suspect your motivation. OP you KNOW it will just start another useless debate. Those who will do it and why, those who won't do it and why (and who they are is pretty predictable), those who will bend over backwards and dredge up every statistic on complications to justify their POV despite the fact that their situation won't be directly applicable to anyone else's. Anyone who is truly so ignorant about mammograms that they're hoping to learn something from this thread won't. They'll hear a bunch of anecdotes, opinions, possibly a list of carefully selected links to fearmonger stories.

FWIW I did get mammograms. No indications that I was any more prone to cancer than anyone else. My first ever mammogram found cancer (so much for radiation causing or smashing spreading anything) and another one years later found it again. Same type, different spot. Because of the first diagnosis, the second was found early enough to preclude needing further treatment. Now that I've gotten rid of the primary problem(s) I won't be wanting this test in future (guess that means I've quit?). I happen to be pleased as punch that the test enabled me to stick around longer than if I hadn't had them. End of story.

Knock yourselves out folks, I'm out.

[Lbjen]

Well I only ever had one, at age 39, and 6 months later a very visible tumor developed, which happened to have a few hidden friends, and I had a double mastectomy. And I still tell all my friends to get their annual mammograms and colonoscopies.

There’s nothing like knowing you could have easily died from something you survived, if you had waited longer to act on it. The fear of what could have happened if the visible tumor had not shown itself when it did, still haunts me years later.