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Monday, July 7, 2025

Are you ready for your Breast Screening?

by

1350 days ago
20211026
Jyoti Deonarine (RR) Mammographer  Pink Hibiscus Breast Health Specialists

Jyoti Deonarine (RR) Mammographer Pink Hibiscus Breast Health Specialists

Jy­oti Priya De­onar­ine

Screen­ing for breast can­cer means look­ing for signs of breast can­cer in all women, even if they have no symp­toms. The goal of screen­ing is to catch can­cers ear­ly. Ear­ly-stage can­cers are eas­i­er to treat than lat­er-stage can­cers, and the chance of sur­vival is high­er. Rou­tine screen­ing for breast can­cer low­ers one’s risk of dy­ing of breast can­cer.

Every day at Pink Hi­bis­cus Breast Health Spe­cial­ist Cen­tre many pa­tients are booked to have their Breast Screen­ing done, we are al­ways bom­bard­ed by calls from pa­tients -

“How to pre­pare for a Mam­mo­gram?”

To pre­pare for a mam­mo­gram on­ly takes a few sim­ple steps and a few help­ful tips :-

When is the right time to sched­ule your ap­point­ment?

Your breast screen­ing should be sched­uled when your breasts are least ten­der; for women who are not in­to menopause, this is usu­al­ly dur­ing the week af­ter your men­stru­al pe­ri­od.

Can I have a mam­mo­gram if I am breast­feed­ing?

Lac­tat­ing breasts tend to be dense be­cause they are filled with milk which can make in­ter­pret­ing mam­mo­grams more dif­fi­cult. There­fore it is rec­om­mend­ed for women to com­plete­ly fin­ish lac­tat­ing be­fore hav­ing their mam­mo­grams done. If a pa­tient is symp­to­matic they can still be seen by a physi­cian and a breast ul­tra­sound can be per­formed in the in­ter­im.

What should I bring?

It is al­ways ad­vis­able for pa­tients to walk with their pre­vi­ous imag­ing and re­ports (mam­mo­grams and breast ul­tra­sounds) for a com­par­a­tive study to be per­formed and any changes can be not­ed.

What can I wear?

Pa­tients are ad­vised to wear a two-piece out­fit, so it’s eas­i­er to re­move your top and bra for your screen­ing ex­am­i­na­tion.

On the day of the ex­am, pa­tients are ad­vised to avoid us­ing :-

Pow­der

Lo­tions

Creams

Per­fumes

De­odor­ants un­der their arms, breast and chest area. Some pa­tients ask “why?”. It is sim­ply be­cause cer­tain prod­ucts con­tain mi­cro­scop­ic ma­te­ri­als and par­ti­cles which can mim­ic mi­cro­cal­ci­fi­ca­tions (specks of cal­ci­um) on a mam­mo­gram. In a pre­vi­ous ar­ti­cle men­tion was made that the mor­phol­o­gy of cal­ci­fi­ca­tions is an im­por­tant fac­tor in de­cid­ing whether they are typ­i­cal­ly be­nign or not, there­fore by not ap­ply­ing these prod­ucts it re­duces this false neg­a­tive re­port and there is no con­fu­sion by the ra­di­ol­o­gist re­port­ing on the im­ages.

To en­sure this is done, cleans­ing wipes are pro­vid­ed to re­move de­odor­ant or any oth­er prod­ucts ap­plied to the skin in the area of ex­am­i­na­tion.

Can I eat?

Yes! You can ab­solute­ly have your reg­u­lar meals when at­tend­ing your breast screen­ing ap­point­ment.

So there you have it, some sim­ple tips to guide you with your prepa­ra­tion when you have sched­uled your breast screen­ing ap­point­ment.

Don’t be afraid of a mam­mo­gram. If you know what will hap­pen and how to get your­self ready for the pro­ce­dure, your fears will ease. It’s nor­mal to feel anx­ious, but there’s no need to be so afraid that you put off the process. A mam­mo­gram can save your life.

Jy­oti De­onar­ine (RR)

Mam­mo­g­ra­ph­er

Pink Hi­bis­cus Breast Health Spe­cial­ists


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