The past week was medical stuff ... due to the fact that my
mother had breast cancer I am considered high risk so they (medical
professionals) want me to have a mammogram and such every year now since I
turned 50. I don’t like getting an x-ray
... seems counter intuitive to zap yourself with radiation every year to check
if you have cancer ... so I have been investigating other options. During
my research I discovered that this technology is used a lot as a diagnostic
tool (not just for breast exams) and is reputed to find the potential for tumor
growth much earlier than an x-ray and eliminates the radiation factor unless
absolutely necessary.
This is kind
of personal yet I worry that many women are not aware that they have any other
choice outside of the standard mammogram.
So if you need more info here is a link to a website,
http://www.iact-org.org/articles/articles-second-look.html read this one start to finish as it presents
both sides of the story.
I still take the report to my doctor and get a referral for
an ultrasound of any suspicious areas, which they always did after the mammogram
anyway, now I just skip the mammogram and the radiation. This is new and controversial but for the
earlier treatment alone I believe it is worth investigating.
I would like to speak to this..as a mammo tech. I certainly am not against thermography--the more screening tests we have for cancer the better! That being said, its not always a doctor looking at your results--do check your qualifications at whatever place you go. Also, as far as the radiation dose goes you receive about 0.2mGy of radiation for a mammo--background radiation from concrete, the sun, etc is about 2.5-3mGy a year-the dose is very low. Why don't we just do ultrasound? Because all it tells us is if its solid or fluid. It doesn't tell us where, whats involved. One test that is proving very good without radiation is MRI, but unfortuneatly not very available.
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