3 Painful Lumps in Only a Month

[Kristal71]

I'm 36 with a positive family history of BC/Sister at 35 years. Anyhow, I've never had any problems until last month. At ovulation time, a shooting pain developed at 12 O'clock and I felt a small lump. Saw my GP and had negative mammo and US. Then I was ref'd to breast clinic doc. She too felt it and thought it probable to be a ~1 CM fat mass but ref'd me to breast surgeon for excision and MRI. Although I'm supposedly on 1st available list, they can't get me in for a month. Meanwhile, more shooting pains and lumps. The 2nd area on the side of my breast and now the 3rd up closer to my armpit/lymph node area. This is all within the last 30 days! Now, what felt like a knife stabbing me, is more like a pitch fork! I live in the country and went ahead and saw a local general surgeon who offered to do the excision within a week. The downside to him doing it is he's not a breast surgeon, they don't do the breast MRIs here and he'd just remove the initial mass. Any opinions on multiple lumps popping up so fast and being so painful? Should I go with the general surgeon or wait for the premium care facility? I'm skeptical on waiting because my sister had a negative mammo and 6 months later had invasive BC in her lymph nodes.Thanks!

[boninclyde]

Very good advice.

[NED Rocks]

I had a very similar situation.  I was breastfeeding my two children at the age of 31 and had 3 golf ball sized lumps appear in my breast in a very short period of time.  I suspected plugged milk ducts, but they would not ressolve and they were rather painful at times.  I finally (a few months later) went to see my OBGYN who agreed with me but did an ultrasound which confirmed fluid filled cysts and plugged milk ducts.  A few months later my breast turned red and doubled in size, we tried treating for mastitis (I never had a fever) with no resolution.  I finally saw a breast surgeon who again attempted antibiotics and used an ultrasound to rule out an abcess, and drained fluid to rule out infection.  She brought me back in a week later for a follow-up on the antibiotics, since there was still no improvment she scheduled an incesional biopsy the very next day because she was convinced it was inflamatory breast cancer.  She sent a frozen section to the lab while I was still under anesthesia which came back positive and then installed my chemo port.  I was seen by the oncologist the next week and started blood tests and diagnostic scans for staging.  My pathology never showed inflammatory cancer yet I continued to be considered IBC through clinical exam.  The week before I visited the surgeon I had additional lumps in my upper breast and armpit.  My primary tumor was 17 cm and I had mets to liver and several areas on the skelatal.

IBC is known to not show up in mamogram, ultrasound or x-ray.  It is rare and extremely aggressive.  

I was diagnosed June 9, 2006; started chemo by the end of the month, had my mastectomy in December, radiation Feb-March 2007.  I currently have no evidence of disease but continue to receive Herceptin and Zometa.

PLEASE get your butt into a breast specialist and make them do the biopsy immediately!!!!  Hopefully you don't have IBC, but it isn't a cancer that you have the luxury of waiting for availability or to make decisions.  Drop the IBC bomb and my story to help draw some attention.  FYI - MD Anderson in Houston, TX has the only IBC clinic - you may want to check them out.

I had never heard of IBC nor of the symptoms prior to my diagnosis.

Good Luck
Jessi

[Cleveland Clinic]

Dear Krystal71:  It is not uncommon for breasts to develop lumps and pain during certain times in the menstrual cycle.  Most breast cancer is not painful.  However, given your sister