Breast Health on Shine

Take Your Breasts into Your Own Hands

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Breast cancer was once identified as a “classic” cancer among women over fifty and in recent years it has always puzzled me to hear of young women diagnosed with this frightening cancer. It seems to be affecting women younger and younger. It was just over a year ago that I heard…

Kissing off caffeine, Day 3: In which I finally have a realization

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Something lovely and miraculous happened on the third day of drastically reducing my caffeine intake. I woke up.

When I did wake up, I actually felt OK. Not perky, but so much better. Maybe it helped that I didn't look like death anymore and that I didn't feel nearly as crabby and groggy as I had for the last few days.

Kissing off caffeine, Day 2: I look and feel like h-e-l-l

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I am making my way through my half-pot of half-caffeinated coffee one cup at a time. I am spacing out the coffee like it is tequila, alternating big glasses of water with the good stuff. I am taking time to get up, walk around, stretch. I am trying my best to think positively with kind reminders to myself about how good I am being to my body, what a good job I am doing of taking care of myself.

But I'll be honest, this whole thing bites it. Big time.

Kissing off caffeine, Day 1: Please God, grant me mercy

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Remember how brilliantly convenient it was to start my big caffeine reduction project because I was out of coffee? Yeah, not such a fabulous idea after all.

I started off my morning convinced I could get through on some tea (a blend of black and herbal, but with less caffeine than my regular ginormous mug of coffee). And to be honest, it wasn't like this was going to be It. The End. Buh-bye Caffeine.

Kissing off caffeine: My scary wake-up call

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What in the world do your boobs have to do with drinking -- or not drinking -- your favorite morning beverage? A lot. Some might even say, twice as much as you'd think.

For the last month, I've been fighting being frantic over a lump in my breast. It hasn't been easy. I've been examined, mammogrammed, and examined again. I still have another mammogram to get through next week -- this one an ultrasound, rather than the traditional boob-on-a-shelf variety -- and hopefully it will confirm what the other checks have shown.

I have to wait HOW LONG to schedule my mammogram?

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Today, I am having my first mammogram. Although I write about a lot of personal things, I didn't really intend to tell all of the interwebs that I am about to have some really high-tech, expensive portraits of my breasts taken this afternoon. The thing is, I am feeling really lucky that I got the appointment at all.

Some breast cancers cure themselves. Here's why you should get a mammography anyway

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A very interesting study just published in the Archives of Internal Medicine suggests that some breast cancers, if undetected, may simply resolve spontaneously. Media coverage has emphasized the possibility that breast cancer may, at times, simply go away.

The reporting on this makes me nervous, because I see potential for harm in it. Mammography rates are lower than they should be already, and I worry this study might induce some women to opt out of screening. That would be ill advised.

Breast Lift: New Surgery for Pancake Boobs?

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Later this month at an annual meeting, experts from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) will present a new procedure that they say will correct "severely deflated, sagging breasts." The new surgery fixes so-called pancake boobs without the use of breast implants....

Breast Cancer Awareness Month: Healing the whole woman

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October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month in the United States . While I have met many survivors and women going through treatment, I actually had my first intimate experience with the prospect of breast cancer only a week ago.

My daughter's nanny, who is an integral part of our...