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If you search Google for “Treatment of Fibrocystic Breast Diseases”, the results you can get on a medical website are as follows: Fibrocystic breast disease is a condition that does not cause symptoms and does not need to be treated…unless it causes breast pain. All the doctors I spoke to for this story told me that most people fall into the “no symptoms” category, but it’s hard to say exactly the “most” percent is “most” as people without symptoms may not notice that they have these changes. I was clearly not one of the “most” ones.
If your lumpy boobs hurt, if the medical website continues, you can easily fix it. Just stop continuing the consumption of caffeine, alcohol, fatty foods, salty or sweet foods (the doctor I spoke to shows that some studies and a lot of anecdotal evidence suggest that dietary changes are ineffective for some), asports bra wears 24/7. (I’m sure it doesn’t actually work though). Over-the-counter painkillers like ibuprofen can be helpful, but as Hans, Dr. Jambhekal and my own primary care doctor told me, you should not really take them every day.
At various points in the last decade, I have tried all of those household remedies. I did a bit of work on sports bras – the pain became duller than the heated, burning sensation, but I always wear a tight bra. When I put them on the bed I felt claustrophobic to the point of mild panic attacks, so I gave up.
Another potential treatment for pain from the fibrocystic breast is to wait for menopause. This is when breast pain correlated with these masses disappears for most people. This was the “solution” that I was most often offered. It’s as if we should be satisfied with the knowledge that the unbearable pain (probably) will disappear if we wait decades.
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In 2019, I ordered a mammogram to OB-Gyn, as I felt the biggest lump was getting bigger, followed by a diagnostic sonogram that anyone with a dense breast that feels suspicious uplift normally needs to order. Breast density is measured on the A to D scale. Hans says that about 10% of women are categorized into the “A” category (mainly aliases, adipose tissue, no density), 10% are categorized into the “D” (very density), and the rest are categorized into somewhere in the “B” and “C” range. The lower the density of the breast, the easier it is for the doctor to find the mass sitting within the tissue. On X-ray images (including mammograms), the tumor appears white, but the adipose tissue is gray. Tissue inside a very dense breast like me is light in colour and makes them difficult to find those tumors unless you are actually looking through the target sonogram. Simple cysts and fibromatomas appear as black holes in mild tissue.
