The Berkeley Wellness Newsletter recently posted an article on when women should receive a mammogram. For women over 50, mammograms can save lives. The American Cancer Society, among other health authorities, recommend getting a mammogram once a year after age 40.
However, if you have risk factors such as mother, sister, or aunt that have had breast cancer, they recommend doing regular self-exams, and reporting any irregularity to your doctor immediately. But because breast tissue is so dense in premenopausal women, mammograms are not as accurate.
An important tip, make sure that the place you go to get your mammogram will keep your images on file, so you can always have them to look back on in case you have an abnormal x-ray at some point. You can even go so far as to ask for an image for your own records. Some clinics and centers will give you your own image to keep. My grandmother had this problem, when she was in her 60's, she had something show up on a mammogram and the doctor asked if she had records of her previous x-rays. Well, the hospital she went to for some of her mammograms when she was in her 50's had closed, and she had no way to retrieve those images. Has anyone had a similar experience?
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