Breast Cancer Symptoms Pain

Some breast cancer symptoms include pain.

Among breast cancer symptoms, pain is one of the least common. Breast cancer pain can occur when cancer tissue pushes on nearby nerves or connective tissue. Breast cancer symptoms of pain can happen when the cancer has inflamed the tissue around it so that the breast becomes red and swollen. This is called inflammatory breast cancer.

Changes in the breast are common, even if you don’t have cancer. Breast pain can occur when you are in the few days before your menstrual period. The breast is really sensitive to the progesterone in the body and this causes swelling and soreness of the breast before the menstrual period. Pregnancy can also cause breast pain that is rarely from cancer.

Women who get cysts in their breast can suffer from breast pain that is not breast cancer pain. The cysts push on other breast tissue and cause soreness or pain. You can sometimes feel a breast cyst as a round, smooth ball of liquid inside the breast. Many women get multiple cysts that hurt on both sides of the breast.

Breast pain can occur when the breast is just growing, as in adolescence or when women have fibrocystic breast disease. Fibrocystic breast disease is a condition of very dense breasts with a great deal of connective tissue inside the breasts. It’s important to remember that most changes in the breast and pain in the breast is not cancer at all.

Breast pain may be a symptom of breast cancer.

In rare cases, the breast pain turns out to be breast cancer pain. When it comes to breast cancer symptoms, pain is not one of the more common things you’ll find. Usually, you will find a painless lump in the breast that is firm to the touch and appears affixed to the skin or underlying tissue. Sometimes a breast cancer lump will be tender and will hurt when clothing touches it. The skin may be red around the lump and the redness will be painful.

Breast pain from breast cancer can come and go with the change in your menstrual cycle. Other times, the breast cancer pain happens when you lie on your breast but not at other times. In may hurt underneath your armpits if cancer has spread to the area. You can find it to hard to squeeze your arms to your side because of pain.

If the breast cancer has spread to the bone, you can have extreme pain in the area of bone involved with breast cancer. If the liver has breast cancer in it, you can have pain from swelling of the liver. That pain would be located in the upper right side of your abdomen. If the cancer has spread to the lungs, you may have lung pain and coughing from cancer spots in the lungs.

Breast Cancer Symptoms and Pain are rarely Related

You need to remember that few changes in the breast are really cancer. It is much more likely to have breast pain from a benign lump or cyst in the breast. Infections in the breast can also cause pain in the breast. Hormonal changes can cause pain in the breast, especially in menstruating women.

If you have pain in your breast, you should see your doctor about having a manual breast exam and probably a mammogram. If the doctor cannot find the source of the pain on examination or on mammogram, a MRI of the breast is sometimes done. This can tell if there is a cancer or lump in the breast.

Some women have a condition called cyclical mastalgia. Other women have non-cyclical mastalgia. Mastalgia means “breast pain”. Cyclical mastalgia is breast pain that occurs before each period. Non-cyclical mastalgia is breast pain that happens in women over forty. The pain is not related to having a menstrual cycle but is not related to cancer, either.

Written by Dr. Christine Traxler
6/30/09
Reviewed by Natalie Thomas
7/8/09