Breast Cancer Insight
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The effects of breast cancer can be related to the cancer itself or to having treatment for breast cancer.
The stages of breast cancer determine what kind of breast cancer effects you get. Localized breast cancer gives few effects of breast cancer.
Invasive breast cancer can give a lot of effects of breast cancer. This occurs when the breast cancer cells have traveled to other body areas or within the breast itself.
Even just having a breast lump removed can have breast cancer effects. Things like chemotherapy for breast cancer cells have a greater effect on breast cancer.
Having radiation or hormone therapy can contribute to effects of breast cancer. These can make having breast cancer treatment very miserable. Sometimes the treatment has greater effects of breast cancer than does the breast cancer itself.
Breast cancer alone can have effects you might notice. A breast lump can hurt if it is next to a nerve or if it is large. If you have inflammatory breast cancer, the entire breast hurts. Swelling of the breast can be painful, too.
Invasive breast cancer is when breast cancer cells travel beyond where the cancer started. It can mean cancer that has spread to other body areas. Invasive breast cancer has effects of breast cancer that depend on where the breast cancer has traveled to.
If the breast cancer cells have traveled to the armpit lymph nodes, it means that the armpit might be swollen. This is one of the stages of breast cancer that requires more surgery and chemotherapy than a stage 0 or stage 1 breast cancer.
If the breast cancer cells have traveled to the lungs, you can get chest pain, coughing or coughing of blood. If the breast cancer cells have traveled to the brain, you can get seizures, headaches and personality changes. If the breast cancer cells have traveled to the liver, you can get a swollen abdomen and you can turn yellow from liver failure.
If you have surgery to remove breast cancer cells or to treat invasive breast cancer, you will have swelling, pain and tenderness to the affected area. You may have armpit tenderness if the surgeon took lymph nodes out. If too many lymph nodes are removed, you can get swelling of the arm on the side of the surgery.
You can have an imbalance in your posture if one breast is removed and the other is intact. This can give you neck, back and shoulder pain. You might have to have physical therapy to remove these kinds of pain.
Other effects of breast cancer surgery include the possibility of infection, bleeding, blood clots or fluid collection in the surgical site. Numbness and tingling of the chest area can occur if nerves are cut during surgery.
Breast cancer radiation kills remaining breast cancer cells in invasive breast cancer. You can feel really tired if you have breast cancer radiation. The skin over the treated area can be sore, itchy, tender and very dry.
The skin can also become moist and “weepy”. You’ll want to expose the irradiated area to as much air as possible to heal the skin overlying the breast cancer cells or the breast lump.
Don’t put any deodorant or creams on irradiated areas unless the doctor approves of it. The skin is very sensitive during the irradiation time. Creams or deodorant can damage the skin tissue if applied inappropriately. The skin changes usually heal but there can be a permanent color change to the skin after all the radiation treatments.
Chemotherapy is done for invasive breast cancer and for the higher stages of breast cancer. The effects of breast cancer chemotherapy depend on the drugs used in the therapy. Some drugs have few side effects. Others have:
Doctors will give you medicines for diarrhea and vomiting. Still, you will feel tired as though you have the flu when you get chemotherapy. Hair loss can be dramatic and traumatic for you. You can be at a higher risk for infection if you have chemotherapy. For this reason, you should stay away from anyone who is ill.
Long term effects of breast cancer chemotherapy include a permanently weakened heart. Secondary cancers like leukemia or blood cancer can occur with chemotherapy. Some cancer drugs have a negative effect on the ovaries. Some women can go into menopause after receiving certain types of chemotherapy. Other women can go on to have babies after treatment for breast cancer with chemotherapy.
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"This website is for all breast cancer patients, their families and friends. I want people to know that they can overcome this disease by learning what to do, where to go for great medical help, how to deal with insurance and all the other problems facing them.
I have worked with some great people to make this web site easy to understand and devoted to helping you. Please let me know if anything doesn't help you or if we can do something more that would be useful to you.
The most important factor in a person getting healthy is their personal determination and their will to be better. You have to summon that determination and then take the steps described here - we are here to help and support you."
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