Once every month…
Stand before a mirror. Don’t forget to undress completely (and shut the door properly!) Hands akimbo — place your hands on your hips — and press your waist firmly to tense the chest muscles.
Look at your breasts. Any abnormal change in size, shape, or color? Any swelling, dimpling, or bulging? Any redness, rashes, or orange-peel appearance?
Look at you nipples. Has the position changed? Is it inverted, pushed inward instead of sticking out?
Raise you arms and repeat the check of the breasts and nipples as above. Any changes?
Milk your breasts! Press the nipples slightly. Did any fluid come out? Is it watery, milky, bloody, or yellowish?
Lie down flat, facing the ceiling! Feel your breasts. Use the pad of the fingers of your right hand to feel the left breast, and vice versa. Use firm smooth, small circular motions. Cover the entire breast. Move your fingers up and down, in rows, orderly, till the entire breast is massaged. Check from the collar bone above to the top of the abdomen below; from the cleavage at the middle to the armpit at the sides. Leave no stones unturned!
Lie down, supine, as above. Place your right arm under your head. Use your left hand to check the right breast as described above, and vice versa. Don’t forget to remember not to leave any stones unturned!
If you are uncomfortable about any changes, see your doctor. If you notice a lump, don’t slump, don’t scream — over 80% of lumps are not cancers! Still, see your doctor. Take your breasts seriously!
…once every month.
