Newly diagnosed IBC patients who wish to remain anonymous have provided us with these examples.
I would like to thank you for this web site. This web site has helped me. I was having problems and the doctors was treating me for mastitis with medicine and it wasn’t working. My ultra sound and mammogram said that it was mastitis. I told the surgeon he had to do a biopsy, because I thought that I had IBC. He said he thought I needed another week of medicine and I said no, get me scheduled for surgery next week. Two weeks later they told me that I have IBC. I found your information helpful. Thank you for giving the information to fight this. I am hoping and praying that I get to raise my 2 year old son. I have started the road to fight this and beat it.
When I first experienced pain in my breast, I made an appointment with my internist and my OB/GYN. I found comfort when after both examinations, both doctors separately told me: “The good news is that cancer doesn’t hurt”. I held on to those words for five months before the pain and breast became worse and I was diagnosed with IBC.
I am 53 yrs. old. I was diagnosed with IBC in Jan. 2003. I first noticed something wrong with my left arm. It hurt and I couldn’t raise it as high as usual. I went to the Dr. at a clinic and they started by treating me for Mastitis. They did this for almost a year. I kept telling them something was very wrong. Then my breast started to hurt on the left side. I went to urgent care and the Dr. there said I had cancer and needed to see a surgeon. By then my nipple was inverted. I finally got to see a breast surgeon. He had given me some needle biopsies. They came back negative. I told them something was still wrong. They told me to put warm wash cloths on my nipple for 10 minutes twice a day. That was the strange part. Well that didn’t help and finally on the 24th of Jan. I was given a biopsy during surgery and was told on Jan. 31st of 2004 I had cancer. I had to be very persistent and almost aggressive to find out the truth. Then I told them I wanted a second Dr. to tell me the same thing since it took them so long.
The words “signs” and “symptoms” have different medical meanings. Symptoms are those problems that a patient notices or feels. Signs are those things that a physician can objectively detect or measure. For instance, a patient will feel hot, this is a symptom. The physician will touch the patient’s skin and note that it is warm and moist; this is a sign.
