BREAST SELF EXAMINATION

I was taught very well as a professional nurse to encourage the first line of care, PREVENTION.

Prevention is better than cure. For most of us, this has no impact at all. We would not pay attention to our own health 'til we feel something aches.

Today for my DIY Monday, I would like to instill to you ladies out there (not necessarily excluding men) how important preventing breast cancer is.

Cancer progresses because of a lot of factors. Some modifiable and the others not. Non-modifiable factors include the genes that you carry, age and sex. They are so-called "non"-modifiable for it means, you can never change these facts about you. So, we cannot do anything about it.

On the other hand, the modifiable ones include your lifestyle, living environment, health perception, your diet and basically the stress level you get from all of these as you deal with every day life. And this is where we should concentrate on since you can do something about it.

You should be aware that your lifestyle covers basically the way you live your life. To know more about the classifications and in which you belong to, click here. But the most important thing I would want to focus on are your habits in addition to the classification of lifestyle you own. If it's your habit to wear a wired bra, all day, all night, then that could be a factor of compromising your breast. Any ill-fitting and tight garment suppressed onto your body isn't advisable. Allow rest time by not wearing one when you sleep. Or if you're just at home in your own time.

If you are into piercing and tattooing, where your living environment and peers may have influenced your preferences of accessorizing, you have to heighten up your health perception by understanding the consequences of such procedures and also, the way to care for it to avoid infection. Also, understanding the signs and symptoms of the breast cancer, you may detect it early and may be treated by surgery or chemotherapy.

Your diet may also affect your actual health since there are agents in the food that we eat that may induce carcinogens in the body, hence activating cancer cells instantly. Some of us also have a vice or two. It is very important that we understand these in combination with the non-modifiable factors of having cancer to be able to avoid unnecessary misdiagnosis or worse, a late one.

Stress may be considered the biggest modifiable factor as severe levels of stress put the cells of the body into a rattle. This maybe due to the workload you may have, conflicts at work, unsettled dues, family disputes, difficulties belonging and/or but not limited to identity crisis. These are just but some of the common causes of stress. But one thing we need to know, is that, if there are ENDORPHINS which are known as the happy hormones, there are stress hormones also and they are CORTISOL and EPINEPHRINE which basically put up all organs into an alert mode and is released to warn them of an impending work to aid the body to adopt to a "fight or flight" response. If your body will be exposed to too much stress, for prolonged periods of time, there will be an overload of these hormones in the blood stream and this will tire up and overuse your vital organs sooner or later.

Now, in addition to the knowledge of how we can prevent Breast cancer by understanding the factors that may cause it, here is an illustration that you should know by heart or at least save in your phone so that you have your own guide at all times.

On the other hand, here is how you perform a Breast Self Examination. It's advisable to do this privately as before you take a bath in front of the mirror or after on the bed with a pillow underneath to lift your chest to facilitate palpation. If you aren't sure if you're doing it right, have it examined by a professional. Once 1-3 symptoms are felt and marked positive, do consult a doctor right away.