Symptoms and Signs of Breast Cancer | Pinktober Awareness Month

October is not only the month of changing colors of leaves from green to red and orange. But it is also the month of pink color that’s why it is called Pinktober. The significance behind the acknowledged term is to create awareness regarding Cancer. In this article, we are going to shed light on symptoms and signs of breast cancer with regards to Pinktober awareness month.

Symptoms and Signs of Breast Cancer

Pinktober has now become the symbol of celebrating the success stories of Breast Cancer survivors, getting acknowledged with the symptoms and signs, and showing support to the cause.

Pinktober Awareness Month

When the time announced the arrival of October, the prime minister house of Pakistan turned pink in order to commencement the awareness program of Breast Cancer.

The month-long programs will schedule to have seminars, walks, discussions, activities so as to make more people acknowledge with Pinktober. If we talk about Pakistan, our country has the highest rest of Breast Cancer patients all over Asia as approx above 50000 cases per year.

Now, this could be because we don’t have much-subjected awareness among people. We are still not accustomed to the causes and its possible treatment yet.

The major difference comes from the Rural and Urban population. Our rural areas are still not developed with all the modern necessities.

 From the infrastructure of hospitals to the lack of availability of medical professionals and then of course illiteracy rate. These factors play a huge rule in raising the bar of breast cancer higher in females. They don’t have access to basic facilities to diagnose and initial cure for cancer.

Symptoms & Signs of Breast Cancer

Today, we are going to talk about the symptoms and signs of breast cancer and its causes and initial treatment.

What is Breast Cancer? What are types of Breast Cancer?

Breast cancer births in a woman’s body when the unusual mutations happen in DHA which majorly disturbs the cell growth and thus cancer occurs.

This mutation explained above allows cells to grow in an abandoned way which ultimately becomes cancer to the breast. Early diagnosis plays a pivotal role in controlling the further growth of these cells.

It doesn’t occur randomly or just one day. The inheritance in the family, your lifestyle can be the cause of normal cells becoming cancer. But the study is vague that we cannot predict promptly.

Breast Cancer Causes:

We already know medically it has proven that breast cancer happens when normal cells become to grow abnormally. Basically, these re the cells when they spread in abundance cause lumps around that area. That’s how doctors know that there might be the development of cancer cells.

Researchers have been discussing and trying to find the proper causes of breast cancer. Now it could be your eating habits, your not so healthy lifestyle, environmental issues, medical history or inheritance from parents.

In most cases, it comes from parents’ history only. More often than not if your mother or sister or aunt has a history related to this cancer, then there might be a chance of you developing the same. However again there’s a lesser chance.

 Sometimes a person with a higher risk has no history but a person with lesser chance develops the symptoms.

Understanding Breast Cancer Stages

With a better understanding of the stages of breast cancer, you may know how much cells have grown to become cancer.

Doctors have various ways to identify breast cancer stages. The process of identifying cancer and how much it has spread, it’s called staging.

Cancer labeled itself in to 4 stages. It grows step by step from diagnosing stage to the most severe. The stages will define how serious your cancer is and what sort of treatment it’s required.  

As we know, the initial examination will identify the stages of cancer. The

In order to understand the stages in a more elaborative way, you need to know:

• Stage 0: This is the diagnosing stage where the doctors identified your cancer early. Its presence is around your breast only and in the form of lumps.
• Stage I: From this stage, it becomes invasive which means it has started affecting the healthy cells but on a very minor extent.
• Stage II: Cancer may or may not be in lymph nodes. But it has a fair chance of growing more.
• Stage III: This stage is the alerting stage due to the hasty expansion of cancer. It’s now crossing the chest and armpit areas.
• Stage IV: Cancer has spread beyond the breast and chest area. It’s now become dangerous due to the growth in the lungs, bones, and brain. This is also called metastatic breast cancer.

Symptoms and Signs of Breast Cancer

After studying about the Breast Cancer, its stages and cause, we are now going to talk about symptoms and the initial signs of breast cancer.

Many people have different signals in the body that may alarm them to visit the doctor as soon as possible. Their initials symptoms might vary from another person. A breast lump or mass is one thing that alerts the person regarding breast cancer.

To be more accurate, the presence of breast cancer may cause a disturbance in the skin around the area. This means redness, swelling, or irritation.

Medical researchers have diagnosed major initial symptoms so that a person can keep a check. During Pinktober and the sessions we have, the doctors give elaborative demos.

These demos explain how women, themselves, keep a check on their health. And if they feel any of these symptoms mentioned below, they must see the doctor.

These initial indications are as follows:

1. New lump in the breast or the area around breast or underarm.
2. Swelling around your breast
3. Redness in that area.
4. The visible difference in size.
5. Unusual discharge from the nipple.
6. Dimping around your nipple.
7. Constant redness and itching.
8. Changes of the lymph node

Breast Cancer Symptoms in women are more severe and painful. However, Males do experience such strong symptoms of Breast Cancer.

They observe pain in their breast and the inward turn or retract of the nipple. Since most males don’t check the lumps on their own hence no medical attention which means difficulty in early diagnosis.

Once you identified symptoms, your doctor may take some medical examinations. There are several ways to identify the presence and stages of breast cancer. The most common of them are physical examination, biopsies, blood tests, bone tests, and mammograms which is an X-Ray of a breast.

Treatment of Breast Cancer:

This has now become a myth that cancer is incurable. The last stage of cancer may still have a low surviving ratio. As for Breast Cancer, the treatments are very advanced and it’s definitely medicable.

Generally, all types of cancer follow the same path of treatment. When doctors plan the whole plan of surgery, they have two agendas in mind:

• To remove the cells completely which causes cancer.
• To prevent cancer from recurrence.

The treatment of Breast Cancer is a combination of surgeries, radiation therapy, chemotherapy, hormone therapy, immunotherapy, and targeted therapy.

These are not compulsory treatments. Basically, they vary according to the stage and according to the type. As a patient, you have full liberty to talk to your doctor and discuss the treatment your body can handle.

You can even talk to breast cancer survivors and see their point of view regarding the possible treatments. There are various support groups to help you with this.

This will give you clear conscience about which way to go for. You must be mentally and physically comfortable with whatever the procedure your body needs.

Breast Cancer Survivors:

As dreaded as it sounds, but there are many breast cancer survivors who went through this whole modus operandi and came out hale and hearty. Everything depends on early diagnosis. That’s why the doctors always emphasize to self-check for the visible symptoms.

The surviving ratio of this cancer is based upon two main factors. At what stage your cancer got diagnosed and second, what sort of treatment you’re receiving.

We, the Pakistani women, are standing on the risky mark. The rates are rapidly increasing because of lack of knowledge regarding this.

Through such awareness camps in the month of Pinktober, the basic agenda is to create more familiarity. We all know Pakistan has higher rates but it’s our responsibility to avoid the bar getting high.

Given that the Pinktober is still going on, I highly urge you to attend awareness programs. With the dangerous increase of this cancer among women, it is our responsibility to edify ourselves first.

You can also have a look at some of Pinktober crafts and creative ideas.

I hope this article helps you with a better understanding of symptoms and signs of breast cancer and gives you a clear idea about Pinktober as awareness month regarding this.

BE SURE TO SHARE THIS ARTICLE WITH YOUR LOVED ONES & THOSE YOU CARE ABOUT! AWARENESS IS IMPORTANT AND SPREADING THE WORD CAN SAVE A LIFE!

Stay aware and stay healthy!!

Thanks!