Have you ever gotten this as the result of a mammogram before?

Young woman have dense breasts and mammograms are difficult because of that. So they probably just want a call back to change the imaging technique. You’re most likely fine.

Since our stellar moderators are likely to delete any “unhelpful” humor, your chances of getting a joke to cheer you up are likely zero.

But yes, our breasts are denser and I’ve got flagged on false positives too. Plus, sometimes I think they just want to check out hotties a little closer.

Ooops… that was so unhelpful.

@JLoon that got a laugh out of me, lol. Thank you

Our moderators are stellar. They sustain the community in crucial ways. I can’t thank them enough, not even when they mod away my responses that I thought were fine.

@ASC0826, I’m sorry, that sure does sound worrisome. Anxiety is so painful in itself. And I’d feel the same if my results came back asking for a follow-up.

But you don’t actually know anything’s wrong yet, so I hope you can wait it out. My husband always freaked out every time he had a post-cancer scan, waiting for results, and they were always clean. I hope the same for you.

It’s because you are young. It does happen to young women all of the time. They probably will do an ultrasound, or maybe a 3D xray if you had a regular one. I agree with the jellies above that it is most likely nothing.

I think there is an argument for young women to get ultrasound instead of mammography. Mammogram delivers radiation to the breast, although it is much less now with new technology than the old days, but young women usually have mammograms at a young age because breast cancer history is in their families and so starting at 20 something every year seems like a lot of years. The newer xrays are better than the old ones though, so I don’t know if they are much better than ultrasound. I would research it if I were you. Ultrasound is likely more expensive. I would not worry about that right now, but something to consider with 50 years of mammograms ahead of you.

@JLeslie is correct on this.

I have gotten that letter. I have dense breast tissue, so they did an ultra-sound to check on a pea shaped “mass.” The mass was simply a fluid filled cyst that was confirmed with the ultra-sound.

Most of the women in my family have a lot of these fluid filled cysts, which cause no problems, but the dense breast tissue that I have makes it harder to see with just a standard mammogram. The ultra sound is painless. They put some lubricant on the “pad” part of the wand, and roll it around on your breast, and you can see what they are looking at on a screen while they are doing it.

(Ultrasound emits zero radiation so is completely safe in that regard. It also tends to be less expensive than x-rays of most types because the equipment and facility are far less expensive – ultrasound needs no lead-lined walls as in an x-ray room, the ultrasound machine costs tens of thousands $ not hundreds of thousands.)

I got called back my first time and never again. I was told the first clears you, then after that they compare to previous ones.
Try not to worry, its completely normal. A shadow or a bit more dense spot, probably. Best of luck!

Also keep in mind that the whole point is early detection. Getting rid of a tiny spot early could save your life. My mom stopped going and ended up all over her body. So either way, knowing for sure is better than the alternative. :)

UPDATE: This morning I got a fully detailed report of what was seen on the mammogram through the MyChart app; they want to do an ultrasound of my left breast because they found a “small (5mm), oval shaped, circumscribed, fat containing mass” in my left breast that is “most likely an intramammory lymph-node”. They want to do an ultrasound just to be sure but I’m still scared as hell, if not even more scared than I was yesterday…

@ASC0826 I’m not a MD, but I think the results are actually very good news. It’s very small and they’re probably just being extra-cautious. It sounds like your care team is doing a great job and being thorough. Wishing you the very best, and try not to stress. It sounds like you’re in good hands.

I’m not a doctor but that sounds like nothing. Intramammary lymph nodes are not uncommon, fatty mass is not uncommon, oval is not uncommon. You will be getting good information as your baseline diagnostic, which means the next time you have your annual tests they can easily compare and see if they are anything changes. Get the ultrasound and you will feel like everything has been checked and everything is fine. Let us know how it goes. What day are you getting it done?

Hey, I found this website. Maybe it will make you feel better. http://www.themammopress.com/lymph-node-non-cancerous-breast-masses-part-5/

@JLeslie my ultrasound is next Wednesday. I keep trying to tell myself to stay calm and that they’re just being thorough due to my circumstance. But yeah I’ll come back and give an update

If they were very worried your appointment would be tomorrow.