The benefits of yearly breast ultrasound instead of a mammogram and why some GYN doctors keep this life-saving information from their patients.
It’s hard to imagine a more backward, outdated, and damaging approach to detecting breast cancer than the annual mammogram. Place breasts between two plates, compress them hard (to the point of pain for some women), and douse with more radiation than 1000 chest x-rays combined (1 rad). All this … on an annual basis!
If you don’t have breast cancer already when you walk in the door, the chances are very real of developing it from repeated, annual exposure to this insanely high level of ionizing radiation! Worse, the vigorous breast compression actually encourages the spread of an existing malignancy.
According to Dr. Samuel Epstein MD, one of the world’s top cancer experts:
“The premenopausal breast is highly sensitive to radiation, each 1 rad exposure [per mammogram] increasing breast cancer risk by about 1 percent, with a cumulative 10 percent increased risk for each breast over a decade’s screening.” (1)
Dr. Charles B. Simone MD, a former clinical associate in immunology and pharmacology at the National Cancer Institute, says:
Mammograms increase the risk for developing breast cancer and raise the risk of spreading or metastasizing an existing growth. (2)
The pure lunacy of mammogram screening is why I’ve never had one and never will, even though at my age, I am “supposed” to already have had more than ten!
So what does a well-researched woman who understands the dangers of mammograms do instead?
Thermography Not a Perfect Choice
Many women who have turned away from dangerous mammography are getting breast thermography instead. While this is a safe screening test, it is unfortunately not the perfect substitute for mammograms in all situations.
For example, if a suspicious area is noted during thermography screening, a woman still is forced to go get a mammogram to check it out further. This happened to me a number of years ago (story here).
At the time, I was bound and determined to avoid a mammogram no matter what. The only way I could manage this was to circumvent the system and have my (MD) Dad write me a script for a breast ultrasound only. Inexplicably, the vast majority of doctors won’t do this. Labs won’t do a breast ultrasound without a mammogram either – it’s such a racket!
The hospital radiologist who conducted my breast ultrasound discovered that the lump was just a clogged duct. But … she bullied me the entire time for skipping the mammogram even though there was absolutely no downside in doing so! In fact, skipping the mammogram and getting only a breast ultrasound on a yearly basis is the smartest way to go! It is also far less expensive than thermography.
HUGE Breast Ultrasound Benefits Over a Mammogram
It was astonishing to me the gigantic hoops I had to jump through and the doctor bullying I had to endure to get a safe breast ultrasound instead of a carcinogenic mammogram. The questions that swirled around in my head were:
Why are doctors and labs so aggressively blocking breast ultrasound as an alternative to mammogram as a first line diagnosis option?
Why are women forced to get a dangerous annual mammogram BEFORE they are permitted to get a safe breast ultrasound, which is far more effective at detecting breast cancer anyway particularly for the 50% of women with dense breasts?
You know the sad answer. Ultimately, it is a money thing. Mammograms make gynecologists and labs far more money than breast ultrasound alone. The fix is in when it comes to gynecologists, labs and mammogram madness.
Mammogram Monopoly is Starting to Crumble
The mammogram monopoly is starting to crash, however! Now any woman can choose to skip out on a dangerous annual mammogram and get a safe breast ultrasound instead.
Bonus: a breast ultrasound is far more effective at detecting breast cancer. So, the huge problems of false positives, misdiagnosis and overtreatment decline substantially too!
Best of all, you can NOW get a breast ultrasound without a prescription, which means you don’t have to beg your doctor to write you a script for one instead of a mammogram. Given my experience in the years since my Dad retired from medicine, you can do all the begging and cite all the research you want. THEY WON’T DO IT.
Why?
Mammograms are big business! If you want to avoid them, you are going to have to go a completely different route.
Here’s what I did. I discovered the company Herscan from a recommendation from an alternative physician. This company is FINALLY providing this long overdue service of breast ultrasound only without a prerequisite screening mammogram.
7 Benefits of Breast Ultrasound over Mammogram
Here are the 7 benefits of getting a breast ultrasound from Herscan and TOTALLY SKIPPING your annual mammogram – FOREVER.
- Breast ultrasound is painless with no breast compression. There is no radiation exposure, and it is implant safe.
- Your results are read by a Board-Certified Radiologist. HerScan Sonographers are Registered RDMS, and are highly experienced breast specialists.
- No Prescription Required!
- Breast ultrasound takes 15 – 20 minutes on average.
- Breast ultrasound is BETTER for ALL women, but most especially critical for the 50% of women with dense breast tissue. On a mammogram, dense tissue appears white and cancerous tumors also appear white making it nearly impossible to “see” the tumor. It’s like trying to finding a snowball in a snowstorm. Studies confirm that Mammography misses every other cancer in women with dense breasts.
- Powerful ultrasound technology can see breast abnormalities that cannot be seen by mammography or by physical exam. Ultrasound sees all the way to the chest wall!
- Breast ultrasound is about half the cost of thermography. No surprise that most insurance won’t cover it, but no worries! Herscan has a program to help women who cannot afford the test.
It’s time to break the back of the mammogram mafia in the United States. Women IN DROVES need to start opting out of these dangerous annual exams and take their power back by getting annual breast ultrasound instead.
Thank you to Herscan for this tremendously important, lifesaving service to all women! You can book your appointment today by clicking here.
You should do a story on “Sonocine” Breast Ultrasound. The inventor is Kevin Kelly, MD a Radiologist based in Pasadena, CA, but they are available all over the country. This is a computer guided WHOLE breast ultrasound. Every inch of each breast, up to the armpit and down below the breast is covered by the Sonocine machine. It is done with a computer guided “arm” and not a human so no area is missed. A technician is there to make sure the arm is properly placed and guides you through the exam. Also, a mention of the use of iodine to make breast cysts smaller (and disappear) is important. Breasts need iodine! I had quite a large cyst on one of my breasts and by my next ultrasound (after using a small dose of iodine daily) it was gone. It was a painful cyst, and it is great not to be reminded of it on a daily basis.
Herscan does this type of breast ultrasound .. the whole breast area and armpits two. It’s a human guided sonogram though. Didn’t know about the robot guided one. Cool!
Thank you for this!
Thank you! I too have boycotted this and never have had one. I will spread the word!
I was told that I couldn’t have a ultrasound without having a mammogram. They wouldn’t pay for just the ultrasound. I have dense breasts so I having a mammogram doesn’t make sense. They always have to do it over at least twice. So I’m getting double whammied.
Yes, it is such a scam, isn’t it! Exactly my situation. Now, with Herscan you can bypass the medical fascism and just go and get a breast ultrasound.
Yes yes yes! You’ve said exactly what I’ve been saying for years. Yes the lunacy! Where has logical thinking gone? Anyway I would like to share some other things that I do (or don’t do) to avoid breast cancer. So besides 1) no mammograms 2) no hormonal birth control or estrogen replacement 3) have many babies and breastfeed them exclusively (for at least 6-8 months) before starting solid foods) and extendedly 4) don’t use anti-perspiration. So thank you for being a voice of reason among the brainwashed massed!
Many years ago, I had some painful lumps in my breasts. My gyno sent me for a mammogram. I’d never had one before. I have very small breasts. Trying to squish my small breast between those two plates would have been funny had it not been for the fact that it was horribly painful. The rest results came back inconclusive and I was told that I had dense breast tissue and needed to have an ultrasound done. Well, I thought that it was hysterically funny that my itty bitty breasts were dense for one thing, lol! Anyway, off I went to have an ultrasound done and that doctor told me that because of the denseness of my breast tissue that I needed to skip the mammograms and go straight to the ultrasounds from that point on. I was pretty flabbergasted that there was an alternative to mammograms and it didn’t involve radiation or the painful squishing of your breasts…….and it wasn’t being shouted from the rooftops! I had already made up my mind that I wasn’t having another mammogram. It never made sense to me that radiation causes cancer but the medical community wanted us all to go and expose our breasts to high levels of radiation on a yearly basis. How does that make any kind of sense? The strangest thing is, is that other women look at me like I’m crazy when I say that and tell me that they’d never skip their annual mammogram and don’t I realize how many breast cancers are found by a woman’s 10th or 12th or 15th mammogram? And I ask how do they know that it wasn’t the mammogram that CAUSED the cancer….it’s radiation! Anyway, my lumps turned out to be “caffeine cysts” and the doctor aspirated them in the office. I had them pop up a couple of times after that episode but none in the last fifteen years or so. I’m glad to hear that mammograms aren’t as well thought of as they once were.
Excellent point. My 86 year old Mother who has always refused to have a mammogram, told me when I turned 40, “Why look for breast cancer with a test that CAUSES breast cancer?”
Such amazing common sense! I am quite frankly AMAZED at how many women just blindly get these things year after year … and the 50% of women with dense breasts typically get them MULTIPLE TIMES per year because the radiologist can’t identify anything on the x-ray anyway! It’s criminal in my view. These poor women have no idea that every time they get a mammogram, they are gradually ticking up their risk for breast cancer. And they wonder why women with dense breasts are more likely to get breast cancer? One reason FOR SURE is because they get so many more mammograms! Current estimates are that 20% of breast cancer IS CAUSED BY MAMMOGRAMS.
I would like to come to your doctor, what state are they in? I can’t believe that your are able to bypass all the politics of needing mammos. Does your insurance company allow this> I have DCIS and have been subjected to lumpectomies and most recently had an MRI then was called back for ultrasound by Doctor. It took technician over 20 minutes and she couldn’t find it, then another 20 minutes for Doctor to locate it. I got very suspicious since they had an MRI to go off of. They immediately wanted to do a biopsy. Which I have refused. I am thinking about going out of town for a Sonocine but I am not sure what to do at this point. Thanks for listening.
Wow! Super informative and helpful. Although Herscan doesn’t seem to be available in my area, I will look for a company that is. Thank you!
Ask around. You will find one! I was delighted to find Herscan and was amazed the company had been around for several years in my area and I never knew it until recently!
Sarah, I want to make sure I understand: did you get your ultrasound done by HerScan? Thanks!
Sorry for not being clear on that point. I had a breast ultrasound (with no mammogram) about 8 years ago when I found a lump and a thermogram identified it as suspicious. My recent breast ultrasound was with Herscan (no prescription necessary) since my Dad has retired from medicine now and is no longer able to write me a prescription for just a breast ultrasound.
Glad to have super A size boobs. Nothing to scan, couldn’t squeeze anything. Downside, most men won’t consider me a prospective date. Lol
What if you live outside of FL, are there any other companies like Herscan that do independent ultrasounds around the U.S.?
Ask around .. these alternatives to the Mammogram Mafia are popping up all over the place.
If you look again on the Herscan website, this service is available in a number of states. Perhaps its just not in your area this month. I would call and ask about your specific location.