Breast pain in menopause: the benign pathology of the breast
Breast pain in menopause is not always a clue to a serious problem affecting women's health. That said, breast cancer prevention for women is important at any age, both during and at the end of the menstrual cycle. Learning self-examination is a way to keep your health under control between a specialist check-up and another. Watch the video and learn too!
- Breast pain in menopause: mammography and ultrasound
- Breast pain: mastodynia in childbearing age and in menopause
- Breast pain in menopause: non-cyclic mastodynia
- Breast pain: climacteric and menopausal symptoms
Breast pain in menopause: mammography and ultrasound
All women are afraid of breast pain, but during menopause it is more likely that it can be more serious diseases. Breast cancer screening, according to the indications of the Ministry of Health, provides for all women between 50 and 69 years free mammograms every two years. In some Italian regions, different experiments are planned, such as a mammogram every year for women aged 45 to 49 and one every two years for women up to 74 years of age. Prevention greatly reduces mortality from this pathology. For this reason, it is essential to carry out timely examinations and checks even when there are no symptoms: one or two mammograms a year based on the opinion of the breast specialist, preceded by ultrasound examinations. Ultrasound is associated with mammography, when the density of the mammary gland is such as to make diagnosis difficult. By reducing the thickness of the mammary gland following menopause, mammography is more "readable" and ultrasound is recommended only in less obvious cases. The visit to the breast specialist must be carried out annually after the age of 25. The radiographic examination, called mammography, allows the breast specialist to visualize the malignant lesions in the initial state, even if not yet noticeable with palpation.
Breast pain: mastodynia in childbearing age and in menopause
Breast pains (mastodynia, mammalgia or mastalgia) are common in both fertile and menopausal women. In childbearing age the following symptoms are part of the symptoms that precede menstruation: swollen breasts, tension, turgid breasts, with dull pain accompanied by acute pangs, sometimes due to hormonal dysfunctions or during ovulation or following the use of contraceptive pills. always takes both breasts; often only one breast is sore in a specific place, sometimes due to neuritis or intercostal pain. Mastodynia in menopause is persistent pain not related to the period, usually appears after 40. It can be caused by various factors, including fibrocystic mastopathy. Hormonal imbalances, with a decrease in estrogen and progesterone, in fact, not only cause psychological problems of a depressive type, but also dysplasias such as fibrocystic mastopathy, with abnormal development of nodules of the breast, less intense after menopause. These nodules, benign formations, often due to a genetic predisposition, which regresses over time (but must be kept under trollo), are often painless. In premenopause, the nodules may increase in volume, cause burning, a sense of heaviness and be sensitive to touch. They are cysts, liquid internally, which sometimes cause pain or swelling: they are rarely removed surgically. With menopause they tend to disappear, but each case must be investigated in order to be able to distinguish with certainty, through the visit of the breast specialist and the results of ultrasound and mammography, dysplasia from more serious pathologies.
Breast pain in menopause: non-cyclic mastodynia
Non-cyclic mastodynia can arise suddenly and then disappear or be present for long periods. It can also be caused by hormone-based medications, antidepressants or diuretics, bras that are too tight (with underwire or push-ups that squeeze a big breast too much) or with small cups that are not appropriate size or size or fitness model. with bands that are too wide behind the shoulders, which among other things also cause neck pain. In pregnancy, hormones can cause breast pain; after childbirth the cause may be raised milk and during breastfeeding a mastitis with redness of the skin and sometimes with a rise in body temperature. Another, rarer cause may be ectasia of the mammary ducts, especially frequent in the years immediately preceding menopause. This pathology involves the shortening and widening of the breast ducts with consequent pain and discharge from the nipple, usually dark. This is a physiological change, which should not be alarming, even if the internal flexion and the losses cause doubts and fears in women.
© GettyImages-
Breast pain: climacteric and menopausal symptoms
When faced with a new symptom and persistent pain, a medical consultation is always advisable, even if breast cancer does not initially cause pain, if not very rarely. Only a few patients with mastodynia have a malignant lesion, for many of them it is cysts and fibroadenomas. Often in the period of menopause women tend to neglect themselves and their health, sometimes also due to depressive psychological problems due to the drop in estrogen and the idea of losing the menstrual cycle as the beginning of old age. Instead, at this stage they should carry out more checks and ultrasounds, mammograms and MRIs. Breast pain is associated with premenstrual symptoms, fibrocystic mastopathy or a malignant tumor. Morphological changes in the breast, nipple changes, fluid or blood loss, swollen lymph nodes in the armpits or on the neck should be taken into consideration. What matters is to intervene as soon as possible. In the period before and after menopause, called climacteric, which can last for years, the symptoms called menopause occur, due to the drop in estrogen and progesterone, which upsets the woman from a physical, metabolic and psychic point of view and to which it must slowly adapt. These symptoms include constant fatigue, insomnia, sleep disturbances, decreased sex drive, vaginal dryness, thin and dry skin, fluid retention, swelling of the abdomen, urinary tract infections, migraine, osteoporosis, breast pain and swelling, breast enlargement of weight. The end of the cycle is a natural physiological change, but on the whole unsettling for the female organism. The climacteric, on the other hand, is a transition phase from the moment the ovaries begin to atrophy until the end of their activity. Here there is a drop in estrogen and progestin hormones which facilitates the occurrence of the symptoms of the climacteric. During the climacteric, irregular menstruation occurs until the perennial absence of the cycle. All this is due to changes in hormonal levels that can occur quickly and suddenly or gradually. Nutrition, genetic predisposition, alcohol and smoking abuse, stress influence the decrease in hormones.
