Breast cancer awareness: Getting a mastectomy

A mastectomy is the removal of one or both breasts fully or partially. Mastectomy is used as either breast cancer treatment, in some cases, or as a way of preventing breast cancer in high risk individuals

For you to know if you are a high-risk individual, you need to visit your doctor and they will look into your family history and carry out a few tests to establish this.

Most of us are wondering how mastectomy affects appearance after getting the breast tissue removed permanently. Well, thanks to the advancement in medicine, there isn’t need to worry about physical appearance as one can go through reconstructive surgery to restore a natural breast appearance and it won’t be out rightly possible to tell that they went through a mastectomy.

In regards to how far the cancer has spread and for it to be fully handled, your doctor may recommend chemotherapy or any other line of treatment to remove the remaining cancer cells. But in the case they had not spread, you may not necessarily undergo chemotherapy.

Case in point is Hollywood megastar Angelia Jolie who underwent a mastectomy as a prevention means and today she is totally fine. Taking from her journey and those who have had mastectomy, there is indeed light at the end of the tunnel.

Here, we look at some of the things about mastectomy you should know:

For high risk patients, mastectomy is one of the best ways to ensure that you don’t end up developing breast cancer without necessarily being worried about your appearance as one can always have a reconstructive surgery afterwards to maintain their normal appearance.

Since mastectomy involves the removal of the entire breast tissue that could have developed cancer cells, one can get cured without having to endure the side effects associated with cancer treatment. However, if the cancer had spread, your doctor can recommend chemotherapy to help eliminate all the cancer cells.

Despite the removal of the breast tissues, your doctor can always refer you to a plastic surgeon who will be able to do reconstructive surgery on you to ensure you maintain your appearance before the surgery.

After the procedure, your chances of getting breast cancer are significantly reduced thus you may not need the constant mammograms. Most of the time, you may only need the screening if your doctor recommends.  

After the procedure, your chances of developing breast cancer are greatly diminished as this is a prevention method that wholly eliminates the tissue that might be encouraging the growth of the cancerous cells.

Because this is a surgical procedure it takes a couple of weeks to fully recover but once you have recovered then you can forget about it. In comparison to other cancer treatments, mastectomy takes a much shorter time.