I'm so grateful this group is here and wish good health for all of you.

[LiberalLoner]

I hope it’s okay that I post here. I haven’t been diagnosed with breast cancer yet but I’m scheduled for biopsies on both breasts July 18th because additional imaging found suspicious areas.

My first worry is simply about the procedure itself, which sounds like painful torture.

I understand they numb up the skin with lidocaine, which will make the initial incision painless, but the deeper tissues will obviously not be numb.

They are going in to almost my chest wall through dense breast tissue to get multiple samples with that thick needle, and although they told me it would be painless….I don’t believe them for one minute.

The other breast has calcifications that aren’t terribly deep in the tissue so I suspect that biopsy will be only mildly painful, but the other one, I am worried about.

I don’t understand why they don’t at least offer IV sedation to women during this procedure, or one pain pill for the procedure.

Frankly, I am thinking of calling them up and asking for the strongest sedative they will prescribe for me (my husband will be driving) because I can handle pain a little better when I am calm.

And if I had any Percocet in the house, believe you me I’d take it before the biopsies because I am that certain the one will be severely painful.

Thank you all for letting me post and vent some about my fears.

I’m scared of the cancer, too, of course…runs in my family and docs have estimated my lifetime chance to be 1 in 3 so I am thinking, yup, this is cancer…but my most immediate fear is of the biopsies themselves and the pain I know I will experience.

They don’t expect us to have dental work done without being fully numb…why do they expect us to be fine with what is essentially surgery with only the surface skin being numbed? Is it just, you know, we are women, so we don’t matter, our comfort doesn’t matter?