Breast Fat Necrosis?

  • Hello everyone!

    First of all, I am making an appointment with my GP first thing on Monday and have already called a health hotline and spoken to a nurse so I am not looking for medical advice, just wondering if anyone else has dealt with this.

    This post is aimed towards the larger ladies with big breasts, like myself. Yesterday I found a lump in my upper right breast. It is tender and my entire chest (above my breast and above the lump) is a little bit sore. I also have a lymph node in my right armpit that seems to be swollen. There are a few things this could be but besides breast cancer the one I think it sounds most like is fat necrosis.

    My question is this... have any of you had fat necrosis of the breast?

    It is typically caused by surgery or injury. I always sleep on my side with my arm superman'd out and I tend to rest my body weight on my right breast when I sleep. Sometimes I get bruises at the top of my breast but never really thought anything of it because it is something that happens fairly recently, always in the same spot.

    Where the bruising occurs, I now have a lump. There is some discoloration but nothing too crazy. It is tender but not outright painful unless prodded. I obviously won't feel any better until I get this diagnosed but I was just wondering if any one else has experienced either bruising on your breasts from side or stomach sleeping or fat necrosis.


    I apologize if there is a better section for this post.
  • I hope it gets sorted soon. My doctor told me that pain in the breast is not usually an indicator of cancer. Have you thought about sleeping with a bra on? I know it's uncomfortable but it might help keep things where they need to be. You may also need to change sleeping positions. Did you know that lots of women only sleep on their backs because they fear putting their face on their pillow? Face on the pillow causes pullling and tugging and not to mention contact with bacteria.
  • Pain is a good sign, cancer is silent. I bet it's a blocked gland or fibroid. Let us know. Good luck.
  • Quote: First of all, when this developed within a short period of time, it is unlikely to be pathological. Breast cancer is generally slow growing, with one exception. I once developed a rather large lump that started to hurt and it turned out to be a plugged/inflamed milk duct. I am not sure how frequently fat necrosis develops, but mammography should be to tell. If you have your body weight resting on your breasts and move a lot during the night, it is certainly possible to develop bruises. Injury then can cause calcification. The fact that your lymph nodes are inflamed support an injury as a cause of your lump. I know it is very stressful, but in most cases there is a harmless cause.
    Thank you for your comment!

    I am trying to convince myself that this is the case. I will feel so much better when I know for sure. I'm also really hoping it goes away with my period as apparently it could be hormone related. It does not ache today and I have not touched it so I think the pain was just caused by me poking at it.

    I'm trying my best to ignore it for the time being, it was causing me a lot of stress the past couple days. I'm a big worrier and breast cancer runs in my family so of course it's concerning. Will update when I hear anything at all
  • Quote: I hope it gets sorted soon. My doctor told me that pain in the breast is not usually an indicator of cancer. Have you thought about sleeping with a bra on? I know it's uncomfortable but it might help keep things where they need to be. You may also need to change sleeping positions. Did you know that lots of women only sleep on their backs because they fear putting their face on their pillow? Face on the pillow causes pullling and tugging and not to mention contact with bacteria.
    Yes, I was reading that out of 200 women with breast lumps, of the ones that actually had cancer only ONE said there was any pain. My pain is gone today, I guess it was just all the prodding that had made it sore.

    Last night I was getting chest pains and started reading about breathing techniques. I am a mouth breather and apparently nose breathing is the way to go. I am trying very hard to change my habits as breathing deliberately through my nose is helping me so much. After awhile of calm, deep breathing my chest pains went away and I felt much better. I am assuming they are stress related.

    I am now trying to sleep on my back exclusively, I did pretty good last night but did flip around a bit. However I have a pillow that I am going to prop underneath me for whenever I sleep on my side. It might be a hard habit to break but I'd like to give the girls a break. Never thought much of the bruises but this has scared me into action thats for sure!

    Thank you for your comment. I feel much better after reading your guys replies!
  • Quote: Pain is a good sign, cancer is silent. I bet it's a blocked gland or fibroid. Let us know. Good luck.
    I hope so. I will definitely update when I hear anything. Thank you ladies!
  • Quote:
    Last night I was getting chest pains and started reading about breathing techniques. I am a mouth breather and apparently nose breathing is the way to go. I am trying very hard to change my habits as breathing deliberately through my nose is helping me so much. After awhile of calm, deep breathing my chest pains went away and I felt much better. I am assuming they are stress related.
    Something that is really helping me with my breathing (how absurd, we don't even know how to breathe right lol) is chi gong. It really focuses your movements and breath, it uses nose breathing and it's extremely gentle for people of all activity levels. Youtube has a lot of gentle chi gong videos.
  • Quote: Something that is really helping me with my breathing (how absurd, we don't even know how to breathe right lol) is chi gong. It really focuses your movements and breath, it uses nose breathing and it's extremely gentle for people of all activity levels. Youtube has a lot of gentle chi gong videos.


    Thank you I will check that out when I get home. Breathing through my nose has helped so much, I had no idea I was breathing wrong! Imagine!!

    I've been doing way too much research on breast cancers and need to stop. It Seems like this week has really dragged on while waiting for my appointment!
  • Hi guys, I went to my doctor and he absolutely blew off the lump. Said it seemed like a cyst. He didn't ask to do Ultrasounds or to follow up but i am definitely going to be following up with him as he is kind of an airhead and for as long as I have the cyst, I can't quite fully relax.

    I was initially really excited to have the doctor blow it off since that means he didnt find anything indicative of breast cancer but he also kept saying "youre too young" which is NOT TRUE. Just because it happens more rarely to people in my age group doesn't mean I"m too young!

    He has kind of dropped the ball on some other issues concerning my health care so I don't exactly trust him 100%. I'm going to keep on top of this though and if I need to go to another doctor to get it looked at more seriously I will.

    He did not find cysts in any other spot of my breasts so its not fibrocystic breast disease. He also said my lymph nodes were NOT swollen and when he was pushing on the sore spot in my arm he said it was just a muscle.

    My friend was telling me about her friend who found a cyst and then she ended up getting breast cancer on the exact same spot. Kinda freaked me out to hear that!

    I also haven't been getting chest pains since my period started so I'm wondering if my chest pains are related to my cycle?? The doctor seemed to think I was getting chest pains in my muscles under the breast and not in my actual chest cavity. He wants me to do an ECG.
    I'm going to be tracking my chest pains more, if they continue to happen before my period that will be interesting.

    Thanks for checking in on me guys. It's nice to be able to talk about this. I am still quite worried.
  • Insist to the doctor that you want the tests done, and if he won't get another doctor. I know that is easier said than done in some areas, but you need a doctor that will listen to you.