Breasts in the News

Woman May Have Been Saved by D Cup Implant

Well, there’s another story out there about how a woman’s breast implants may have actually saved her life. Seems like we come up with at least one good one a year

A woman named Lydia Carranza, from California, was actually in a dentist’s office when someone opened fire in the office.  A bullet actually struck the woman in her chest. When X rays were performed, according to her new plastic surgeon who is going to give her new breast implants since her old ones were destroyed by the gunshot blast, said that it appears her breast implant – a D cup implant, no less, may have actually saved her life.

It appeared that the bullet and fragments were just moments away from her heart, and if the implant were not there to interrupt the velocity of the bullet, then Ms. Carranza may have died from her injuries almost immediately since when the gunshot wound is in the heart, it is usually instantly fatal.  I’m sure the fact that her implants were so large had something to do with the fact that they sufficiently slowed the bullet down enough to prevent it from entering her heart.

D’s are very large implants, indeed, in fact, they are so big that most doctors don’ t like to give patients implants that large because often times women have a lot of back discomfort and they actually can rupture and cause problems more easily than smaller implants can, causing things like capsular contracture more often, so the theory goes.

An expert in firearms and deadly force said that it is not impossible for a large implant to stop a bullet, because if you think about it, it only makes sense that an object obstructing the most vital organ in your chest, the heart, is of course going to have some impact on slowing down the deadly speed of a bullet, but he also joked that you shouldn’t go out and get a boob job as a bulletproof vest.  Hah! No kidding buddy!

I don’t think that’s why most women are getting them, although, if these types of stories keep up about breast implants protecting a woman’s heart from deadly force, women might start thinking about this as an added benefit to getting breast implants, and another chalk mark to getting them vs. not getting them and going all natural with breast implant alternatives.  I must say it is a pretty incredible story, and I’m glad Ms. Carranza is still alive, no matter what the reason is for it.

“Bra Smart” Product Helps Keep Bra Shape

I just saw an interesting “As Seen on TV” product infomercial on the television, and thought it actually looked quite interesting, and wasn’t priced too bad, although they could have knocked it down just a bit more considering it’s made of plastic.  It’s a plastic sort of bra hanger that you put your bra around for when you put it in the drier. We’ve all had expensive bras that get ruined in the drier, bunched up, or lose their shape.

Well, this little gizmo purportedly helps you to maintain the shape and integrity of your bra’s material and shape by only letting your drier’s air gently filter in through behind the bra and in the front, so it’s very evenly distributed, and it also has a firm backing so that it doesn’t fall off, get twisted up with your other laundry, or get misshapen.

I haven’t tried one yet, but I have to admit I was a little intrigued by watching the commercial, since this does often happen to the expensive bras I buy, and it’s really frustrating because you basically can ruin a bra with one washing and drying if you’re not careful.

The Bra Smart product comes in all cup sizes, because it does have cones that are designed to adhere to the shape of the cups of your bra, which is part of the technology that helps them keep their shape, and the cups to keep their integrity.

It’s also vented as I mentioned, so that the air flows freely and you don’t get that uneven drying that causes the bra to wrinkle and bunch. Don’t get me wrong, if your bras easily wrinkle and bunch in the dryer, then they are probably cheaply made to begin with, but also expensive bras can lose their shape over time, so it might be wise to try this or something similar to it, to reduce the bras you have to buy.

Who knows, it probably also helps to extend the life of your bras, so that you don’t have to go out and waste your hard earned money to make your breasts look the best they can all the time.  I hate buying bras, as you know if you’ve read any of my past posts, so anything that will prevent me from having to buy more, unless they are fun kinky ones, I’m all for it.

Pam Anderson Just Can’t Stop Showing Her Breasts

How has Pamela Anderson become sort of a parody of her own image?  Well, I’m not sure, but I feel like at this point, she needs to sort of tone it down and class it up a bit. I know she’s never been known as a particularly calm, low key kind of gal, but her shows of baring it all and sometimes loopy behavior is just not becoming, and I think she could benefit from taking a step back and understanding that these fashion shows where she is wearing next to nothing are making her look ridiculous, and aren’t going to revive her career.

Her latest show of wildness, and mind you, this is the mother of two children, was at a fashion show where she wore a bizarre (granted, the whole fashion show showcased bizarre fashions on much younger models), criss cross type of silver bathing suit outfit, where her large breast-implanted and painful looking breasts were barely covered, maybe the nipples were.

She’s still a beautiful woman, but she needs to adhere to the principal that the mystery many times is what’s sexy, not the showing it all to anyone who cares to come within a fifty foot radius of you, and oh yeah, all the cameras too.

I’ve seen this happen to a lot of women in Hollywood that just can’t seem to stop seeking the spotlight, even when they may not be quite as famous as they used to, or have passed their “fake prime” that Hollywood has set forth as a standard for what is young in Hollywood. I think that women are under a TON of pressure in Hollywood. Pressure to have large breasts and get breast implants, yet to maintain a svelte figure at the same time, which is a physical impossiblity if you have large breasts naturally, pressure to have perfect hair, skin, and the whole nine yards.

I like the idea that women are allowed to age gracefully, but when I see someone who is clearly trying to relive their youth and quite frankly making themselves look a bit silly, it’s kind of embarrassing. I’m not saying we have to give up our sexuality as we age as women at all, I just think there’s a classy way to go about it. I know some people might have differing opinions, and that’s fine, that’s what freedom of expression is all about

Regular Aspirin Intake May Improve Breast Cancer Survival Odds

Apparently, aspirin, that cheap little pill that has fallen our of favor as a pain reliever of choice, but now has many other favorably viewed health benefits for your heart purportedly, may actually help you survive and avoid another recurrence of breast cancer if you are a breast cancer survivor. The study that was carried out was the first of it’s kind directly aimed at looking at how aspirin intake on a regular basis may help or hinder breast cancer patients. I’m not sure why this study started, or what the basis is for aspirin being a potential breast cancer deterrent though.

The study has spanned over thirty years, and involved nurses who had a wide span of health issues, so the study was multi pronged. What happened is that, sort of accidentally, they noticed a correlation between women who took aspirin for heart health and also as a preventive measure against stroke, since aspirin helps to thin the blood and prevent these problems which are caused by thickened blood, but also happened to have had breast cancer, had a higher survival rate, and less of a recurrence rate for their breast cancer, if they took aspirin several days a week.

However, if you are not a person who likes to take aspirin, or perhaps, like many other people, it upsets your stomach, there were similar effects observed with the same family of pain relievers called NSAIDS, non steroidal anti inflammatories, but there was not enough data on these to actually make any conclusions as to whether they had the same extent of benefit as aspirin for breast cancer patients. Also, you have to consider that this study was carried out over several years, most of which aspirin was still the popular choice for preventive measures against heart attacks and strokes.

Who knows, it may be prudent to take aspirin if you are prone to heart diseasea and stroke in your family and you have also been a breast cancer survivor, however, they are careful to point out that you should not take it regularly without talking to your doc first, since it can cause stomach bleeding, and also you usually should not take it in combo with chemotherapy or cancer treatment because it may have adverse side effects.

Breast Cancer Scans Not Worth It?

MRI's Not Needed?

MRI’s are very expensive, and even if you have insurance, you can find yourself paying out the wazoo if you have to have one for a specific health problem or suspected issue.

That is why some scoffed when MRI’s began to be used as scans for breast cancer, or returning breast cancer, but because of their more thorough nature, or at least their perceived more thorough and less intrusive nature, many were applauding them for the new way to thoroughly scan for breast cancer, and foregoing or eschewing the idea of getting a traditional mammogram which can be painful and intrusive, especially if you happen to have breast implants.

I even thought it was a great thing, and I still do think that the MRI has some great benefits over other types of breast cancer detection because it is by it’s very nature a more thorough and comprehensive way to look for abnormalities in the human body.

However, apparently there are studies now that are showing that MRI’s are really not doing any better than any other form of breast cancer detection, and are not causing women to get another surgery.

They are really used when determining whether women need further operations for already existing breast cancer, and since the incidence of women needing further surgeries found was so low, they have deemed that since it is such an expensive and lengthy process, it may not be necessary. I’m not quite sure that the expense should be a factor when you are talking about the difference between life and death though – thoughts?

New Mammogram Guidelines Still Subject of Debate

The latest mammogram guidelines that were set as a result of a government appointed US advisory panel pretty much had sparks flying from the beginning when they were recommended last year. The new recommendations had women waiting until they were 50, not 40, even if they were considered a high risk group for breast cancer (aka having a family history of the disease), which had many health care professional, oncologists or not, up in arms that the panel was actually recommending to women that they wait even longer because they found no evidence that these earlier mammograms prevented enough of a metastatis of breast cancer, at least not enough to save lives to the degree they felt was worth it.

The problem of course, is that these “earlier” mammograms saved enough lives to make it worth it for lots of women, and I’m sure they wouldn’t want to be on a list where they weren’t qualified according to some recommendation when it saved their lives in the past.

Two more breast cancer related organizations have blatantly said that they don’t support the findings of breast mammograms being done later rather than sooner, and they do see benefit to having these often life saving imaging scans done earlier, because they can detect breast cancer in younger patients that aren’t yet detectable by hand, or by self examination because they aren’t yet big enough.  Not yet big enough, but of course, very very treatable, which is the whole point of getting mammograms at a younger age when the breast tissue if often still too dense to be able to feel these small lumps or masses of tissue.

These organizations cite a significant decrease in the  mortality rates of breast cancer, to the tune of about 30%, since the mammogram guidelines that were in place before these ridiculous new guidelines came out, as a reason that they do not support the new guidelines recommended by the panel.

The recommendations of starting earlier also cover newer and often perceived as more effective breast cancer screening processes, like the MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) and ultrasounds where the breast tissue is examined for irregularities.  Surprisingly, the recommendations for women who do screen positive for the genes where they are much more likely to develop breast cancer, the recommendation is that they have a sonogram, MRI or mammogram every year starting when they are 30 years old, which is pretty early on according to other guidelines that were set up before.

The thing is, that you should really have them when you know it’s right for you, based on your family history. Of course, I’m an advocate of getting them done earlier, but it depends on your situation and personal comfort level too.

Full Body Scans at Airports – Will They Show Breasts?

On mine and my now-husband’s way to Las Vegas, at the Cleveland airport, we were subjected to the newest technology in airport security, and we were confused because we had never been through one before. We’re not infrequent travelers, either, so it must have been a fairly new contraption for the Cleveland Hopkins airport to be using, because we had traveled within the past year as well and we didn’t go through one.

What it is, and what you will be seeing at quite a few more airports now after the scare with the Nigerian man who tried to blow up an airplane with explosives that were taped to his body which went unnoticed in the typical metal detector and physical pat down searches, is a lot more of these full body scan devices.

These devices, which look like something straight out of a science fiction movie (albeit, one not that far in the future).  They are a circular, clear glass device which you stand in the middle of while a device whirls around you, bouncing radio waves off of you and showing the human scanners what you have that might be hiding under your clothes. And yes, that includes your most intimate curves. If you look at the image one of these produces, if you had jelly rolls and large breasts, well, let’s just say that all those curves would be clearly outlined on the scanner screen for the screener to see.

With some being concerned about privacy infringement, I for one, honestly don’t mind it. Do I like it?  No, of course, I don’t like what our society is turning into, which is more and more big brother as these terrorist attacks and the sneaky ways they go about getting dangerous items on board, intensifies, and the governments hand is forced deeper into our personal lives because of it, but if it’s going to potentially save people’s lives, and save a victory for these sick terrorists who want to kill people to prove their points and to make people terrified to do anything, then so be it.

If you feel self conscious about it, know that only the screeners can see your most intimate outlines, and that it really is necessary in this age of terrorism.  I know it’s easy to get angry over the constant infringement of our privacy rights, but it is the fault of the extremists who have made this type of things necessary by killing innocent people in 9/11 style attacks, and it’s the only way we have unfortunately to combat it.

John Kerry’s Wife Fights Breast Cancer

John Kerry, the former Democratic presidential nominee, has a wife named Teresa Heinz who is currently fighting breast cancer.  I feel bad describing her that way, but didn’t know how else to tell you who she is, although she is quite an active spokesperson herself, and John Kerry’s whitehouse bid seems somehow that it was now ions away. How is that anyways?  I think that Teresa Heinz was alarmed by what she has seen in the news as of late about the mixed messages that women are getting about mamograms and when they should start getting them, some say at 40 others at fifty, and she wanted to come out and voice her opinion since this is clearly something that is close to her heart.

To refresh your memory, a panel has recently instructed women that they do not need to have their mammographies starting at the age of forty as previously indicated, and having them yearly, but rather they can wait until they are fifty and not have them as often. This recommendation set off a litany of criticism, by man women as well as men, as a lot of people think that mammographies saved lives, and many women who were diagnosed through these screenings say they would have never known had it not been for these tests. Not to mention, the recommendation is really pissing a lot of people off who are in the health profession themselves.

As a matter of fact, I’m only 35, and because I have breast cancer in my family history on the female side, my doctor recommended that I receive a mammogram now. She did not believe in the recommendation that the panel gave, and advised me of her opinion. I trust her, so I actually took her prescription for the mammogram and intend to go have one done, and of course report back to you about my experience once it’s done.

Since Ms. Heinz herself was diagnosed through a mammogram, although at age 71, she says that she doesn’t see why they would instruct against them for younger women. Especially when it is more treatable at these early stages, and saves a lot of hassle, heartache and pain, not to mention money and insurance premiums, when it is caught earlier on and the survival and treatment rate is much more successful. I feel like we were kind of dealt a bad blow with this recommendation, and they should just take it back, it’s confusing too many women over an already intensely private decision and a hard one at that.

At Risk Breast Cancer Patients Refusing MRIs?

Many women apparently are refusing to have MRIs done that could greatly benefit from one of the magnetic resonance imaging tests due to their status as high risk breast cancer potential patients.  MRI’s have a much better chance at detecting breast cancer when it’s in the very earliest stages in these at risk women because it thoroughly scans the body for any irregularities.  However, in studies where patients were identified as high risk breast cancer patients, about 42% of these women actually refused the MRI for various reasons, even when it was offered free of charge.

This really surprised the doctors that offered the tests for free in the study, because, like me, they thought these patients would want to participate in almost a 100% rate since the test was free and their health could potentially be at risk with something that may not be identified otherwise.  The patients had many reasons, one of them being financial, but not directly related to the cost of the MRI, rather to any costs they were afraid of incurring because of anything that might be found, or the ever popular false positive readings.

There have been known to be false positive readings from breast cancer screenings that result in unnecessary further medical costs like biopsies and other things that may add up to hundreds or thousands of dollars in costs.  Some women in the study cited claustrophobia and not being able to be in the cylindrical, restrictive environment that you are required to be in for a long period of time for the MRI reading.  Even when offered sedation, many women still did not want to subject themselves to that.

Some women cited time restraints, which I can understand as the process can be lengthy, however even that seems like a somewhat weak excuse for something that could save your life in the end, although I suspect that these women were giving reasons that really only were part of the real reason why they didn’t want one, and in fact they may have had several reasons for not wanting the MRI.  At any rate, MRI’s are coming up as one of the better, more thorough ways of screening for breast cancer, however they have to figure out a better way to do them, and at a lower cost, before patients really start wanting to have one done.

Herceptin and Tykerb Combo May Prove Effective

For women with advanced breast cancer, there may be some very good news on the horizon in extending their lives longer and perhaps helping to put them into remission, even when all hope seems lost.  But does it really improve their quality of life as well? To me that is the real question.  So  read more about this new super combo that has shown promise, the combination of two existing breast cancer drugs, one called Tykerb, one called Herceptin, both of which we have discussed here before, one, Tykerb, I think when it had just first come out, so I don’t even think that one has been on the market all that long.

Here’s the scoop, thus far, on the findings.  In a study involving 300 women with breast cancer in it’s advanced stages, the women who were receiving the Tykerb and Herceptin combo lived nearly five months longer than the women who did not receive this new drug combo. Does that mean that their quality of life was also better, or did it really improve the cancer? It doesn’t really say. Let’s hope so.  The real finding here too is that if it can help women with advanced breast cancer this much to extend their life span, then what can it do for women with less advanced forms of the cancer?

They are hoping that it really helps to improve odds for women who are in their earlier stages, so that is the next phase of experiments.  The specific job that Herceptin and Tykerb do inside the body of a breast cancer patient, is that they take aim at and destroy proteins called HER-2, which are found in abnormal abundance in the breast cancer patient.  By destroying these, they presumably increase the life span of the breast cancer patient who otherwise would not have that benefit.

The unique combination attacks the HER-2 cells from both the inside and outside of the cell, one drug doing the outside attack and the other drug doing the inside attack, a very comprehensive approach to destroying a main component of breast cancer reproduction.

This way, if one of them doesn’t work at cracking the inside, or alternatively, the outside of the cell, then the other one kicks in and at least delivers one of the two pronged fatal blows to the deadly cells.  Potential side effects of the drugs include severe diarrhea and potentially fatal blood clots, but if properly managed, these potential side effects I’m sure could be minimized. Plus, I’m sure that if I were faced with two options, I’d probably choose one that could potentially extend my life and maybe even save my life versus the risks it could have against my health. Heck, they sound better than chemo and radiation to me.