An E-Mail Health Warning That Is Real

Posting Date: 07/21/1999

"The symptoms include:

"1. A persistent redness, oozing, and crusting of your nipple causing it to itch and burn. (As I stated, mine did not itch much or burn, and no oozing I was aware of, but it did have a crust along the outer edge on one side.)

"2. A sore on your nipple that will not heal. (Mine was on the areola area with a white, thick-looking area in the center of the nipple.)

"3. Usually only one nipple is affected.

"How is it diagnosed?

"Your doctor will do a physical exam, and should suggest having a mammogram of both breasts done immediately. Even though the redness, oozing and crusting closely resemble dermatitis inflammation of the skin, your doctor should suspect cancer if the sore is only on one breast.

"Your doctor should order a biopsy of your sore to confirm what is going on. They will take a sample of your breast tissue in that area to test for cancer. If the cancer is only in the nipple and not in the breast, your doctor may recommend just removing the nipple and surrounding tissue or suggest radiation treatments.

"Had my doctor caught mine right away, instead of flaking it off as dermatitis perhaps they could have saved my breast and it wouldn't have gone to my lymph nodes. This message should be taken seriously and passed on to as many of your friends as possible, it could save someone's life.

"My breast cancer has spread and metastasized to my bones - this after receiving megadoses of chemotherapy, 28 treatments of radiation and taking tamaxofen. If this had been diagnosed in the beginning as breast cancer and treated right away, perhaps it would not have spread.

"I did try to spread the word through Rosie O'Donnell show on breast cancer awareness but it failed to trigger importance enough to announce on her show last year. This is sad as woman are not aware of Paget's disease. If by passing this around on the e-mail we can make others aware of it and its potential danger we are helping women everywhere."

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