Ep 145. Mammography vs. Thermography

Options and alternatives for breast health surveillance:

• The differences between mammography and thermography
• How to assess personal risk when considering the options
• The pros and cons of mammography and thermography
• How to advocate for yourself with either imaging technique

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Transcript

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You're at home with Kelly and Tiffany. I am Kelly and I'm Tiffany. And we are here to talk to you about booby stuff. You know, a lot of times you talk about vagina stuff. The booby stuff is, you know, equally as important. Absolutely is totally important. We've got a lot to share on mammography versus thermography. That's why we called this episode. Mammography versus thermography. I'm understanding it now. It really makes sense. But those are for those of you who, maybe who aren't familiar with the terms, there are two different types of options for surveillance. For your breast and your breast tissue in hopes of catching anything that might be abnormal precancerous, cancerous. Yeah. Yup. And before we get started, I would just like to. Clear the air. I think we can, we could all just take a deep breath. Collectively and acknowledge that relationships with other females. Our hard. I can take a deep breath to that. Kelly came in hot. Processing something that she's going through with a friend of hers and. I just spent the entire afternoon with four pre-teens. Oh, Into which I left the house to bring them all here. And my husband was like, I think it's going to be a long weekend. And I'm praying for you. And I was like, I feel very seen. Very validated by my experience with all of these I mean, you want to say children, but like there's a, there's a different experience happening there. Yeah, a lot of feelings and I was coaching one of my kids through how to communicate what she needs out of the relationship or what she needs for it to be different. And she's like, I can't, I'm not going to. That's a boundary of some kind it is. And, and in the moment I'm like, that is so stupid. How do you expect to move forward? But I had conflict in a relationship earlier this year that I was talking through with my husband and he was like, you have to go talk to her about it. And I was like, I'm not, no, that might make it worse. I don't know what's going to happen. I can't handle the confrontation, the con I just can't know. And he's like, you're, you are absolutely gonna do that. So I totally understand that piece of like, oh, this isn't working for me. I have to confront somebody on this piece and it just never, we never quite get it. We're always practicing. Female relationships. That we are. I feel that I feel a calmness after that collective deep breath. I would like to say blessedly. Blessedly, mostly because of your grace to me. You and I do not have much conflict at all. I do feel like we have a lot of grace with each other. But I just think there's like an ease in our relationship that helps us. C, maybe past each other's like weird faults or things or whatever, but just generally speaking, I don't feel like there's a lot that we have to look past or like work through or. Grin and be like, oh yeah, this is, you know, there's a scratchy part of that, but let's just keep going. It's just easy. This is just such a gift. For real. I hope everyone has a Kelly in their life, a TIF TIF for all. Everyone deserves a TIF and, and likewise, the Kelly. There we go. All right. So, ladies, we have a really exciting announcement to make. It is not another product. Praise the Lord. We do not have another, another item in our shop to share with you, but we do have an exciting thing that we are doing with all of these items. And that is an early black Friday slash Thanksgiving slash. Whatever this time of year. Is we're all, not quite sure, like what day it is already. And like we're just in the season. But we wanted to run a sale for y'all because we have really stocked the store, especially this year. So we are running a sale all week for you on every single digital product in there. Our biggest sale. Verb. So it's going to include 50% off every single PDF resource. But this is only good until Sunday, which I don't know what actual day that is off the top of my head so that I can say it out loud for you. If you're listening like late. The 26th. There we go. This today appears to be November 20th. We don't know what day it is. See we're telling you we're in the seasoning. This is it. Yes. This is the only sale. And the only promotion that we're doing, again, we stocked the store so full. And so we just we want you to get these instant downloads right in your hands as quickly as possible. Yeah, you own these resources forever. Some of them are bundled up, so you have even more savings available. And this is the lineup for you that you have to choose. Of course, you can go to a beautiful one, midwifery.com. You can click the link in our show notes, but this is what is available. Everything new this year includes fire road management protocols, medical self-advocacy guide at home hormone handbook, holistic healing bundle, holistic fertility handbook, mastitis protocol, hormonal headache, and migraine guide brain fog protocols. And that's just from this year, everything in our signature product line that has been available. For years past includes our GBS protocol, our iron building protocol, our homo hormone, balancing food guide, our vaginal health food guide. The starter guide to urbalism and our postpartum planning bundle. Dang man. There's a ton to choose from. All of these products are anywhere from $2 to $11 this week only. That's I'm sorry. That's ridiculous. It's amazing. 50% off is the, is the steepest discount we have ever. Provided, but we want this big push to get these resources into your hands by the end of the year, so that you can change things about. Next year? Yes, absolutely. So you will use the code this week. Give thanks. One word. I don't know if it's, is it case sensitive? Like. Does it have to be uppercase? I want you to put on your caps, lock and write, give, thanks in your coupon code, please. That'll give you 50% off of every single thing you add to your cart. Woo. Y'all. Gobble gobble. I'm into it. All right. We're leaning into a season now of winter rhythms. And. I want to take a moment to Remind ourselves, but also just inspire our audience to use this season as a way to slow down and embrace a little bit more. Quiet and comfort and. Intentionality. I too would like that for myself. It's winter. So we're going to encourage ourselves. We're going to encourage you ladies. To think about how fall and winter. Kind of just like showed themselves to us in nature. We have hibernating animals. We have things frozen in time. Literally plants and animals are conserving energy. They're pausing in their growth and expansion and just kind of going inward. Yeah, which is a sweet thing. When we can take what we see around us in the natural rhythms and apply them to our lives. I feel like, you know, sometimes we're recommending seed cycling to people who don't have a cycle right now where like, The moon phase, right? Like all these different ways that you can actually connect with the created world around you to take some, take some hints for the season that you're in, in particular, what that's sort of reminds me of is just the general idea of. Of like slowing down, right. Not needing to feel like you're rushed both like actively in your life, but also like mentally right. Taking a moment to actually take a breath lean into the idea of leading a different pace of life. Sometimes I feel like that means like, You know, being intentional, like sourdough making and like slow kitchen and like productive household family things. That's what I'm kind of always comes to mind around this. I mean, certainly throughout the year, but this season in particular, there's something special about that. Yeah. I would say it's like, It's one part doing less. Outside your home. And one part doing more. To keep you grounded in here. Little hibernating space. Yeah, for sure. It also means more sleep. More rest the days are shorter. And so you have an opportunity circadian rhythm wise, too. Lean into that and give yourself more time. Yeah. And, and with that, I feel like you just end up getting kind of like cozier, wanting to cut on more, which is like good for your endorphins. Good for your oxytocin. Just good for all of, all of the things. Yeah. Like. Like a hunkered down together. I like a good Hungary. Get over here and hunker with me. This is also the time that we're just instinctually looking for more warmth, whether that's adding more layers, trading out the clothing in our closet for more seasonally, appropriate items. Wanting our bodies to get warm. Like this is always the time where I love hopping in a bath at the end of the day. Like just getting a little bit cold in my house at the end of the day and getting super warm in a bath. Or of course like our sauna bag does that for me too. This is the time for like warm foods, slow, cooked, and soups and stews. And like, we just all ended up leaning into those. Just give yourself permission to fully enjoy that. Yeah, absolutely. And then as we like enter into what is about to. I mean we're in the holiday season now, certainly, but like we're about to really get into it. And I feel like that always encourages me. Like, cause you're thinking about the end of the year. Right. And you're sort of reflecting on the year and then you're looking ahead also. So there's just this pace. I feel like that you can. You have to intentionally lean into it, but the reflection of the year part is kind of sweet to me. Absolutely. Yeah. And just. A time that you just give, give yourself permission. Let your days be marked by a little more. Quiet, a little more gentle, a little more intentional. Just see how that feels. Let that intention just kind of rest. Rest upon you. Yeah. I love the idea of these seasons and actually adjusting maybe expectations or lifestyle stuff to them. It's a little different. We live in San Diego, so it's not like we're, you know, Dealing with. You know, blizzards or anything like that, but. It's still there. Still all of the signs. Minus the negative degree weather around us that encourage us to do that. Yeah. And I think just embracing a cyclic. Outlook. As women, as humans, as you know, seasons of a family and household, you know, there's certain things that just kind of mark are or seasons that is worse recognizing and exploring a little bit. Yes, for sure. That makes me extra calm, starting this episode. I should have led with that discussion. Calmed me down a little bit, brought my down-regulated, my nervous system, their phew. Okay. So the point of today's episode is to just provide information and alternatives. Of course, I feel like that's how we start every single episode. That we just want to share information. We just want to share alternatives. I think that thermography is starting to gain some familiarity. And our community, but I don't know if women really understand. What's the difference between mammography and thermography. Can you truly replace one with the other? What are the parameters? I mean, many, many women listening right now don't even know. What recommendations lie around getting a mammogram by itself. So we're going to chat about all of that with you guys today. And. What you decide what's best for you? This, this show is not going to say clearly the best answer is X, Y, Z. But what we do recognize is that not all care providers are going to offer you the options in this informed consent kind of way. It kind of. Can feel like navigating care, especially women's health in the medical system is like, oh, well this is what you do now. Based off of these factors on. This piece of paper, you are now eligible to start doing this. So here you go. Yeah, you're sort of put into the conveyor belt of like, well, you checked these boxes, so here's what's happening next. This conversation actually came up at my Bible study last night, which I was like, this is just really fascinating to me, how those things tend to happen like that. So it was fun to be able to share a couple of things. With that same idea of like, okay, don't go too hard. One way. The other right education. And then they get to do whatever they want to with that, but it was kind of cool because most of them didn't know what thermography was, so it's kind of fun. Awesome. But most of you have probably heard about mammograms before, so it's called mammography. That's like the study of that, the doing of that. And it is the most commonly used option for examining what's going on with your breast tissue. So it is an x-ray image. Of your breasts. So it's, it can be used for breast cancer screening, which is like most often it can be used for diagnostic purposes. Also just to investigate like certain symptoms are kind of unusual findings on certain imaging tests. But during a mammogram that's that procedure, right? You may have. Seen it or heard it, or, you know, heard whispers of it somewhere. But your breasts are basically like compressed between these two firms surfaces and what that does is spreads out the breast tissue. So you can imagine if you took your hands, like top of your breast, bottom of your breast and you just. Compress that squeeze that together, which I currently am doing right now. And that's going to spread that out. So then an x-ray is then taken and it'll take black and white image rate that then that's displayed on this computer screen and basically examined for signs of cancer. That's basically what it is. And so who wouldn't. Who wouldn't want that? I love putting my breasts. Between two firms surfaces and letting it compress. I remember my mom actually telling me after she had her first one about how uncomfortable she was. And I was like, oh, that's in. Okay. It's weird joy. Okay. And then thermography is a screening tool that is not diagnostic, but it uses infrared camera to produce images called thermograms. And they show the pattern of heat and blood flow on or near the surface of the body. So Thermo heat. Gruffy. Image. And in this, in particular, this will capture data in the breast when you have a breast thermogram or a get thermography for the breast, but you can get thermography on any part of your body. So you can kind of keep that in mind, mammograms are specifically for mammary tissue and thermography can be applied to any part of the body. So if you're using it just as a breast cancer screening tool, then you will just use it for your breasts. But if you wanted to screen your entire body for any thermal change that would indicate cancer risk, you can do that. So already we've learned that this tool. Has more application is a little bit more dynamic for this cause. The thought behind thermography is that breast cancers have an increased metabolic activity. And that means that the areas affected with cancer or even pre-cancerous tissue will reflect a higher temperature than normal parts of the breast. And it's actually really interesting to look at these images online. You can just Google image, thermography free breast images. And I promise nothing weird is going to come up on that. It will just give you some really cool application for just how different thermography looks on somebody with potential pre-cancer or. Lots of cancerous tissue in their breasts versus none. Yeah, I feel like that was the fascinating part of researching all of this to when deciding on options, just because when you see that and you see like, oh, this is what it looks like in somebody who has actually had pre-cancerous cells or somebody who is. In a cancer, you know, acute situation. What the body is doing in order to respond to that and how the cancer is like speaking to the rest of the, how did that? It's pretty, it's pretty cool. So, so that's sort of the basis of those two different options. Mammograms in particular. You probably have heard it's very similar to the pap. I feel like pap smears because it's sort of this like, well, that's just what you do, but when exactly do you do it, how often am I supposed to do it? Do I really need to do it? All of those things that women just aren't often given the actual answers to. So generally speaking for those at any kind of average risk, right? Average risk meaning no major risk factors in your history, your family history. Routine screening is suggested from Avi from ages 50 to 74 years of age. So a lot of women here, 40, right? It's like, well, you should start getting them now. But the research shows starting routine screening at 40 has a really small effect on breast cancer, mortality. And it that in and of itself comes at the cost of increasing a lot of false positives. By actually more than 60%. So we're having a small effect on breast cancer mortality there, but a huge increase in. Freaking women out for sure. So you get to decide if you are between 40 and 49, you can discuss the decision to screen for breast cancer, right? With your care provider. And if you were at higher risk, that definitely should be a conversation that, you know, comes up and that you're comfortable having an assessing for yourself. But for most women, the research shows, if you're an average risk, the harms are going to outweigh the benefits of just routine screening through mammography in your forties. So I think that's like really helpful to hear and just sort of assess around. I am not saying don't get them in your forties. I'm just saying. That's what the statistics and the research is actually showing. And then, so that's sort of when it starts and then it's again, similar to the path. Like how often am I supposed to go in to get one. The most significant breast cancer screening benefit for women comes. Doing it every two years. So helpful also to put that in your back pocket, that it's not an every year thing, but that's sort of the sweet spot in terms of. You know, Checking on what is going on with your breast tissue within that amount of time? Yeah. And like also recognizing that. Taking the mammogram every single year also increases false positives. Even if you are in the age bracket, in which it's appropriate for you to have regular screening doing it every. Every single year, I think your false positive rate is like 45 or 50%. And your outcome does not change. Yeah. And it's sort of the, like when we go looking for things more often. We're going to find potentially something that flags. And then that just freaks us out. Absolutely with that being said, that's the, those are the stats you get to do with that, what you would like, but helpful to put that in your back pocket to be like, huh? Let me assess what this actually means for me in my own life. Yeah, totally. And we will get into the thermography and those parameters and recommendations to, but before we do. If you decide that mammography is the best choice for you or that's what you're going to do now, or that's what you're already doing to screen for breast cancer. Here's some points of advocate. Advocacy for yourself. Mammogram me, mammography, mammogram, mammography. Mammogram MI. Mammals. My mother. Mammography has been around since the seventies. Okay. So that is a huge amount of time, which comes with a body of research and it is familiar and it's standard and it's in place and it's deeply ingrained in our healthcare system. So insurance will pay for it. But also remember that medical protocol, like what type of treatment and options that you get inside your doctor's office is about 10 to 15 years behind relevant research. So there's an aspect of that. That is absolutely terrifying, which is why a lot of women want to advocate for themselves based off of more current research and be able to bring that information to their care providers advocate for themselves, for. Things that might be very effective and yet just have not made their way into mainstream medical care. You can also find it imaging specialists that will give you digital mammograms for a more in-depth assessment. And so being able to say, as you make that appointment, or as you. Decide what imaging specialist to go to. You can confirm that you can have digital images of these x-rays because that is going to allow you to bring it to another care provider. It's going to allow your care provider who ordered it for you to take a more, in-depth look, to be able to zoom in on those images and just give a better assessment of the results for you. False positive rates again are 24% and up. If you're under 50, you double that. So about 50% of false paws or excuse me. About 50% of women who go in for mammograms that get positives. Half of those are going to be false positives. Who that is all the math I'm going to do in this episode. Let me tell you. And then of course with all screening tools, false negatives are also possible. So it's just an important part of informed consent of understanding. Where that those false results can come in with a screening tool. You just need to know that if you end up with a positive or a negative result, what are the chances that that's not an accurate representation of what's actually happening in your body? And then the reason that Women are looking for alternatives, or I would say the chief reason that women are looking for alternatives to mammograms is because mammograms because they are, x-ray actually expose your breast tissue to radiation, expose your whole chest to radiation. And so it is a small amount it's like less than the average x-ray, but research shows that it actually is a cumulative that radiation. And if you have precancerous cells in your breast already the mammogram is not going to detect those, but it is going to add radiation to those cells. So it's just an important piece to consider. I also think like, as you're squishing the, that tissue also, right. It's just that, that radiation is just has so much more access to so many more. Tissues and cells and all of that. Yeah, absolutely. And we're already keeping so much, like we're putting toxic deodorant in our armpits and that's, you know, coming into our breast tissue. There's just like this conglomeration of things that can happen inside the breasts and this potentially can add to it. Absolutely. So it just, all of these pieces need to have like some thoughtful consideration for the woman who doesn't feel comfortable, just like getting into the assembly line and going through with all the things This is what, this is how we help our clients. Gather information and make a decision that's best for them. Yes. So, which is, that's just always important, right? No matter what you're doing, no matter what you're choosing. So that's mammography sort of in a nutshell, and then we have this other option, right. Thermography that is maybe a little less known, but it has been around for quite some time, the research on it back, you know, and I think the eighties or something ended up not being that quality of research. So then it sort of showed that it just wasn't that great. And. As we're saying everything is so far behind with you know, not only research, but actually implementing research. That's being found. There's a ton of great research now, but everybody's still kind of locked into this research from like the eighties and nineties. Right. So. Here we are, but a thermography recommendations that you can do this at any age, right? A kid can get thermography. Your 80 year old grandma can get thermography any age, but it is most accurate when you have some baseline images that are started on the earlier end. So it can potentially be a really good tool, especially for women who maybe you have, maybe your mom had breast cancer or your sister or your aunt or something like that. It can be a really helpful tool. To potentially start leaning into a bit and like younger and to get some baseline images, because it can actually point towards precancerous cells in that way that then. You can work with a provider to help mitigate some of the risks. Involved in that. So they recommend, if you are going to use this as a general screening tool to do it every two to three years, that's often sufficient. The thing is, like we mentioned with mammography, it's not really You know, we said that that's covered by most insurances, right? This is not for the most part yet. So we'll see what happens with that. But I was really surprised at the cash pay prices for thermography in my head. It was going to be. Double or triple the amounts that I was seeing, but around like 200. Ish give or take maybe. 50 or so. For breast thermography is what most people are offering. Yeah. And do a little bit of research in your community, because for example, there is a clinic in our area that's hosting like a thermography day. And that is discounted like a hundred dollars cheaper than what the, you know, market value is and San Diego right now. So just being aware of the options, getting connected to the imaging places or the, you know, certain things, talk to other women about it that, you know, Would choose these types of things and just be aware of it as an option. Yeah, I think so. Thermography. Is probably one of my favorite things to like, be looking into about women's health. I mean, especially breast health, because it's sort of this like alternative thing, but what it offers is so beneficial. And you know, we mentioned that basically it's looking for heat, right? There's potential to find. Tissue in your body that could turn into cancer, but isn't cancer at the time of screening, which would be missed in an x-ray, right? We're not, they're not looking necessarily for this type of tissue. But thermography research shows that it can find those spots eight to 10 years before mammograms can. That is mind blowing to me and talk about being proactive and we don't need to be afraid of everything right. And live in a space of like, Oh, my gosh, am I going to get cancer, right? Or, oh my gosh, what is this? But how incredibly empowering to have a tool like that to To, you know, take reign of your health and your choices from there on out. Yeah, absolutely. And if you're familiar with this as a screening tool, or it becomes your preference, then it doesn't have to be limited to breast imaging. Only, like we mentioned earlier in the episode. You can look at reproductive organs and catch a cervical or ovarian cancers, or once you have. Once you see precancerous activity in one part of your body, then go ahead and get the entire scan done. And it is an even having your entire body scan. Is going to be gobs and gobs cheaper than a CT scan or something that It's potentially not even indicated, like you will not get your insurance to pay for a CT scan to just check on your. Just for five minutes just to check on things. Right? So it's a tool that is really consumer driven, which I appreciate. Yeah, absolutely. So. Thermography is shown to be 97% effective at detecting benign versus malignant breast abnormalities. Okay. So that's like really helpful and a really good foundation, but it also is associated with a bit of higher false positives. There's not like an actual number that is correlated to that because all the research is sort of saying different things, but. Generally speaking to say, if a positive is flagged, if you get a thermography scan, whether it's breast or whole body, if. If a positive is flagged, the idea is that they'll do more thorough monitoring from there and recommend interventions from their, from your care team. But you know, an abnormal thermogram. So say something does come back flagged. Is the single most important marker of high risk for the future development of breast cancer. So that's this, that's like the statement that the research kind of comes to is. That flag on a thermography scan, single most important marker of high risk for future development of breast cancer. That's major. Yeah. So instead of being like, oh, I got this false positive. Let's throw that in the trash and start from scratch in two years. Again. Now we finally went down the rabbit hole to realize that there's nothing actually going on there. That false positive actually is an indicator to continue screening and be watchful. Yeah, which can only serve. I mean, it can serve to drive you a little crazy, I suppose. But if you use it as information that your body is giving you about what it is going through and what it needs support in which we always lean back into. Taking a moment, listening to your body and giving it what it's, what it needs. And I feel like thermography is a really cool space to be able to, to be able to do that and actually listen and give your body, you know what it's asking for? Yeah, absolutely. So a couple of other things about thermography. There's no radiation. It really is just a special camera that captures heat in your body. And it's not covered by insurance, like we said, but that's because it's not the standard of care yet. And so I think women need to go into their care providers office and say, I know, you know about this option. Can you advocate for me? Can we talk to our, my insurance company or can I just write down somewhere that I'm requesting this, that I'm going to leave your office and go bring my business to somebody else? Because they have the screening tool that I want, or, you know, however you, however you usually stir things up in your doctor's office. However you want to stir that pot for sure. But that's how change happens, right. Is through consumers. So if your care provider is like, I'm not going to offer you that because I don't believe in it, or I don't think it's that great. Okay. Just make sure it's in your chart client where, you know, like patient requested. I am refusing this. And then you go somewhere else and you go find it. Right. But the more people that are asking and requesting it or call your insurance, ask it, request it, the more that they hear from consumers like us. The more likely it is that it becomes standard of care at some point, even that means even if that means like for our daughters. Right. So, it is worth it. Absolutely. Okay. So hopefully this gives you some information, some basis to understand what your options are that you potentially do a little bit more research from here. Get some more information. And feel informed. That's what we want for you. To feel informed. Okay. So there you go. But like we mentioned, at the beginning of the episode, that sale is live through Sunday, you are going to use the coupon code. Give thanks. For 50% off every single digital product in our store at this week. The link to the shop is in the show notes, but you can also just go to beautiful one midwifery.com. Click on the shop. And again, you are going to put in the code. Give thanks. 50% off. There you go, oh, we'll see you guys this time. Next Monday. Yeah, we will. And we won't know what day it is then either. Nope. I hope you don't either. I mean.