A discharge in the right breast. This is the feeling that Emilie Daudin, 33 years old, suddenly felt in January 2020. The young mother consulted her midwife that same evening. After palpation, the professional feels nothing and reassures her: “breast cancer does not hurt. » The thirty-year-old – known on social networks under the pseudonym EmilieBrunette – is relieved. However, the pain persists and a lump begins to grow.
Four months later, do it again. She urgently consults a second midwife, a sonographer, who this time feels a lump. “She tells me it’s probably a muscle tear because breast cancer doesn’t hurt. » Emilie suffers more and more. At the start of the 2020 school year, when she began to have difficulty breathing, she had an ultrasound. The ax falls… Six tumors in her right breast and triple negative breast cancer. A serious form.
“Rare cases are learned through experience”
Emilie’s story is not exceptional. Other women share similar experiences on social media. How to interpret this pain and above all what does it reveal? “Pain is not usually a symptom of breast cancer,” assures Pierre Kouchner, gynecological surgeon and oncologist. This is essentially the case for those who are inflammatory, a serious but rare form. I have to see it once a year. » According to the doctor, chest pain – called mastodynia – is, on the other hand, extremely common and often linked to hormonal phenomena. “This pain is generally bilateral and occurs in the period before menstruation. »
However, the subject is not unanimous in the medical community. If Myriam Delomenie, a cancer surgeon specializing in breast cancer, recognizes that in the majority of cases, pain is caused by a “benign lesion, a cyst or non-cancerous inflammation”, she claims to have had patients who felt pain. in the breast and in whom she found a cancerous lesion, although not inflammatory. “In our studies, we are taught the main points but the rare cases, we learn them through experience,” she explains.
A random
The oncologist struggles to identify the origin of this pain. “The small cancerous tumor will invade the healthy gland tissue, which can pull on the surrounding tissues,” she says. It can cause lymph nodes, especially under the arm, which can hurt, especially when they are close to a nerve root or compress a vessel. »
According to Pierre Kouchner, the association made between pain and breast cancer is probably a coincidence. “You can very well have both mastodynia and breast cancer. It’s statistical. One in eight women are affected by breast cancer during their lifetime and many women have or have had breast pain. The probability of the two intersecting is very high. » The gynecologist fears “worrying all the many women who feel breast pain but who are not at risk. »
Trust in the expert
Cindy Faccini felt this concern at the beginning of 2022 when, at 36, she spotted a painful lump in her right breast. “It’s completely normal to have pain depending on your cycle,” her gynecologist reassures her. It’s your mammary gland that’s working. » But gradually, the pain spreads to the back, then to the legs. His GP prescribed him tramadol. Nearly a year after the first pains, Cindy fell stiff when leaving work. Head to the emergency room. His femur has just fractured. The x-ray shows metastases throughout his body. She was diagnosed with HER3 positive breast cancer.
“When my gynecologist told me it was nothing, I didn’t look any further,” admits Cindy Faccini. Especially since I trusted him completely because he had been wonderful during my pregnancies. » As her pain was not constant, she told herself that it could actually correspond to her cycles. “With hindsight, I tell myself that it was definitely cancer since I have a hormone-dependent form. » Today, Cindy Faccini is fighting metastatic breast cancer with which she will have to live for the rest of her life. “I am living proof that breast cancer can hurt. If people had listened to me from the start, it would have changed my life. »
Same story for Emilie Daudin. Followed by more than 160,000 people on Instagram, she made it her fight. “I’m fighting to stop saying that breast cancer doesn’t hurt. Because I was a good student, I listened to the prevention campaigns and I immediately went for consultation. And they didn’t listen to me. »
“Difficult to blame the doctor”
According to Myriam Delomenie, “if we are not hyper-specialized in breast cancer, we only know the generalities, the most frequent symptoms. It is difficult to blame the doctor who sees nothing in the case where the patient is young, has no cases in her family and in whom no lumps are felt. »
A situation experienced by Cindy Faccini. “I had to cry and beg my doctor for a prescription for an ultrasound. It revolts me that we don’t systematically perform an examination on a woman who reports pain. Today, I cost the State 2,600 euros for oral chemotherapy per month until the end of my life. Prevention would have cost much less. » An opinion shared by Emilie Daudin. If in doubt about the advice of the first doctor, she advises consulting another. “It’s better to be too careful than not enough. »
But the price is not the only argument leading doctors not to continue research. “Mammography is a slightly irradiating examination, which increases the risk of cancer if it is performed too young or too frequently,” recalls Pierre Kouchner. We will therefore not favor ultrasound for young women who do not present any risk or associated symptoms. » Myriam Delomenie regularly sees patients for chest pain. Each time, she performs a palpation to look for a lesion before completing with an ultrasound or, depending on age, a mammogram. “Even if in more than 90% of cases, we do an ultrasound for nothing, it can help us understand why the woman feels pain. » And it is not Cindy Faccini and Emilie Daudin who will contradict her.