Healthy Living: Women and cysts
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When it comes to women and their monthly cycle, many experience pain in their breast. Others experience pain that’s not cyclical, but all month long.
There are various factors that cause women to have painful and tender breasts. One chronic problem is frocystic breasts, but women can also have what's called solitary cysts which often can cause pain.
"If someone has solitary cyst especially as it grows, if it's compressing tissue or superficially, along the line of the bra or on the lateral aspect. If it grows big enough in size, it can cause patient discomfort," Dr. Arvind Mahatme said.
A radiologist can take images of the breast and identify what type of cyst is causing the problem.
"Simple cysts are just simple cysts. What I tell folks is if it is not bothering you and we gave a good radiographic evaluation, that it has nice smooth walls, you leave it alone." Mahatme said.
Cysts, while they can be painful, are not serious.
"You have to think what is the underlying causative factor. Is there a blockage in the normal drainage? Sometimes there is a portion of the breast that is degenerated and now formed a walled collection. You can have ductal obstruction and you can have debris within the duct that now more approximate to it, there is no flow and that builds up and forms a cyst," Mahatme said.
Some painful cysts can be drained or even removed, in the hopes they don't come back, but unfortunately, some do.