One breast always hurts

Breast pain can be unilateral or bilateral. Advanced breast hyperplasia can manifest as unilateral or bilateral breast pain, especially in the early stages of the disease, most of the breast pain is on one side. As the disease progresses, breast pain will develop on both sides. Later, with the changes in female hormones, the pain may be relieved, including the reduction or even disappearance of the breast lumps.

However, for patients with breast cancer, since most of them are single tumors, the symptoms caused by it are usually on one side. Of course, if it is bilateral primary tumor, it may also cause bilateral pain. However, the incidence of patients with bilateral primary breast cancer is relatively low and relatively rare in clinical medicine.

The sensation of the breast is controlled by the intercostal nerves and the 3rd and 4th cervical nerves. Once these nerves are damaged, pain will occur. Therefore, breast pain is not a specific symptom of a certain disease. Early-stage breast cancer rarely causes pain, except in some advanced-stage breast cancer or inflammatory breast cancer. Breast pain often comes from non-tumorous breast diseases. It can be said that breast pain is not proportional to the benign or malignant transformation of breast diseases and the severity of the symptoms. It is important to advise that you should be more vigilant about breast lumps that are not accompanied by breast pain.

Clinical symptoms of breast pain

There are many diseases that cause breast pain, the most common of which are acute mastitis, persistent pain, obvious tenderness, and pain that can cause a throbbing sensation after a cyst forms. Breast hyperplasia, bilateral breast pain is common, one side is more severe, often showing regularity, breast swelling and pain before menarche, the pain will spontaneously reduce and disappear after menstruation, and the pain in some patients can also radiate to the armpits or shoulders and back. Plasma cell mastitis (also known as mammary gland enlargement syndrome) is often accompanied by local itching and burning pain. My nipples are dry and cracked, and I feel severe pain when breastfeeding. A very small number of breast cancers may cause mild dull pain or aching, and the onset is often irregular; some advanced breast cancer tumors may ulcerate and die to form ulcers, which may cause persistent burning pain; inflammatory breast cancer causes the breast skin to become red, swollen, hot, painful, and accompanied by tenderness.

Breast pain test

When diagnosing breast pain, the breast clinic doctor will understand the medical history, understand whether there is a cause, the onset and duration of the disease, the characteristics of the pain, whether treatment has been carried out, what the actual effect is, and then conduct a physical examination. In diagnosis, sometimes it is also necessary to combine imaging diagnostic examinations, including mammography (breast molybdenum target photography), color Doppler ultrasound, and breast magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). If breast pain is accompanied by nipple discharge, some examination methods for nipple discharge can also be performed, such as ductoscopy, breast tube angiography, nipple discharge cytology examination, etc.