Body and bone scans

@Kattykit thank-you for sharing. i'm sorry to hear that the tumours in your leg weren't found sooner. i think i will be insisting on scans initially and then ongoing as a form of monitoring. i hope all is going well with your treatment now xx

@"Kiwi Angel" congratulations on the all clear on your bone scan - you must be thrilled! 

that's great @"Kiwi Angel"! 

Hi @Lvlw - I was diagnosed with bilateral invasive lobular and ultimately had a double mastectomy, now on chem with radiation and hormone therapy to follow.

My breast surgeon sent me for Chest, Abdomen and Pelvis staging CT scans prior to my surgery, as well as a full body bone scan. It was 'pitched' to me as routine and I didn't really think I had an option. As much as I experienced scan-xiety - and was convinced that my months of coughing, aching knee etc must be a sign of metastasis, I was actually very much in favour of having the scans so that I could either deal with a cancer spread or rule it out. 

All of these scans, including my pre-op MRI, suggested no node involvement. During surgery however, on my left side, two sentinal nodes were identified as postive for cancer cells and therefore my Breast Surgeon did a full axillary clearance on the left - he told me beforehand that he takes no chances and would do this. On the right, my sentinal nodes showed micro-cells for cancer and like you, that's deemed node-negative. 

Going forward, I'm honestly not sure what will be recommended to me in terms of ongoing scanning. I can't have MRI while my air-expanders are in place, because they have a small metal canister inside them, but I don't think I'll be able to have a reconstruction until at least mid-end 2019. For my piece of mind I am hoping that I will be sent for some sort of regular scan! 

Wishing you all the best for your radiation therapy xx

Bone scan all clear so I’m happy about that. 

I was having my yearly mammograms and doing everything I was told after my first diagnosis then I got a really sore leg, I  thought I had pulled a muscle in my leg at the gym but ir didn't get better so after almost 3 months of pain killers that did nothing for the pain and xrays that found nothing even though the doctor knew I had had cancer, they finally got around to a bone scan, well the tumour they found was so big it had almost eaten all the way through my bone and had to go into hospital immediately to have a pin put in my leg to stop it from fracturing as wel as multiple other tumours, I  am positive it would have been found much sooner if I had been having even bi annual bone and ct scans.
I wish now that I had insisted maybe it wouldn't have been as wide spread as it is now.

The doctors all have differing opinions don't they?

I had CT and Bone scan after diagnosis.  But that was because we knew it was already in the nodes and was suspicious for being elsewhere.  Thankfully it wasn't. 

 I had MRI after that to chase the elusive primary breast tumour as I wanted the Lumpectomy.  If I had chosen Mastectomy they wouldn't have bothered I don't think.

  My 12month scan was MG, US and MRI at my request. Given the issue the first time around I didn't trust the other two on there own. 
 After 10 wks on Tamoxifen version 1 I was aching through lower back and both hips chronically and also had severe mental fog.  Of course I thought it had spread and ran off to the doctor.  I requested another CT.  My gp is pretty iffy about handing out referrals for these.  She did give it to me with a warning to think carefully about scanning myself into more problems.

I let the CT ride, but did a bone scan (less radiation) and a brain MRI to alleviate some of my concerns. So the MRI picked up something odd in my head (can't remember what it was, vascular blush I think) they did give it a name but the problem is as soon as you have had cancer you get written on your reports basically "we think it is such and such but given the history cannot rule out the nasties".   More worry.  

So my GP gave me the "I told you so" look and said, many people have (whatever it was in my head, i'll have to go look it up), they rarely present an issue and most people would never know about it unless they were scanning for something else. That had to be checked again in three months so there was another three months worrying about something else unnecessarily.

My two years is coming up in November so that will be another MMG,US and MRI (once I save up for it LOL) I am just wondering if I need the other two or just rely on the MRI?????

Maybe request the  CT if you haven't had one before just so you can stop worrying and get on with things.

All the best @Lvlw

xoxoxo

@kmakm I’m very happy so far - she seems to realise I’m a real person and she even rang me back personally about 3 hours after I left a message. 

@"Kiwi Angel" Very lucky. Good doctor.

@kmakm I saw her for my last visit until November a few weeks ago and I was talking to her about my fears of recurrence so she she just to be thorough we could do a bone scan. I was talking to her on the phone the other day about the fluid medication and she said she would be surprised if there was anything when I’m stage 2 and she would be very surprised if there was anything when my CT and nodes were clear. I’m just glad she listens to my concerns. 

Generally the surgeon mo follows prpotocol standards which are recommendations nationally for the followup treatment of DCIS/ BC...regime..checkups for next 5 YEARS mean mammogram and not even a ct or bone scan is recommended...however some women have posted that they are having bone scans ct when they have been just diagonised due to size of bc and known node involvement that seems to be the determjning factor .