DCIS treatments

Hi @Blister, in answer to your original question, having a mastectomy definitely isn't overkill in my opinion.  I too had DCIS in my right breast and had a lumpectomy but the surgeon could not get clear margins and so I had another lumpectomy. Pathology showed that the breast was full of micro DCIS, difficult to find and so the best option for me was a mastectomy to ensure that all of the diseased breast was gone and I could stop worrying about the possibility of it spreading around further.  What was a difficult decision was whether to have my left breast removed at the same time, i.e. a prophylactic mastectomy.  I opted to have both breasts removed as I wanted to keep the cancer risk as low as possible for the future.  As it happens, pathology showed lobular cancer in my left breast, the prophylactic one, which had not been picked up on any scans so I'm glad I had the bilateral mastectomy! I'm lucky it was picked up early and no lymph nodes removed or radiation or chemo. Whilst the mastectomy and reconstruction with tissues expanders at the moment is not a walk in the park, it is better than cancer which has spread.  However, others may choose to have more conservative treatment and keep their breasts or have a mastectomy and go flat because everyone is on their own personal journey.  I'm 56 in a month and didn't hesitate to have the boobs rebuilt and agree with @FLClover that for some people, if it is possible, having your breasts reconstructed is healing no matter what age you are, but for others it's not important.  Good luck with everything  <3 x