After recently taking up running again, one English woman started noticing a rash develop on her chest, and figured her sports bra, which didn’t fit well, was rubbing against her chest and causing the skin to chafe.
32-year-old Sarah Lang did everything to try and calm down the irritated skin, but when it refused to heal, she decided it was about time she went to the doctor. “At first, I just thought the mark was chafing. But it got to the point where the skin on my nipple would rip off whenever I removed my bra. It was really painful,” Lang explained. “Deep down, I knew I wasn’t OK I just had this gut feeling.”
At first, the doctor thought it was just a normal case of dermatitis, and prescribed her with cream, however, when that did nothing to help, the doctor took samples of her skin to biopsy at the follow-up appointment a week later.
A few days later, doctors delivered the awful news that the rash was actually a symptom of Paget’s disease of the nipple, a rare type of cancer that affects the skin of a nipple and causes an eczema-like rash.
Lang immediately underwent a partial mastectomy, but follow-up tests revealed she had three more aggressive tumors in her breasts. “It was a real shock. I’d had no lumps or anything to indicate they were there,” she said. Lang has since undergone a full mastectomy, and will be getting chemotherapy in the next few months.
“It’s amazing how much my priorities have changed in time, though. I’ve gone from freaking out about losing my nipple, to barely flinching about having a mastectomy,” Lang said. “The way I see it, if it’s a way forward to getting better, then I don’t have an option not to do it.”
Did you know a rash could be a sign of breast cancer? Let us know what you think in the comments below, and please SHARE this with friends on Facebook.
[Featured image: PA Real Life]
Runner Finds Out Rash On Her Chest Is Actually Breast Cancer is an article from: LifeDaily