Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Re: Breast Cancer Awareness Month - Consider THERMOGRAPHY as screening tool

Since this is Breast Cancer Awareness month I feel compelled to post info to let women know there is a great screening tool available that is non-invasive and unlike mammograms, does not increase your risk of the getting the cancer it purports to detect - there is absolutely no radiation involved. It is also very cheap (I paid about $250 for a series of two tests done 3 or 4 months apart) so though not covered by insurance it is well worth the money to me. You can choose to have this study instead of or in addition to mammography - your choice.

The screening tool is Breast Thermography. Please Google it to learn more and you can also do searches to find a center in your area that does thermography. If I post any one particular article then someone might write to me with something to counter that particular one or try to discredit that source. There are articles on both sides of the issue of whether thermography is valid...everything I have read leads me to trust it far more than mammograms when all factors are considered. That is my personal decision and you may feel differently.

My reason for writing is just to get info out for women to follow up on in making their own healthcare decisions. The information we are spoon-fed by the mainstream ad-supported media is hardly a true and accurate picture and if you rely solely on that information, you cannot make informed choices.

I encourage you to read about thermography (and many other health issues) from a variety of sources and form your own conclusions. At the same time I challenge you to be very aware of the source of information for ANYTHING you read about healthcare, whether it is pro or con on any issue. Consider the profit motives. Also sites/media that are ad-supported, for instance (most of our mainstream media) are most certainly going to have slanted views because they cannot irritate their advertisers. (We do not have a true free press in our country.) The medical and pharmaceutical industries are the source of the biggest advertising dollars. (We are one of the only countries in the world that allow that type of advertising.)

If you are the sort that does still prefer to get info from mainstream media, here is a video that tells about thermography from network TV:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaS3VIyltJQ
(I think this is a pretty good video except that I personally disagree what they say at the end about encouraging women to still get mammograms in addition to the thermograms.)

1 comment:

Tracy Jane Comer said...

Yeesh I forgot to mention that what prompted my blog was this article in today's paper. The American Cancer Society is now quietly admitting that the benefits of mammograms and screenings for prostate cancer have been "overstated" for years. Here's the full version (our paper had edited version).