With time, the treatment for breast cancer is improving immensely. One of the proofs for that is the rise of breast cancer survivors. These days, someone with breast cancer has a plethora of treatment options. Once it is detected early, very rarely does it cause fatal damage.
With so many treatment options available, it will be better for you if you know about them and the ones that could really help you. It does not matter which breast cancer treatment you choose, all of them will have two primary goals:
- To eliminate cancer from your body as much as possible
- To stop cancer from coming back again
How to choose the best treatment
The doctor you consult will see a few things before recommending a breast cancer treatment that will be the best for your case:
- Age of the patient
- The kind of breast cancer you are having
- The size of the tumor
- How much the tumor has spread
- Whether your tumor has receptors or not
- Other medical conditions you have
- Whether you have gone through your menopause or not
Also sometimes your doctor will consider your preferences as well while making the decision on which breast cancer treatment would be good for you.
Types of Breast Cancer treatment
There are some breast cancer treatments that can totally destroy the disease inside the breast or the nearby tissues like lymph nodes. These treatments include:
Surgery
Surgeries on breast cancer have provided relief for many. This is one of the go-to breast cancer treatments the doctors generally use. There are two types of surgeries that doctors recommend. An option is a mastectomy where the whole breast gets removed — another other is a lumpectomy or breast-conserving surgery where doctors remove the tissues around a tumor. With surgery in the initial stages, you will get good relief.
Chemotherapy
Chemotherapy or chemo is one of the widely used breast cancer treatments. With chemo treatments, certain medications are used to kill the cancer cells. These hugely powerful medicines might cause several side effects. These side-effects include:
- Nausea
- Hair loss
- Hot Flashes
- Fatigues
- Early Menopause
Hormone Therapy
Estrogen is one such hormone that influences the growth of breast cancer. There are certain medicines that stop the feeling of estrogen in the growth of breast cancer cells. The type of medicine will be determined according to the age of the patient.
How to Prevent Breast cancer from happening in the first place
There are certain measures if you take then you can prevent breast cancers from happening in the first place so that you can avoid treatment for breast cancer:
- Maintain Healthy Body Weight: Maintaining a healthy body weight is important because being overweight increases the risk of many cancers including breast cancer.
- Living an active lifestyle: Active lifestyle is the key to good health. Women who regularly exercise for at least 30 minutes a day have a lower risk of getting affected by breast cancer.
- Eat a Healthy Diet: Those who go for a healthy diet have lesser chances of getting affected by breast cancer. That is why it is important to include a lot of vegetables and fruits in your diet.
- Quit Smoking: Whether you are a smoker or a non-smoker, you ought to know that smoking is unhealthy. There are many health issues that can arise from smoking including breast cancer.
- Family History: The cause of your cancer could be genetic. It is a wise choice to know about your family history and find out whether anyone in your family had breast cancer or not. In this way, you will be able to take preventive measures in a better way.
You already know all this information, don’t you? But a better question might be — are you following the guidelines? Are you taking precautions to help yourself avoid cancer in the first place? Please do so.
Early detection is the secret mantra for treating breast cancer. Also, by taking these preventive measures mentioned above, you will be able to prevent breast cancer from happening in the first place. Even after that, if you get affected by breast cancer then you should contact your doctor and get the treatments mentioned above done as soon as possible.
