Did anyone ever wonder....

Did anyone ever wonder what the "bumps" around your breast were (they're called Montgomery's glands) and think they were cancer but, as a teenager, were too embarrassed to ask anyone? Did everyone just assume the "bumps" were normal, or didn't have them, or what?

I thought they were pimples for a long time... of course not having anyone to talk to about my health and/or body growing up I had some seriously crazy ideas about what things were!!!! Now I am just clueless!

Wait, are we talking about lumps or bumps? The bumps around my areola never really bothered me. I still have trouble with lumps though. I'm so skinny and my bosom is so small, I can feel pretty much everything. I actually did have a cyst removed a few years ago. It wasn't anything, and honestly, if I was bigger, it probably wouldn't have been an issue. My mom thinks I probably can even feel my milk ducts. I do get paranoid though, and do a self exam pretty much every month, so I"m getting used to the terrain in there Plus I always make sure to get one whenever I get a pap or my pills adjusted.

Long winded answer, but yes. I understand. You're not alone

I assumed they were just hair follicles or something...LOL

I just thought they were just the ends of the areola.

I just assumed they were normal and that everyone had them. But then my Mom got sick when I was 11 and died when I was 13, and my Dad never took me to the Dr's, so I grew up completely clueless about a lot of stuff. Still am.

splitimage

Didnt have anyone to explain much of anything to me so i basically just ignored what i could and figured something out for the stuff i couldnt ignore

Thanks for the responses. Roman, I meant bumps, not lumps, but I thought they were lumps and I worried that I had breast cancer. I never asked anyone so I worried about it for 8 years. This was pre-internet. I don't know why I couldn't find the answer in the encyclopedia or medical books. I liked libraries.

When I was a teen I did wonder what they were..... but like many here, I hadn't a single person to talk to or had ever explained anything to me... so I figured, if it wasn't normal sooner or later it would get worse and maybe result in fever, or some other ailment....

I just waited and waited to see if it ever got worse.... after a few years, with no change, I figured if it is abnormal maybe it's not deadly.... so I just pushed it to the back of my mind.... not knowing if I was normal or sick or what....... I couldn't risk asking anyone as I couldn't allow family to be that "close" to me... no one was safe enough for that....

The number of glands varies from four to twenty-eight.These glands are also saliva receptors and receive new information from the nursing baby every feeding. This is how the mother's body knows what to add or take away in the milk it produces for the next feeding.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Areolar_glands

A woman's body is amazing, isn't it?

Hello rainbow8,
I thought that they were normal.

I don't know why I automatically assumed I had cancer, and didn't ask my mother. I was too embarrassed, and also didn't want to worry her.

Maybe, it was something you saw on tv or overheard?

these bumps in the breast ( both of them , i assume?)most likely are fibroadenomas ( or milder versions)that is the ducts and the lining of the milk glands get thickened. this can affect some or few glands and ducts causing them to bump against you palm during examination. depending on the age you have to give it priority to eliminate the possiblity of cancer. women( or even men) with bumps in thier breast with following have to get is examined by a surgeon or gynacologist- lump growing in size,in one or both breasts, secretions from nipple, painful or painless, smaller bumps in the armpit ot neck region. i know someone who had similar bumps, freaked out claiming it was cancer, did a mammogram, relieved to hear it was only fibroadenomas. :-)
take care.

Thank you for the information, Ruby. For sure they were Montgomery's glands though, something totally normal! In the 1960's, I didn't have access to finding that out.