Breast Pain Causes

19 Jul

Posted by Admin as Female health

Breast pain: Pain in or near the breasts (mastodynia). See free access online books about Breast pain below. See detailed information below for a list of 76 causes of Breast pain, including diseases and drug side effect causes.
Types of breast pain:

Cyclical breast pain - where the pain is worse before menstruation. Cyclical breast pain can vary from a mild ache to severe pain. It often goes away once the period starts.

Non-cyclical breast pain - lasting breast pain where the pain is not related to menstruation. More common in women over 40.

Causes

Most of the time, it’s not possible to identify the exact cause of breast pain. Likely contributors are:

Reproductive hormones. Cyclic breast pain appears to have a strong link to hormones. The fact that cyclic breast pain often decreases or disappears with pregnancy or menopause lends support to the theory that hormones play a role. However, no studies have identified a particular hormonal abnormality as a contributor to cyclic breast pain.

Anatomical factors. The cause of noncyclic breast pain is likely to be anatomical rather than hormonal, triggered by breast cysts, breast trauma, prior breast surgery or other factors localized to the breast. Noncyclic breast pain may also originate outside the breast — in the chest wall, muscles, joints or heart, for example — and radiate to the breast.

Breast pain may be the result of many factors. In some women aging lead to the severe breast pain. The oral contraceptive pills and hormone replacement therapy are two of the major detected causes of breast pain. If women put over weight, it will lead to sagging breasts and then to aching breasts. Many women who don’t wear proper bras also have to suffer breast pain.

It is thought that women with cyclical breast pain have breast tissue which is more sensitive than usual to the normal hormone changes that occur each month. It is not due to any hormone disease, or to any problem in the breast itself. It is not serious, but it can be a real nuisance.

Common Causes:

Some degree of breast tenderness is normal, caused by hormonal fluctuations from:

Menstruation
Pregnancy — tends to be more common during the first trimester and pregnancy at a young age
Puberty — in both girls and boys

Cyclical breast pain affecting both breasts is not a symptom of breast cancer. It occurs because some women’s breasts are particularly sensitive to hormone changes. Each breast is made up of a collection of glands for producing milk; these look rather like bunches of silky white grapes. The ‘stalks’ of the bunches are small milk ducts, which lead into larger and larger ducts for the milk to reach the surface of the nipple.