Natural Solutions for Breast Health | Breast Cancer Awareness Month

So you’ve heard about heart health and gut health, what about breast health?

My Breast Journey

I used to look at my breasts in the mirror, pulling one up and comparing it to the other. I would wish so hard to have perky, stand-up-here breasts instead of pendulous, way down-there-puppies with sparkling, multicolored stretch marks.

Weight changes and overnutrition in my youth never gave me the opportunity to have perky, perfect breasts. Instead, I went from flat to fat and then stretched out to swinging and saggy.

Breasts define our femininity in many ways, we feel sexy because of them and un-sexy in spite of them.

I recall getting intimate with my husband and being so ashamed to get naked in front of him. I apologetically told him I needed to be honest with him and tell him that my tits sagged, instead of being heralds of fertility and proud of them with pomp and circumstance. I felt deflated because of them just like they were deflated.

Turns out he didn’t care. He actually knew, and had been staring down my top for a while and loved what he was seeing – without me knowing!

Why Are Breasts Such a Big Deal?

Breast are bold, they stick out from our bodies. They are the first thing that enters the room, the first thing in many cases that get noticed.

Men obsess about them, maybe because they have mother and latching issues, or maybe because they just adore the difference between male and female bodies.

Whether you think your breasts are too large or too small, they are a source of shame for many. It’s time to take this inappropriate thought pattern and shove it where the sun don’t shine. It’s our time to be proud of all of our shapes and sizes and stretch marks. Be proud of the pleasure they bring us, from foreplay to feeding our babies.

Breast Judgments

My first encounter with the dangers of judgments made on breasts wasn’t my own, but actually my mother’s. When she was a dashing young lady, she had gone to the doctor’s office to have her yearly check-up and breast exam.

Upon taking off her shirt to be examined, the doctor gasped at how large her breasts were (super inappropriate FYI, in this day and age but this was back in the 60s). My mother, being incredibly shy about her sexuality, was immediately embarrassed, turned red as a lobster and searched to get dressed immediately.

So shocked was she by this judgment that she never had another breast exam again, until it was too late.

Judgments can damage our psyche, we don’t know how our words will fall on the ears receiving them. Judgments serve no purpose either, except pain. After all, no one asks the doctor to comment on how large they are, but rather how healthy they are.

My Mother’s Breast Cancer

Forty years later, my mother waited until blood came out of her nipple and a mass so large it was hard to avoid, came cauli-flowering out of her breast. With two doctors as daughters, we couldn’t believe that she had let the shame of an event that happened so long ago, impact her life now.

The diagnosis – stage 4 breast cancer. Devastating, with little to no time to act.

Because of this experience, I got over my breast bullsh*t and got into owning one of the most beautiful, female, flourishing features of my health.

Importance of Breast Exams

For this reason alone, every single woman in my naturopathic practice gets a yearly breast exam, done by our skilled naturopath assessment hands.

But some of us don’t have access to a doctor who is experienced or willing to do a breast exam, especially since now the recommendation is to avoid breast exams.

In countries where breast cancer is diagnosed at advanced stages, it is valuable to have patients understand breast self-examination as well as to be examined1.

So this is extremely valuable. My mother was fortunate, even though she was at the extreme case, she survived with a combination of surgery, radiation, chemotherapy as well as naturopathic medicine. Her cancer was so far advanced that it was an impossibility to only do the natural route.

Self-Examination Is Invaluable

The comment I get in clinic time and time again is that most women don’t know what normal feels like. They feel that their breasts are lumpy and bumpy (a sign of estrogen dominance, or low iodine).

But let me tell you, the first time I did a breast exam I thought exactly the same thing! How was I going to identify anything going wrong if I can’t notice anything different?

Do you know what changed it? Practice, my friends, practice is the mother of all skills.

And what if you find lots of lumps and bumps? Make your way to your doctor and get checked out. It never hurts to be extra cautious.

There are many things you can do at home now to support cystic & lumpy breasts

Most of these strategies deal with reducing the amount of estrogen in your body.

1. Eat more broccoli family foods (cruciferous veggies)²
2. Reduce your alcohol intake³
3. Reduce your theophylline intake, in coffee, tea and chocolate 
4. Wear a sleep mask to bed – they naturally increase melatonin which is a powerful anti-cancer hormone in the body⁴
5. Of course, do a castor oil pack daily, because it helps with cleansing and detox⁵, microbiome balance^6 7 8, inflammation⁹, and stress reduction^{10 11}, which all impact your hormonal balance.

So get to know your boobies! I know I’ve got saggy tits, and sometimes they really do look like sacks! But I love them because they are me 100% and I get to know them regularly so I can keep them a part of me for the long haul. They are my twins after all, and I can’t get another pair just like these (no judgment if you’ve had yours changed, just love!).

Do you know the difference between then and now? Now I love my breasts, I treat them better every single day because I have learned that they are an important part of who I am. They share my story.

Don’t forget to share this with your friends & family members on social media, through email and to like us on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube to learn more about joining the movement so that we can all have an improvement!

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