Breast cancer treatments often change the way your breasts look and feel.
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How breasts look and feel post-cancer will depend on what’s been done—lumpectomy, mastectomy, or radiation. Survivors deal with scars and sometimes dented breasts, in addition to breast removal and the side effects of reconstruction.
A mastectomy sometimes leaves a woman with numbness and tingling in the chest, as well as neck and back pain. “It causes a loss of sensation in the chest wall from your collarbone to your rib cage,” says Monica Morrow, MD, chief of the breast-surgery service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. “The discomfort decreases over time, but as nerves regrow in a year or two it’s normal to experience occasional sharp, shooting pains or a feeling of something on your skin you want to brush off.” Radiation treatments can take a toll, too, causing extreme redness or dryness on the breast skin and changes in the color or texture of the nipple and areola.
