Breast Cancer Self Exam Horizontal Inspection

Video Transcript

"Hello I am Dr. Susan Jewell and I am going to show you how to do a breast self examiniation. Now in this clip I am going to show you how to do a horizontal inspection of the breast. Now the first thing you need to do is find something comfortable to lie on, so here I have a couch, it could be a bed you know it could be a nice massage table or something.So find somewhere you could relax you could lie on the best time to actually do an examiniation is straight after a shower because your body and your muscles are relaxed so imagine that I just come out of the shower and I am of course naked or undressed while I am doing this examination. FInd a nice comfy couch or a bed and the next thing that you do is look for a pillow. And here we have a pillow. Depends on which breast you are going to exam first you're going to position that pillow in the appropriate place. I am going to talk about looking at the left side, the left breast, so I am going to position the pillow on the left side of the couch or the bed and the next thing i am going to do is I am going to lie down by with my left arm I am going to place it right ankle to my body, I am going to rest my head on my arm, put my leg up onto the couch or the bed and relax and with the other arm or the hand, first of all I am going to look at the breast in the mirror, if there's a mirror in front of you. to see if there's any kind of irreglarities or bump or lumps you see and the next thing you do is, with your opposite hand, and in this case my right hand, I am going to use the cirrect three digits and I am going to start in the armpit area of the breast. The breast area that is closets to the arm pit and I will start doing the manipulation or feeling of the breast tissue. Then what you do is after you've done that, you have to then do the opposite breast. In this case, it's going to be the right breast. SO you take the pillow and you repeat process buton the opposite side so with the pillow you put it on the right side and with your right arm you put it right ankles to your body and you rest your head on your arm relax and then put your legs up onto the couch or the bed and you use left hand and you do the same thing. You can start at the axillary or the arm pit region and you start doing the breast palpation. So this is how you do the horizontal positioning for the breast self examination."