I went for a routine female exam in Jan 2008. Dr. said b/c I was 41, I should have a routine mammogram. Had it and one week later had lumpectomy and diagnosis of HER2/neu ++ IDC. Followed with double mast, chemo and Herceptin.

Routine mammo saved my life.

No, mine was not routine. I found the lump from a BSE and then went into to dr office. If they said that women under 50 don't qualify for mammos then I would have been dead by now. The doctor could not find the lump when he did an exam. I had find it again, then put his finger right on it. So it was very small. But it was seen on the mammo and u/s.

Even though I'm old, I have dense breasts..or shall I say BREAST without the "s." I had my mammo in March '04 and found it Dec. '04. If I had been doing BSE like Ginger I maybe I would have found it a little sooner. I also had a clinical breast examine in March. However, even if I had found it I would have probably thought it was a cyst cuz I've had ultrasounds for that. I almost didn't have this checked out cuz I thought I might be a cyst. The one thing....in my mind it didn't really feel like a cyst but sure was big. And, now I wasn't doing a BSE. I was scratching my boob in the middle of the night..woke up the next morning wondering if I had a dream...nope the lump was still there.

I know I don't fit in your poll, but had to run my mouth anyway. The moral of the story....even old women can have negative mammos with positive stuff going on inside their bosoms.

I'm not in my 40's either, but mine was found when I was 53. I had skipped one mammo screening the year before and at my annual physical, my dr felt a lump and we talked about my "lumpy" breasts but the weird thing was that she called right then and made the mammo appointment for me and faxed the referral on the spot. I think she didn't want me to blow it off another year. Got a call back from screening mammo, did ultrasound where they found another tumor and biopsied both, Then presurgical MRI found ANOTHER one so I had to have another biopsy on that. So 3 IDC tumors, and I have no idea how long I had them. I too have dense breasts even though I am old and my breast surgeon wants to monitor my remaining one with MRI and mammo. Even though they were grade 1 tumors, Oncotype came back 27, so it was chemo for me. But no radiation at least since SNB was negative..