breast exams

[Rich meier]

has anyone had mammograms or intends to get one. I have been thinking about getting one. does anyone who knows will insurance or medicare pay for  one if your male

[MarcoB]

Do not get mammograms!!  See my post at https://www.gynecomastia.org/forum/acceptance/17/guess-what/35846/msg220017#msg220017 about thermograms instead, which are more sensitive, more accurate, less expensive, painless, and cannot cause any harm, even to pregnant or nursing women.

[gynepaul]

Medicare paid for mine.  

[brock123]

Yes, and it wasn't a big deal at all medically.  Insurance covered it, but mine was via a referral from my PCP.  As with all things insurance, you might want to try to ensure you stay "in network" and have such a referral for the procedure.  No clue how much it would cost out of pocket.  In my case, there was also a couple scheduled follow-ups with specialists, of which I only went to the first (thanks COVID).  For that one follow-up I followed through with it was just a small copay only.

If cost/insurance is a concern I suggest you contact your provider first to see if they will pay for this or require you to jump through a bunch of hoops before they will.

If you have any concerns about the procedure itself, it's kind of anti-climactic.  The tech will walk you up to a large machine and instruct you how to place your chest/breast in said machine correctly.  The machine then smushes you up a bit for a couple/few seconds to capture the images.  Rinse and repeat for the other side.

As a male, the only legit problem I encountered was after the procedure; I was subsequently (and quite unceremoniously) ferried into a dark corner of the facility where nobody could see me and given my clothes to put back on and told to sit on a bench.  I did press the staff on this and their explanation was that the women present may have a problem with me being there at all.  Kind of a lame excuse, but I understand.

[Traveler]

I had pretty much the same experience as Brock did above. This was in a smallish city of 50,000 or so. I asked if they get many men and was told “more than you’d think.”

[Andgy]

Do not get mammograms!!  See my post at https://www.gynecomastia.org/forum/acceptance/17/guess-what/35846/msg220017#msg220017 about thermograms instead, which are more sensitive, more accurate, less expensive, painless, and cannot cause any harm, even to pregnant or nursing women.

Oh this is very disturbing. I work in the healthcare industry dealing with radiation. I think it's a myth that mammograms are dangerous. Though there is a possibility of a false positive, it is a widely used diagnostic approach to investigate the breasts.

You are wrong that mammogram emits 1000x more radiation than a chest x-ray.  It is so much less than that!

[MarcoB]

Do not get mammograms!!  See my post at https://www.gynecomastia.org/forum/acceptance/17/guess-what/35846/msg220017#msg220017 about thermograms instead, which are more sensitive, more accurate, less expensive, painless, and cannot cause any harm, even to pregnant or nursing women.

Oh this is very disturbing. I work in the healthcare industry dealing with radiation. I think it's a myth that mammograms are dangerous. Though there is a possibility of a false positive, it is a widely used diagnostic approach to investigate the breasts.

You are wrong that mammogram emits 1000x more radiation than a chest x-ray. It is so much less than that!

The industry will definitely try to discredit anything that goes against its profits.  I understand the modern machines are not producing nearly as much radiation as the machines of 30 years ago; but still, no radiation is good.  The other benefits of thermograms still apply though.

[brock123]

If you have breasts, "real" or otherwise, any decision to not involve some radiology to see where you are "at", is to me, irresponsible.  A mammogram will be the best way able to determine if you are just fatty, or bloaty, or have legit gyne. At the same time, it is seemingly also the best tool available we have to determine if breast cancer may be involved

Don't get me wrong, I fall into an "on and off fatty/bloaty" category here, and that's admittedly a tough place to be in for a man. There are days where my chest requires support or otherwise "protrudes" uncomfortably, and days where it does not.  Science/medicine has not provided an acceptable explanation; but I followed through with all the "steps" involved to try and figure this out, and yes, a Mammogram was one of those steps.

I definitely do not have Breast Cancer, thanks to my mammogram. Also, thanks to my mammogram, I am clearly in the "fatty/bloaty" category as a man; the tissue may become heavy/dense enough to warrant a bra/support from time to time, but it's not legit breast tissue and isn't likely to head in that direction anytime soon. (I'm 49 now, so this is likely to change in the next decade).

Again, just "to me", not getting any extra and unexpected chest tissue checked out is irresponsible.  As a male, you will incur unfair judgement/pressure if you are "busty", but it's not all that uncommon of a condition. Men have breasts too, but we tend to ignore that fact until we realize we look like sh* in a T-Shirt. I personally try to push that Women's Sports Bras can be conssidered as "Unisex" if they are cut generically enough for a "uniboob" effect and won't cause a lot of physical pain when worn by a man.

Agree to disagree, maybe? Boobs are boobs and are an evolutionary trait or women. Boobs on a man are common but hidden for whatever reason.  Who (male/female) doesn't like a set of "funbags" that aren't theirs to play with?  My wife is 34G, I am 40B, there is a ton of flesh here to play with.  Making it "not a problem" took time but we both get mammograms every year, and it's become increasingly hard to care about what anyone else thinks of that/us.

[MarcoB]

If you want to get a mammogram to find out what's in there, go for it.  Cancer however does not strike at random, and it's not like you can't do much/anything to avoid it.  Also, the oncology industry's survival rate has not improved in decades, despite earlier detection.  If we could get every woman in the US supplementing 200 micrograms of selenium every day, in ten years we would eliminate over 80% of breast cancer.  It's a similar story with other cancers, probably including male breast cancer.  If, in addition, we could get them all to get their vitamin-D levels up into the 60-80ng/ml range where they belong, we could eliminate 80% of the remainder; IOW, that's over 96% of the breast cancer eliminated just from doing two of the many things that can be done to avoid it.