To wrap up October and Breast Cancer Awareness month, Covenant had some advice on screening for breast cancer.

When you need to start screening could depend on your family history.

“It’s 35 to 40 years old if you’ve not had any breast cancer history in your family,” Lindsey Kennelly. “If you’ve had history of breast cancer, you should start about 10 years prior, so say, if your mom had breast cancer, 10 year prior of when she was diagnosed.” Kennelly is the manager of the Arrington Breast Center at Covenant.

They also said you can do self-exams.
 
“The biggest thing is just to know what is normal for you.the only way you can find out your normal is to be familiar,” Tiffany Nino, the breast care navigator at Covenant, said.

Nino said even men should be aware of what’s normal for them.

“I think it’s important, even men should do breast exams,” Nino said.

Nino said they do have some male patients.

“We offer them just the same type of support as we would a female, if not more, because it so daunting to be in such a pink world,” Nino said “I think it’s harder for men, because it is such a feminine diagnosed disease. I think that went men find a lump or a mass, or they had discharge, then they are very secretive about it and they’re very reluctant to tell someone, most of the time the men that come in are sometimes have progressed further than what women would come in.”