Need Suggestions on What Is Wrong

Diet tea is just as bad as diet soda. Operative word - diet. Artificial sweeteners create chaos In the body and should be avoided at all costs! If you have fibrotic cysts, they create pain. Cancer does not.

I had the same pains on and off, usually right before my period. Finally one month I felt a large lump. Of course, I went into full panic and went straight to the doc. Fortunately, it wasn't cancer- it was a large fluid-filled cyst. Once my period came and was over, the lumps disappeared. They would reappear each month. The doc sent me for ultrasounds every six months just to make sure that there was no change. I had several large ones, the worse of which were so far within the tissue I couldn't feel it.
Definitely take note of the days when you feel the pains and head to your OBGYN. More than likely you will get an ultrasound instead of a mammogram, so totally painless. Good luck!

Get it checked. Always get anything unusual checked. While the chances are extremely slim that it's anything wrong, the post below saying that there is no pain with breast cancer is incorrect; the form called inflammatory breast cancer does cause pain, but it also is not a common form of cancer. So that's why it's likelier that this is an infection in a breast duct, or something very common and easily remedied.

It also could be fibrocystic breast tissue, which can cause shooting pain. You may not be able to feel it but if you have fibrocystic breasts, you get ropy or lumpish areas in the breast that come and go (tumors would not come and go) and it can be hard to detect them, but your ob/gyn should be able to tell you if that's what it is. If you have dense breast tissue you are likelier to have fibrocystic breasts. It is not cancer; it is not a big deal; but you do need to understand what can set off the pain (caffeine is a big offender and it sounds like you don't drink a lot of it - but remember, diet tea is still a diet drink and has chemicals in it as well as some level of caffeine!).

You also could have strained the muscles or tissues anywhere near the breast, which can cause pain that seems to be "in" the breast -- that exact thing happened to me last year, when I was sure the pain in the side of my breast was my fibrocystic tissue kicking up and it was instead a pulled tissue over the ribcage under my arm.

Do not panic but get to a doctor.

I hate to tell you, but if you have fibrocystic breasts, one way to possibly control it is with birth control pills. If I were to go off mine I know I'd have shooting pains in my breast. Talk to your ob/gyn about prescribing birth control as a way to control the pain (IF he or she says this is fibrocystic). You may be able to get a cut rate if you are in certain income brackets (happened for a friend of mine) or your doc may know a lower-cost BC than what you were taking previously. I'm sorry your insurance doesn't cover BC.

Any chance you drink a lot of diet soda? I was a Diet-Coke junkie for years until I started having breast pain. My doctor told me to scale back on the soda and I haven't had the pain ever since.

Just a thought...

I have had sharp shooting pain all the time too. I don't know why. Just one of the fun things about being a girl. It seemed to start after I stopped birth control pills too. Fun fun.

I've googled this a lot out of fear each time I get pain. I dread each time I feel for a lump, thinking this is the time I will feel one.

So far I have had no cancer.

I do agree with going to a doctor, yet unless there is cancer they will most likely not know why you have pain.

When I went off BC it took my body a while to regulate, my cramping and breast tenderness were much worse then while I had been on BC. It surprised me at first because I had been on BC since I was young and had no idea what a period would be like without that regulation. After about a year things evened out, I still cramp worse then I did while on the pill, but not as bad as I did the first few months off of it, and my breast tenderness the week before my period that got bad right after I stopped BC has improved significantly as well.

I've had pain in my breasts off and on over 50 or so years of my life. I don't know what causes it but I know the pain isn't anything to be concerned about. I suggest it will soon stop. If not, see your doctor.

Only one time did the pain need treatment when it was mastitis. The breast was warm. The whole breast ached.

Which brings me to the questions a doctor will ask. Describe the pain: constant/shooting; an ache/sharp; entire breast/one section. When did it start? Could it be related to an activity? Muscles support the breast. This could be a sore muscle for example.

It's not cancer. Think of all the women who have had breast cancer. If they had any warning symptom it was a lump; never pain.

I get a strange pain every now and then too, and then it goes away. Just wait it out for a few days. If it doesn't ease up, go in to get it checked out. Sometimes nerves just seem to act up for a day or so and then go back to normal.