"The current breast screening machinery is useless for me"

Routine Breast Screening - booked in - not least since my mum had breast cancer (& subsequent surgery) when just a little older than me. No cause for concern (no lumps, etc) & have good health. Still working & carer for 2 family members (including my mum).

Health is essential - I encourage others & value the NHS greatly. Thought best to catch up on my own health needs (no doubt other carers also prioritise the ongoing needs of those they support).

However, this procedure turned out to be not discomfort - but unanticipated & excrutiating pain, (that apparently needed to escalate). When I asked about others experience (surely this can't be typical?), it seems that some have passed out due to the (for me) off-the-scale-pain of the crusher machine. I tried to endure as much as I possibly could - first 2 screenings & part of the next (2.5 out of 4).

Compression machines do literally crush you - and pain literally grinds you down. Dentists routinely offer you an local anaesthetic to block out pain. But as a healthy person, I didn't expect tortuous levels of pain to be inflicted by a solid metal machine - on not so solid human flesh.

If human pain is a warning system - and if fairly high levels of women are being tortured by this procedure, surely other less cruel ways must be available to screen the human body.  I felt really peculiar after this experience - quite shaken - with no warnings & no anaesthetic offered either. Would probably have needed painkillers afterwards, as one nipple is still tender (weeks later) & that was with the nurse calling off the last 2 scans.

I have had other types of scans before (essential tools for good health) but none of these inflicted such cruelty. If you were dead, such machines would be great analysers, but if you are a living sentient creature - there are limits to what you can tolerate.

She had asked me not to scream - but unfortunately that's involuntary (as are many body processes), but no escaping both the pressure & the exponential pain from that clamping machine. Normally I'Il always encourage people to go for every health check & treatment - however, now I have discovered that the current breastscreening machinery is useless for me. I'll just have to wait/watch out for any lumps - as my mum did.

I do wonder how many people will be the same as me & health-conscious - but unable to participate further in this particular practice. The nurse did say that scans aren't for everyone -she'll see the suffering, and obviously cares.