Lemons Help Women Detect Signs Of Breast Cancer

The photos used on social media for breast cancer awareness usually have nothing to do with what a cancerous breast looks like and has not be very helpful in the fight to stop the disease. One in every eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer at least once in their lifetime. 

Facebook users, earlier this week, were posting red hearts in support of breast cancer awareness, when a woman decided to explain why a cute heart is not going to help save lives.

Erin Smith Chieze posted the photo of lemons on Facebook, which gave a detailed description of how breast cancer can look and feel. The photo has been going viral with over 600 shares. All the red hearts will not create awareness, Chieze explained, that breast cancer can come in different shapes and abnormalities such as retracted nipples, growing veins, and skin erosion, according to MSN.

She saw an indentation that looked like one of those pictures In December 2015 and instantly knew she had breast cancer. "I tried to feel for a tumor, but my tumor was non palpable. I was diagnosed with breast cancer 5 days later and with stage 4 the following month. A heart did nothing for awareness."

She added that, although, she knew what breast cancer was and all about self exams, a picture of what to look for made her know she had a terminal disease, according to The Daily Dot.

She continued to say there is need to give REAL information, not cute hearts as without having seen pictures randomly with helpful information she would not have known what to look for.

Chieze was prompted to share her own story by the red hearts on Facebook, which she felt was unhelpful. She wanted to help save lives the same way a similar photo saved her life.

The photo is part of the "Know Your Lemons" campaign by the Worldwide Breast Cancer organization. The photo is so informative that it is recommended that both men and women use it for self exams.

She said that people should stop playing games that do not actually promote awareness as they often make people tune out anything that might even mention the word awareness. People who really want to create awareness on breast cancer should share photo like this one.

Doctors are now away from encouraging self exams to advising patients to improve their general awareness of how their breasts look and feel so as to recognize changes, and are moving

Research has shown that there are no significant benefits in doing monthly self exams. We do not want to confine women to a specific technique, frequency or time, it is more about their overall awareness, medical director of the Cancer Prevention Center at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Therese Bevers said.