Counseling patients about breast pain involves explaining the common potential causes, reassuring them, and emphasizing the importance of follow-up.
Potential causes: Breast pain can be cyclical, related to hormonal changes during the menstrual cycle, or non-cyclical, caused by other factors such as infections, trauma, or rarely malignancy.
Reassure patients that cyclical breast pain is common and usually not associated with serious pathology.
Management advice: Suggest wearing a well-fitted supportive bra, especially during exercise and at night, as this can reduce pain.
Offer simple analgesia such as paracetamol or ibuprofen as first-line treatment for pain relief.
Encourage keeping a pain diary to track severity, timing, and response to treatment, which aids diagnosis and management decisions.
When to seek further care: Advise patients to follow up if pain is severe, affects quality of life or sleep, or does not improve after 3 months of first-line treatment, as specialist referral may be needed.
Explain that persistent breast masses or other concerning symptoms require prompt evaluation to exclude serious causes such as breast cancer.
Importance of follow-up: Emphasize that follow-up allows monitoring of symptoms, reassessment of diagnosis, and timely referral if needed.
Provide written patient information, such as NHS resources on breast pain, to support understanding and self-management.