Today is the perfect opportunity to ask your girlfriends, mother, grandmother, sister or daughter – have you had a breast screen in the last two years?
If not, purchase your ticket to the Rockhampton Expo and head straight to the BreastScreen Bus at site OS267 and make it happen.
The BreastScreen team thought they’d bust some BreastScreen myths for you:
Myth 1: I don’t have any symptoms, therefore I don’t need a mammogram.
Fact: Screening mammograms are for women with no current breast symptoms. It can pick up cancers as small as a grain of rice, usually 2 to 3 years before a lump can be felt.
Myth 2: I don’t have any family history, therefore I am not at risk.
Fact: 9 out of 10 women diagnosed with breast cancer have no family history. Breast cancers occur for many reasons, none of which is fully understood. Family history is just one of the risk factors, along with age, obesity, and alcohol consumption.
Myth 3: You have to pay if you are under 50 or over 74.
Fact: Breast screens are free for all women aged 40 and over in Australia who haven’t had a breastscreen in the last 2 years, have a medicare card, and haven’t had breast cancer in the last 5 years.
Myth 4: It will take all day.
Fact: Most screening appointments take less than 20 or 30 minutes, with the actual breast screen taking only a few minutes. You’ll be able to continue looking around the Rocky Expo in no time.
Myth 5: Mammograms hurt too much.
Fact: BreastScreen Rockhampton staff survey thousands of women every year and more than 95% of them say that a breastscreen is uncomfortable, not painful.
The BreastScreen Bus is onsite at Rocky Expo and is taking walk-in appointments for all women who might be due or who are ready to start screening.
It is fast, friendly, and free and their female health professionals are ready to screen you today.
Visit the BreastScreen Queensland team at site OS267.
Please note: To gain entry and utilise a free screening during the Rockhampton Expo, you must purchase a ticket to the Rockhampton Expo either online, or at the gates.
