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October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month - Here's how you can get tested
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BATON ROUGE - It's Breast Cancer Awareness Month and one family medicine doctor is making it his goal to inform women about early detection because one in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer.
According to the Louisiana Cancer Prevention and Control Programs, "if you catch breast cancer early, the survival rate is close to 100 percent."
There are multiple ways to keep yourself safe.
Teenagers and above should do a self-examination at least once a month and ages forty and above are recommended to get a mammogram done once a year.
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) requires insurers to pay for annual mammograms starting at age 40, with no deductibles or co-insurance.
"I always tell my patients, no one should know your breast better than you. It's a little uncomfortable but being uncomfortable will save a lot of grief later on," family medicine doctor Reynando Banks said.
Banks says he is starting to see women as young as twenty-four get diagnosed making it as important now as ever to take breast cancer seriously.
"It may be uncomfortable but it's nothing to be afraid of it's not painful. It's just once a year, put yourself through that. You will feel good about yourself and feel confident the rest of the year because early detection is the greatest thing for cancer survival," Banks said.
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