Subscribe to The Podcast by KevinMD. Catch up on old episodes!

Join Tami Burdick, a patient advocate and the author of Diagnosis Detective: Curing Granulomatous Mastitis. Tami shares her personal journey with granulomatous mastitis (GM) and how she navigated the fear of a breast lump. Discover the relationship between GM and breast cancer risk, practical tips for breast health, and the importance of proactive self-care.

Tami Burdick is a patient advocate and author of Diagnosis Detective: Curing Granulomatous Mastitis.

She discusses the KevinMD article, “When a breast lump is as scary as Halloween.”

Our presenting sponsor is Nuance, a Microsoft company.

Do you spend more time on administrative tasks like clinical documentation than you do with patients? You’re not alone. Clinicians report spending up to two hours on administrative tasks for each hour of care provided. Nuance, a Microsoft company, is committed to helping clinicians restore the balance with Dragon Ambient eXperience – or DAX for short. DAX is an AI-powered, voice-enabled solution that helps physicians cut documentation time in half. DAX Copilot combines proven conversational and ambient AI with the most advanced generative AI in a mobile application that integrates directly with your existing workflows. DAX Copilot can be easily enabled within the workflow of the Dragon Medical application to bring the power of ambient technology to more clinicians faster while leveraging the proven and powerful capabilities used by over 550,000 physicians.

Explore DAX Copilot today. Visit https://nuance.com/daxinaction to see a 12-minute DAX Copilot demo. Discover clinical documentation that writes itself and reclaim your work-life balance.

VISIT SPONSOR → https://nuance.com/daxinaction

SUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCAST → https://kevinmd.com/podcast

RECOMMENDED BY KEVINMD → https://kevinmd.com/recommended

GET CME FOR THIS EPISODE → https://earnc.me/3qri2X

Powered by CMEfy.

Transcript

Kevin Pho: Hi, and welcome to the show. Subscribe at KevinMD.com/podcast, and get CME for this episode by clicking on the CME link in the show notes. Today we welcome back Tami Burdick. She is a patient advocate, author of the book Diagnosis Detective: Curing Granulomatous Mastitis. Today’s KevinMD article is titled “When a breast lump is as scary as Halloween.” Tami, welcome back to the show.

Tami Burdick: Thank you for having me today, pleasure to be here.

Kevin Pho: So go to KevinMD.com/podcast to hear Tami’s prior episodes and stories. But today let’s jump right into this article, “When a breast lump is as scary as Halloween.” Tell us what this article is about.

Tami Burdick: Yes. So I actually am a survivor of a chronic inflammatory breast disease that, if the condition goes unresolved, it can potentially increase the risks of developing breast cancer. And not all times when we find an abnormality or a lump is it breast cancer, and in my case, even though my medical team thought that it was at first, it certainly wasn’t.

And what we find during breast cancer awareness month in particular is the emphasis on so much around screening and not so much breast cancer prevention. So that’s kind of what prompted me to write the article, with help from my own surgical breast oncologist, Dr. Kelly McLean of the Christ Hospital Network.

Kevin Pho: So what would you like to see in mainstream media when it comes to breast cancer prevention?

Tami Burdick: Yes. So breast cancer prevention, it’s about really kind of taking things a step back and looking at what we can do as patients, men and women, on what we can do to potentially decrease our risks of developing breast cancer.

So when we look at things out there that could potentially help us, it’s, what can we do maybe in terms of lifestyle, or what can we do in terms of limiting our exposures to certain chemicals in our environment too? What can we do to better help our own environment? And all of these things are endocrine disruptors. And at the end of the day, if you do the research, there’s a lot behind estrogen dominance and the link to developing breast cancer. So when we’re looking at all of these things like endocrine disruptors, what can we do to potentially decrease our exposures in our everyday life?

And then my doctor shares in the article the tips and tricks that she has, that she often shares with her patients. And it’s really kind of good to carry that forward. If you don’t have breast cancer, maybe you can do those tips and tricks yourself to prevent yourself from potentially developing it in the future. So she often suggests things like doing the DASH, it’s kind of a version of a Mediterranean diet, really looking at your BMI, where that’s at, how can you better help yourself in terms of where your BMI number is, making sure that you exercise, do strength training, things for bone health and whatnot. So we collaborated together and shared information on how we could better help in terms of prevention.

Kevin Pho: So what are the things that you mentioned are endocrine disruptors that are found in the environment? Tell us more about that, and what are some of the things that we should look out for?

Tami Burdick: Yeah. So when it comes to endocrine disruptors, you look at even what’s in our food. We even have chemicals in a lot of processed foods that we’re eating on a daily basis, so I became an ingredient reader definitely years ago. Look at all of the products that we’re using on a daily basis for cleaning, as well as personal care products. And for women, all of the makeup and hair color and hairsprays and all of the things that we typically use as women, a lot of those contain toxic chemicals, some are known carcinogens.

And when we look at carcinogens, they’re also in our waters across the United States. I did a separate article on that. When we look at things like PFAS, and here in Cincinnati, Ohio in particular, the Environmental Working Group several years ago had actually tested and resulted that our water does indeed contain PFAS. So then you think of all the women who were showering in these carcinogenic chemicals every day, who are drinking, cooking with it, or even bathing in it. Say they’re going to go take a bath, and they’re just sitting there in potentially carcinogenic water.

So when I met Erin Brockovich earlier this year, she had actually suggested to the audience where I was at that every home in America should have their own water filtration. So just look at things of what you can do to help minimize your risks when it comes to endocrine disrupting exposures.

Kevin Pho: A lot of the information and promotional material when it comes to prevention of breast cancer focuses on detection, like mammograms. So you’re saying that there’s just not enough information when it comes to some of these environmental factors?

Tami Burdick: Yeah, and lifestyle. It goes beyond that. It’s looking at our lifestyle, eating healthy, exercising, quality sleep. So it’s really a combination of limiting, and things that you can do to better your overall health.

But there is a lot of emphasis on screening, and while yes, that’s important, women should be doing monthly breast self-exams, some women choose a mammogram every year. I personally don’t, even though I’m a survivor of a breast disease. You would think I would do a yearly mammogram, but I’ve done the research where it states that we’re exposed to minimal amounts of radiation with each mammogram, and radiation causes cancer. So I guess I just pick and choose my battles. Obviously if I would find something that seems a little out of sorts, I would obviously go to my doctor and have it checked out.

Kevin Pho: So when you told your story in the past and you were diagnosed with granulomatous mastitis, how did that change you as a patient advocate, now focusing more on the prevention of breast diseases and breast cancer?

Tami Burdick: Yeah. So I had never heard of granulomatous mastitis when I was first diagnosed, and I had this initial sense of relief, like, oh, I don’t have breast cancer, because my mammogram was actually BI-RADS 5, so highly suspicious of breast cancer. And I honestly had no idea what journey lay ahead for me, because it was horrendous. It was as scary as Halloween, if not scarier.

But it really led me on this journey of doing significant research to find out how in the world I even developed the condition in the first place. And long story short, it was traced to contaminated water. And during my research I’ve learned a lot more about breast health, breast cancer, the things that we can do to help minimize our risks. And that’s really kind of led me to being this advocate and author, and I was even the keynote speaker at the 2021 Universe Conference on breast pathology and breast cancer.

But we don’t know what we don’t know, and I found out that a lot of our health care professionals don’t know a lot about GM. So that’s kind of another reason that I decided to write my book and become a patient advocate, to help other women, to hopefully prevent them from going through what I had to.

Kevin Pho: Now, are there any misconceptions in the media and the general population when it comes to breast lumps in general?

Tami Burdick: You know, I think a lot of people just want to assume right away, this is probably a breast cancer. But there are a multitude of other things that can happen or can mimic breast cancer. Or even if you find a lump, it could be something like a fibrous growth, it could be a cyst. Like me, my lump actually developed into a breast abscess.

And there’s actually changes to the breast besides lumps that can happen. You might have pain, you might experience redness, you might have changes in the skin, you might have inverted nipples, you might have dimpling. So there’s a lot of things that go beyond breast lumps. And granted, that whole screening process is important, but there’s so much more beyond lumps that we just need to be more self-aware of, and what causes them.

Kevin Pho: You co-wrote this article with your surgical oncologist, Kelly McLean. So I don’t think there’s enough physician-patient partnerships when it comes to health advocacy. Tell us about your relationship with your breast surgeon, and what made both of you decide to come out together and write this article.

Tami Burdick: Yeah, so she is absolutely incredible. There’s probably no other better doctor out there that I’ve ever encountered than Kelly. Imagine a patient seeing the same doctor over and over, sometimes on an average of seven to 14 days, for a year and a half. You’re obviously going to develop a relationship, that’s inevitable, and that’s exactly what we did. And we found out very early on, actually in my patient care with her, that we had a lot of similar connections, and I think that really helped us kind of build this relationship that’s typically atypical.

And she even wrote in my book that she just didn’t have the time to devote to the research that I did, to get the answers that we needed to get me on the right treatment and to know what was going on. And luckily she was open to my research, open to listening, open to doing the testing. And if a doctor doesn’t have the time themselves, then be willing to partner up with your patient, because teamwork is the dream work. And I wish she could be my everything doctor, though it might be a little weird maybe if she was my gynecologist at this point, because of how our relationship is. But yeah, she’s incredible.

Kevin Pho: So you mentioned that she was open to your research as a patient. So what exactly do you mean by that? Give us an example of how open she was, and what exactly did she do to make you feel that way.

Tami Burdick: Yeah. So initially I was seen by an infectious disease specialist, and I had prepared myself for that appointment. I had taken a lot of information with me and kind of developed a list of what I felt would be adequate to test for, to make sure that we’re ruling out everything we possibly can as to what could potentially be causing my GM.

In my original testing, diphtheroid bacteria had been found, and that infectious disease doctor completely dismissed that finding, and her negligence ended up costing me seven months of unnecessary suffering. Because had we got on the right treatment for me seven months prior, potentially I could have avoided surgery. And that actually was a clue that there was a pathogenic bacteria present. However, it’s so opportunistic, and it required more sensitive type pathology testing.

And I was in a support group and came across that specific pathology test that we used, and approached my doctor and I said, hey, I’ve looked more into this test, this is what it’s able to do, this is why I feel we should do it, and it’s helped another woman in my support group get the answers that she needed to her GM. And she said without any hesitation, let’s do it. And luckily she did, because I had Corynebacterium kroppenstedtii. So that’s the reason why the diphtheroid had resulted in my original testing.

Kevin Pho: We’re talking to Tami Burdick. She’s a patient advocate and she’s the author of the book Diagnosis Detective: Curing Granulomatous Mastitis. Today’s KevinMD article is titled “When a breast lump is as scary as Halloween.” Tami, as always, let’s end off with some of your take-home messages that you would like to leave with the KevinMD audience.

Tami Burdick: Yes. So regarding this article, always do your breast self-exams. If you notice any changes in your breast, please contact your doctor, have a clinical exam. Always be your best advocate. And as women, we were born with these intense intuitions, and normally they don’t steer us wrong. So do what you can to get the answers you need to make sure that you’re going to be in the best health possible.

Kevin Pho: Tami, as always, thank you so much for sharing your story, time, and insight, and thanks again for coming back on the show.