We all know the pink ribbon, but the red flag is one that every woman needs to find awareness from.

My story is about a screening process used to determine breast health called Thermography. A digital infrared imaging scan that claims to provide the earliest evidence of breast disease. It also claims to detect cellular changes 2 - 5 years before a mammogram can find a lump giving women a huge time frame to make changes in their life style and avoid possible breast disease. So I believed!

The price is high and not covered by Ohip. Some clinics charge $250. + for the breast and into the $600 range for full body. And woman are not the only ones, men are encouraged to have a 'Mens Screening'.

So, the benefits are hard to ignore, No Radiation, Non-Invasive, No Squishing. Who wouldn't opt for this test when the alternative is to put your breast in a vice with a mammogram. It didn't take much to convince me.

My introduction to Thermography followed my first medical diagnosis with breast cancer in 2000. I am a holistic practitioner and lean towards a more natural way of keeping the body healthy. I did my research and believed with regular screening I would be alerted to cellular changes if breast cancer ever returned. My belief went so deep that I recommended it highly to all my clients, and actually trained as a Thermography Technician with a local Barrie clinic, to be more involved with the screening process, with a total of two days training that certified me.
My own personal screening was every 6 months. The results...Perfect...every time, no sign of cellular change in either breast.

In 2005 I had my first full body scan with a local clinic and received results in 3 days. When sitting down with the clinics therapist she proceeded to tell me I had liver disease. I'm not quite sure which came first, the color draining from my face or my jaw hitting the floor. I repeated her words..."Liver Disease", and questioned if the results were accurate. She assured me they were. She then proceeded to offer me natural treatments that would turn this condition around at a cost of over $1,000. Red flags and sound intuition came over me so instead I chose to see my family doctor for a CT scan and ultrasound. Long story short, every medical test from blood, to all scans came up negative.

So my choices at this point were to abandon Thermography completely or do more research on full body screening. I came up with facts that indicate that Thermography can not penetrate vital organs and is only useful for some forms of inflammation, but ultra sound and other non invasive medical testing is way more accurate and is covered under Ohip. As far as breast Thermography I was a long standing believer and decided to stay with this testing over mammograms.

In December of 2008 I discovered another lump. I was quite concerned, but with a total of 18 Thermography scans under my belt I felt peace that surely it would have picked up something on a cellular level long before now and calmed my mind into believing it was just a cyst. I chose to have a Thermography scan with a local clinic in Barrie which led to much relief with results that came back normal. So I was not worried and started using natural remedies to shrink the lump.

My medical doctors were becoming concerned with my strong faith in Thermography and advised me to have a mammogram as the lump grew from the size of a lentil to a pea in 8 weeks, but instead I requested having a second Thermography by the same clinic so I could show my doctors that there was nothing to be concerned about. My results came back 'even better' and recommendations were to have a repeat Thermography in 1 year.

With results in hand I agreed to see a surgeon and believed I was going to teach the medical something about Thermography. Boy was I wrong! My words were not able to make it out of my mouth before my surgeon said..."I fear cancer has returned, and a biopsy and mammogram is crucial". The conflict in my mind was overwhelming but, I decided to go through with the tests only to find out that I had stage 2 breast cancer.

If Thermography's claims are accurate that they can detect the earliest evidence of breast disease, and I had a total of 18 scans in a 9 year period, would you not think that one of those scans would have showed some form of cellular change, especially since my tumour was a hypervascular malignancy and does not fall under their safety net of a 10% false negative rate? None of these tests showed any warning and the Barrie clinic could not even see the lump on their screen...how accurate is that?

My surgeon said to me while I sat in her office that day....."I can not tell you how many breasts I have removed from women trusting this test".

So, as I sit here with one breast and scars that are both emotional and physical, in my opinion, this kind of breast screening does not work and is a huge waste of money. Thermography has become more of a get rich test for the clinics that see the dollar signs behind the camera and there is no place for the pink ribbon here, instead a red flag needs to be raised for all women to find awareness and who would be much wiser to have a yearly mammogram.

Kathy St.Denis