Self-exam help

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so i get these text alerts each month reminding me to do a self-exam for breast cancer. i agree that its important, im just not sure what im looking for. i know "lumps" seems to be the general term, its just...how do i know when i find one? what's normal and what's not?

Actually there is dispute about whether it is worthwhile. Women who do it do tend to find lumps, but they are most often benign, and it seems to make little or no difference to breast cancer mortality rates. There's a brief discussion at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breast_self-examination.There are explanations of technique here and here.

thanks!