@Friend of Dorothy Parker
"Are you aware of more “friendly” devices that do the same but just haven’t gotten the funding or approvals to be broadly adopted? I’d be interested in seeing that! "
Halo Speculum invented by a woman:.
Currently in use in quite a few gyno clinics, private of course.
The price for it was $70 in 2021, the regular metal one you can buy for $15.
Good to know! Would love to see it deployed to every gyn office.
Still a speculum, however. And it still requires expansion, though I get the expansion is different.
Perhaps you were talking smaller degrees of difference than I thought you were. The “duckbill” action of a standard speculum is for sure not ideal.
As for your comment about discomfort, again , I am not talking about discomfort.
To be clear, I said:
pain or discomfort of mammograms
So yeah, it’s painful in a way, but not exactly like getting a limb ripped off, so I consider it discomfort rather than horrible pain. Not something I’d like to do for hours at a time, but it doesn’t qualify as some kind of traumatic horror. And a lot less painful than chemo/ radiation/ mastectomy/ powerful drugs’ side effects.
I am talking about excruciating pain.
“Excruciating” is not the typical level of pain, but yes, some do experience that. Much like some people can’t tolerate teeth cleanings (as you said). But so - since you mentioned lidocaine for teeth and morphine for your ankle - are you saying women should be offered numbing agents or morphine for a mammogram?
It's an unnecessary torture when modern medicine has so many solutions for these things.
See, calling it “torture” both scares people and makes it sound like you can’t distinguish ”bad” from “agony,” which ultimately leads to dismissal of concerns.
And I’ve not found a lot of “solutions” that “modern medicine has,” but I have found at least one promising development. Added some of that below.
When I sprained my ankle and went to the hospital they hooked me up to morphine, and I wasnt even in that much pain.
That seems ridiculous. I’ve never had morphine offered, even for broken bones and other crumpling pain. And I’ve refused the oxy for a variety of things, though I take the scrip just in case - just have never called it in. You can always say no.
When you go to the dentist they give lidocaine, you can even ask for it when having your teeth cleaned. But when you're going for a mammogram and having your tit flattened by a device invented during WW2 it's supposed to be a "discomfort'.
1965, apparently. Mammography as a science originated in 1895, and advanced in 1913, with compression during an xray as an innovation in 1949, but 1965 appears to be the first compression machine. Just trivia.
Furthermore, if people think it's in woman's best interest to get a mammogram, then everything should be done to ensure the above mentioned woman signs up for the test without fear, and that the procedure doesn't result in a trauma that would stop her from ever having it done again.
Of course. And since reading your comments I did go look around and saw some NIH and other papers about how some women experience post-mammogram pain or bruising, due to various potential causes, including inept techs (which is also mentioned as an element in my experience, with a tech who was frustrated that my breast tissue was firm so she couldn’t get it squished down as much as she wanted

). Again, not dismissing, just saying it is not “excruciating” for most.
In any case, more PSA - couple article with some advice for trying to minimize pain during the procedure in current day:
https://www.puremammo.com/2018/09/19/tips-for-a-pain-free-mammogram/#:~:text=If%20you've%20had%20a,during%20compression%20can%20alleviate%20pain.
Future:
Also saw this, which is a Duke article about a squish-free mammogram “in the works.” Alas, the article is from 2015, but the doc, who has been doing this work for a couple decades, shows up below in a marketed product:
This med device company (below) touts a supplemental to mammograms, particularly for women with dense breasts, a known type mammos fail. (It does involve an injection). The tech is called MBI. The guy in the Duke article is on their medical advisory board. Link is to their page on comfort and notes that as many 50% avoid screenings due to fear of pain.
Per a linked article on Tornai’s LinkedIn, potential good news ahead:
The US FDA officially acknowledges the dense breast problem: mammography fails in dense breasts. The new FDA dense-breast notification mandate [1] (9 March 2023), with its deadline for compliance set for September 2024, has intensified the need to reconsider the arsenal of dense-breast supplemental screening modalities available to patients at the 8,800+ MQSA mammography facilities in the USA.
Separately, here’s an example of a mammography machine developed by women. Still compression but an attempt to reduce stress around the experience: