How does yoga help with breast cancer recovery? We all know that exercise and movement are not only good for our health, it also has a positive impact on the outcome of breast cancer treatment. Many of you may already practice yoga, and no doubt you already know about the various benefits it brings. But, if you have had treatment for breast cancer, can yoga help with recovery? In this episode, Marcia Mercier, explains how she embraced yoga and its impact on her own recovery following her breast cancer diagnosis. Now as a fully qualified yoga instructor, she talks about the dos and don'ts of y ..read more

In this episode, we are talking about all things bra-related.  If you think you know about bras..think again. In this episode, I talk to Julie Blanche who is an expert bra fitter. It was a great conversation and you wouldn't believe how complex the world of bras can be. You don't know what you don't know. That is so true. At the end of this episode, you will learn so much. We talked about so many things, including the best way to put on a bra, how to look after them as well as ways to achieve symmetry following breast surgery.  Give it a listen, your bras will thank you for it! F ..read more

Life is predictably unpredictable. Things happen randomly, unexpectedly, and out of our control. A breast cancer diagnosis for example is such a life event. Similarly, after breast cancer treatment has finished,  you can't predict how you recover. You may find changes to the breast. You may be feeling certain symptoms that you are not particularly sure of. You may need support for your mental well-being. All of these don't happen on a particular day at a particular time. So, what happens when you do find unusual symptoms and need help? An open-access follow-up service may be the solutio ..read more

We live in a digital age and more and more of us are downloading health apps in order to boost and improve our health and wellbeing. But, how can a health app be helpful for those who have been diagnosed with breast cancer? Dr Anne Bruinvels is the founder of the app OWise, a health app that is designed to help patients with breast cancer. It is essentially a one-stop shop which can be used to store information surrounding the cancer treatment, record and monitor side effects and allows the information to be shared to doctors or family members. It even has a recording facility within the app ..read more

The field of functional and integrative medicine is becoming increasingly recognised by the mainstream. If you haven't come across these areas, then this is the podcast episode for you. Dr Nina Fuller-Shavel is my guest today. She is an integrative medicine practitioner, who initially trained as a natural scientist and then entered medicine. She became slightly disillusioned by how very disease centric medicine is and she realised that the other areas of nutrition, health and wellbeing of patients were not being addressed adequately. Her diagnosis of breast cancer in her early 30s became the ..read more

Jo was diagnosed with primary breast cancer at the age of 38 years, 14 years ago. At the time, she had a 5-month daughter, a 2-year-old son, and her life was turned upside down. Since her primary diagnosis, she has been diagnosed with secondary breast cancer affecting her lymph nodes in her neck, her sternum, and recently brain metastasis. Throughout the years, Jo has been a passionate advocate for those affected by breast cancer, whether primary or secondary breast cancer. She collected resources that lead her to create her website abcdiagnosis where she provides information and resources t ..read more

Hello again and welcome to the second part of a two part series where we talk all things benign. Today's conversation is with Dr Peter Davis, who works as a histopathologist. He and his team are responsible for analysing any tissue that we take either from a biopsy or at surgery. They process it, examine it under the microscope and deliver a diagnosis. It is really clever stuff. We left off following our previous conversation, and talk about a few other commonly encountered benign conditions we find in the breast. These included, fibrosis, ADH (atypical ductal hyperplasia and microcalificati ..read more

When you have a breast abnormality, you may need to have a biopsy. This is where a sample is taken from the breast and sent to the lab for analyses. The majority of biopsies come back as a benign (non-cancerous) diagnosis. Of course this is always a great relief. But the actual terminology of the results can be confusing and unclear. Today I have a conversation with Dr Peter Davis, who is a histopathologist. He and his team are responsible for analysing all the specimens in the lab and come back with a diagnosis. We talked today about the various benign conditions that we may find in the br ..read more

What to eat and what not to eat? That is the question. There is so much information and mis-information out there surrounding nutrition and food. Navigating through the noise can be really difficult, this is more so when you are looking for reliable and accurate information surrounding nutrition around a breast cancer diagnosis. Tamar Rothenberg is a nutrition dietician who specialises in nutrition supporting those who have had a breast cancer diagnosis.  She’s an adjunct professor of nutrition at Touro College and University and most recently, she co-led the study, Coping with Cancer i ..read more

We all know that exercise is good for you. However, this is especially true if you have had treatment for breast cancer. There is emerging evidence suggesting that regular exercise not only improves your general fitness, but it can also reduce cancer recurrence and improve outcome post treatment. Today's guest is Tom Cowan, an exercise physiologist who works closely with those affected by cancer. Tom's work has been recognised by Public Health England and the Faculty for Sport and Exercise Medicine UK, who selected him to become a member of their Cancer and Exercise expert panel. Tom prescri ..read more