I am 22 and I have had breast pain and swelling for a little more than a year. It is in my left breast. My left breast feels a lot more “dense” than the right one, and there are some lumps underneath the skin. It used to come and go with my cycle, but it has become constant in the past couple months. The pain feels similar to the soreness of your breasts when they first start to develop during puberty (extremely tender).

I’ve had breast imaging done twice for this. Once when it started (because I was concerned about the “lumpy” feeling of my breast) and once more recently just to check on it. Both times they’ve said everything is fine and I just have “dense breast tissue.” But apparently that shouldn’t cause pain.

My OB has been relatively apathetic about it (even though she’s great about everything else). She’s told me to just take ibuprofen and use a warm compress. But that doesn’t help. There’s a burning sensation and if anything makes contact with my breast, it hurts like hell.

So I’m wondering what this could be (besides cancer which they’ve ruled out) and if anyone has tips to manage breast pain.

Also important to note: I have a history of ovarian cysts and am getting a laparoscopy in a few days to check for endo (so maybe it’s a hormonal issue?)