INSIDER – A 29-year-old with a breast lump said she was denied mammograms over her age and family history.
The TikToker said her lump grew to be 8 centimeters and was later diagnosed as stage 4 cancer.
Young women have spoken out about having serious symptoms dismissed in the medical system.
Philecia La’Bounty was at the movies with her boyfriend, Brent Maggard, in 2018 when she reached under her shirt to adjust her sports bra — and felt a marble-sized lump in her left breast.
“It did not feel like the rest of my breast tissue,” she said on TikTok.
Young women can be victims of medical gaslighting
But when La’Bounty, who didn’t have insurance at the time, went to a free clinic for an ultrasound, the results came back clean.
Doctors told her she had nothing more than a benign cyst and that she had nothing to worry about, she said.
After all, she was a 29-year-old in Southern California who did CrossFit and traveled internationally for modeling work.
Still, La’Bounty felt uneasy about the mass, so she asked the clinician to put in a request for a mammogram. La’Bounty said the request was denied because of her age and family history — twice.
“I had perfect blood work, no other symptoms, no other masses, so they denied any other treatment, told me I was too young to have breast cancer, that I was healthy — it was just a cyst and come back if it bothered me,” La’Bounty said on TikTok.
Eight months later, La’Bounty was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer.
Now 35 years old and likely on chemotherapy for life, she’s sharing her story to encourage other young women to be aware of their breast-cancer risk and push for answers when something feels off in their bodies … READ MORE.
