Claire Warner "never dreamt" she'd be posting a photo of her breast on Facebook. Now, however, that photo has gone viral — but probably not for the reasons you might predict.
Warner posted a close-up of her left breast to Facebook, revealing a seemingly innocuous dimple that could actually be a sign of breast cancer.
"This is a picture of my left boob," Warner writes in her Facebook post. "The small purplish bruise is where I had a biopsy taken. The minuscule dimple up and to the left of it is a rare and little-known symptom of breast cancer."
Though the most common symptom is a new lump or a mass in the breast, a dimple and/or puckering on the breast is also a sign of breast cancer, according to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. About one in eight women in the U.K. will develop breast cancer at some point.
Warner explains that she flagged the "blink-and-you'd-miss-it" symptom "exceptionally early" thanks to another post shared by a friend, and is now sharing her photo as a warning to everyone else.
"PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE check yourself (males as well as females) and get your loved ones to check themselves also," she writes. "If I can help one other person, the way I was helped, then it's been worth showing my soon-to-be-reduced left tit to the world."
After alerting her doctors to the dimple, Warner underwent surgery, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and says she has "every hope of being cured."
At the time of writing, the photo has received over 25,000 shares on Facebook, with users commenting on Warner's ability to think of others in her own time of difficulty.
"You are amazing and strong and you'll be fine; and even in this, you're putting others first," one user wrote. "With you all the way."
"I will be checking mine, thanks for sharing this and wishing you all the best," another commented.
If you spot something unusual on your breast — be it a lump, a dimple, or a change in shape or size — it's smart to heed Warner's advice. While official recommendations no longer suggest getting regular physical breast exams (or doing self-exams), experts do strongly advise being familiar with your own normal, and getting anything unusual checked out.
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