Medical Thermography

Breast Health with a Difference

Clinical Thermographer Janet van Dam is delighted to offer her services at The Form Practice

Many women are becoming more aware of the possible dangers of the radiation in mammography as well as the fact that it is highly inaccurate in finding tumours in dense breast tissue in younger women.

Janet can offer breast thermography as a first line breast health check for women of all ages, being highly accurate in assessing your breast health and importantly, it is safe and painless.

Breast thermography is a preventative breast health strategy rather than a test focusing on breast disease. It is presently the only functional test available to monitor and visualise breast health. How medical thermography can help you monitor your breast health is that it looks for any increased, irregular or abnormal blood flow or activity in the breasts, which could indicate the development of disease.

Abnormal blood flow in one particular area could indicate the development of malignancy, because a tumour needs a blood supply to feed it. This process is usually visible earlier with infrared screening compared to a mammogram, because a mammogram can only see the end result of a disease process (lump or tumour). It is a process invisible to X-ray.

Besides looking for this unusual blood supply, we can visualise general metabolic changes relating to fibrocystic activity, hormone activity, lymphatic congestion or inflammatory processes. These signs are important to observe over time, because these conditions can be fore-runners of the development of breast disease. For example, around 80% of all breast cancers are oestrogen sensitive, therefore high levels of oestrogen over time is an indicator of a higher level of risk for developing breast cancer in the future. Also, reduced lymphatic drainage in the breasts can slow down the natural circulation around the breasts, which can cause lymph glands to become enlarged and blocked and causing inflammation. Our osteopath at The Form Practice, Claire Forrester, specialises in women’s health and is able to use specific osteopathic techniques to increase lymphatic drainage where this is found to be the problem.

A positive thermogram has a highly predictive value for the development of disease in the future

As well as measuring temperatures and comparing patterns,  Janet uses Machine Learning, which compares your images to known cases where breast cancer was found early to give you this valuable insight into your future breast health. Ongoing regular monitoring can help you and your practitioner be breast health aware. Making changes to your diet and lifestyle can significantly help improve these conditions.

The advantage of thermal screening is that it is equally accurate in all age groups: dense breast tissue (mainly of younger women but not exclusively) is not relevant to the accuracy of thermography compared to mammography, since we do not need to look deep inside the breasts to make an assessment of health. Mammography however is significantly less accurate in this younger age group.

Another advantage is that thermal imaging is absolutely radiation and pain free. There is no need to touch you when taking the images, so no compression of the breasts, which many women find extremely unpleasant to say the least. And no radiation gives peace of mind to many, especially to those women who want to breast feed or simply want to avoid the accumulative effect of the  radiation dose.

Thermography visualises a larger area of the chest including the armpits, neck and sternum, whilst mammography is limited to the main part of the actual breasts.

The initial breast screening may consist of 2 screenings, a first one and then a follow up after 3 or 6 months, to establish your personal baseline or to monitor activity in the breasts. Each woman’s breasts have a different thermal fingerprint so to speak and we need to see which thermal patterns are normal for you by comparing initially the 2 screenings. Once we have your baseline, you will be advised to come back on a yearly basis to build up a history of your breast physiology.

It is advised that you combine your thermogram with preferably an ultrasound (unless indicated by your health care practitioner otherwise due to the breast condition) so that you have information regarding function and structure without radiation. Since no one imaging procedure or test will warn of 100% of all early stage cancers, a multimodal (multiple tests) approach to screening provides the best in early detection.

The price for this initial breast screening is £/€ 175 and includes a full medical report and your images.

A 3 or 6 month follow up is £/€ 145.
Yearly Breast follow up are £165.
Additional Thyroid Assessment or abdominal check £25

Body Thermal imaging

Thermography is not only valuable in the early detection of breast disease, it can also bring to light unidentified sources of pain in the body, which may be due to varicose veins, ligament damage, musculo-skeletal problems, nerve entrapment, inflammation of tissues or organs, circulatory diseases, digestive issues or immune disease, just to name a few. For example: we can look at the function of the thyroid, sinuses, carotid arteries, digestive system and check circulation in the extremities to monitor diabetes.

Diabetic ulcers: thermography can help identify changes in the blood supply in the feet (and hands) relating to circulation issues and to the formation of ulcers due to Diabetes, before they have come to the surface and can cause major problems. Preventative action can then be taken with a low carb diet to reduce the risk of further development and reverse symptoms.

Fibromyalgia: Medical Thermography can help your health practitioner make a positive diagnosis for Fibromyalgia and ME. Both Fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue have many changing symptoms making it hard to know for sure what is going on, but DITI can help your doctor “see” the inflammation patterns in your body and will be able to help you in the best way possible.

• Women’s Health Check upper body + Full Breast Report £345 – 2 hours
• Women’s Full Body + Full Breast Report £375 – 2 hours
• Men’s Health Check upper body £315 – 1 1/2 hour
• Men’s Full Body £345 – 2 hours

Interpretation

The information of your screening is sent confidentially and securely to a professional medical interpretation service. Breast reports are usually back in 3 days, body reports take a little longer at about 1 to 2 weeks. The reports are emailed to you.

At you request a copy of your report can also be sent to your health practitioner.

A second opinion is also available.

Your report is a full medical report, written for other medically trained professionals, but I will include comments in the email to make sure you can understand what the main observations were and explain any advice given by the interpretation doctor.

For a more in depth discussion regarding the findings an appointment with your GP or specialist would be appropriate.

If you would like to speak to Janet regarding the report results or holistic advice in relation to your health issues, then she can offer you a 15 minute free appointment by telephone, Facetime or Skype. Please make sure you have written down your questions in advance so we can make the best use of our time.

Additional time is charged at Janet’s regular hourly fee of £/€ 30 (30 mins) or £/€ 50 (1 hour).

For further information or appointments please contact Janet van Dam directly – Member ACCT

Tel.: 07539 366 283

Email: janetvandam@live.com

You can also find out more about Janet by clicking here