detailed<\/a> the unusual medical marvel earlier this fall in the journal JAAD Case Reports. The woman\u2019s milky armpits are the result of being born with extra breast tissue on both sides of her underarms. Despite some added hassle following her pregnancies, however, the added breasts don\u2019t seem to be harming her health.<\/p>\n An \u201cuncommon entity\u201d <\/p>\n
According to the report, the woman first began to notice something was different about her armpits 15 years ago.<\/p>\n
Immediately after her first pregnancy, her armpits began to swell up and produce \u201cmilky secretions from the overlying hair follicles.\u201d The phenomenon disappeared once she weaned her child away from breastfeeding but returned after each successive pregnancy, which prompted her latest visit to the doctors. She didn\u2019t experience any other concerning trouble, such as redness, but the \u201cengorgement\u201d of her armpits did seem to get worse with each child she had.<\/p>\n
The doctors determined that her armpits contained ectopic breast tissue\u2014\u201dectopic\u201d meaning the presence of a body part where it normally shouldn\u2019t be. The condition is present since birth but typically goes unnoticed until the same hormonal changes that affect normal breast tissue, such as puberty or pregnancy, can affect it, too. Usually, as in this case, the extra breasts aren\u2019t accompanied by areolas or nipples.<\/p>\n
As you might expect, having an extra breast or two is an exceptionally rare condition.<\/p>\n
\u201cEctopic breast tissue is an uncommon entity,\u201d the doctors wrote, noting it\u2019s only found in around 2% to 6% of women and 1% to 3% of men. Most cases are sporadic, or happen randomly, but about 6% are tied to inherited genetics.<\/p>\n
Watchful monitoring <\/p>\n
There is some evidence to suggest that ectopic breast tissue is more likely to become cancerous than usual, according to the doctors. Notwithstanding that possibility, the tissue can still develop the same problems that can plague a normal breast, such as mastitis (an inflamed mammary gland). But the doctors\u2019 tests found no reasons to be concerned for the time being. And since her armpits have gone back to normal every time after she stopped breastfeeding, she decided to not seek the removal of her tissue.<\/p>\n
The doctors did recommend that she regularly have follow-up visits to keep an eye on her armpits, along with her routine breast cancer screenings. \u201cProper work-up is prudent due to its potential for developing benign and malignant breast conditions,\u201d they wrote. \u201cManagement is conservative unless symptomatic and with cosmetic concerns.\u201d<\/p>\n
On one hand, I can imagine how weird it would be to have your armpits suddenly lactating for no apparent reason. But on the other, that\u2019d be one hell of a parlor trick to bust out at my next party.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 35-year-old Filipino woman may have one of the weirdest real-life superpowers in the world. In a recent…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":358225,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[58048,210,67,132,68,26766,15649],"class_list":{"0":"post-358224","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-breasts","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us","13":"tag-weird-medicine","14":"tag-womens-health"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115499029576136060","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=358224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/358224\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/358225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=358224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=358224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=358224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}