This is an excellent question, one that I had thought about while performing my own monthly breast self exams. The purpose of the monthly exams is, ideally, not to find cancer, but to get to know your breasts well, so that even if your breasts have a bumpy terrain, it's a terrain you are still familiar with. So if there's something unusual spotted or felt, you are more likely to detect it's an abnormality.

Each woman's breasts are different, and that's why it's so important to do regular breast self exams -- to know your own breasts' "normal" look and feel.

I found my own cancer through one of my routine self-exams, and I knew something was abnormal because I was familiar with the terrain of my breasts. But I did the regular exams to know how my breasts typically felt and looked.

I strongly recommend, if you have not yet done so, getting a pamphlet on how to do a monthly self breast exam. Ask your gynecologist to show you how to do the exam on your own body and feel free to ask doctors lots of questions about the terrain of your breast.