Online Communities for Breast Cancer Survivors

Medically Reviewed By William C. Lloyd III, MD, FACS
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Surviving cancer is an incredible journey with many ups and downs. Whether you are post-treatment or still in treatment, you may continue to have questions and challenges. You may have continuing side effects from your treatment. You may worry about cancer coming back. You may struggle with permanent changes to your body. With more than 2.8 million breast cancer survivors in the United States, you’re not alone. 

One way to work through this period in your life is to connect with other breast cancer survivors. They understand what you’ve been through and may have answers to your questions. Likewise, you may be able to comfort another survivor in need. Connecting with other survivors online is a quick and easy way to reach out from home on your own time. Here, we share several online communities for people affected by breast cancer and other cancers.

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Communities for People Affected By Breast Cancer 

These online communities connect all types of people affected by breast cancer, ranging from newly diagnosed patients to long-term survivors, as well as their families and friends. Many of them have smaller communities, discussion boards, and chat rooms devoted specifically to breast cancer survivors and survivorship topics.

  • #BCSM– Tweet chat dedicated to breast cancer.

  • Breast Cancer Support Chat Room– Moderated chat room for people with breast cancer.

  • Breastcancer.org discussion boards– Mini websites for breast cancer patients to ask each other questions and have ongoing dialogue with each other. Discussion board topics specifically for survivors include “Moving Beyond Cancer” and “Growing our Friendships After Treatment.”

  • eHealth Forum Breast Cancer Forum– Several different discussion boards around breast cancer topics.

  • MedHelp Breast Cancer Expert Forum– Online forum with hundreds of breast cancer related topics including those about survivorship.

  • MyNBCF– Community for breast cancer survivors and their families and loved ones hosted by the National Breast Cancer Foundation.

  • Young Survival Coalition– Online community for younger women affected by breast cancer.

Communities for People With All Types of Cancer

These online communities connect all types of cancer patients, survivors, and their loved ones with one another. They have discussion boards with survivorship topics and specific sub-communities for breast cancer survivors.  

Start Your Own Online Community

You can start your own online community for breast cancer survivors as well. This can give you the opportunity to have a smaller group that you can personally manage. You can do this using websites such as Facebookand Yahoo Groups, or you can use a content management tool to set up and organize your community, such as Joomlaor Drupal.

Breast cancer-specific online communities alone contain more than 4 million posts about breast cancer topics. There are people everywhere who you can connect with about how to work through life after breast cancer. Several online cancer support communities are shown above. Or you can strike out and start your own. The important thing is to make connections to get the support you need during one of the most challenging times in your life.

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  1. Siegel R et al. Cancer treatment and survivorship statistics. CA Cancer J Clin. 2012;62(4):220-41.
  2. Bender J et al. Online communities for breast cancer survivors: a review and analysis of their characteristics and levels of use. Supportive Care in Cancer. 2013;21(5);1253–1263.
  3. What are the key statistics about breast cancer? American Cancer Society. http://www.cancer.org/cancer/breastcancer/detailedguide/breast-cancer-key-statistics
Medical Reviewer: William C. Lloyd III, MD, FACS
Last Review Date: 2020 Jan 29
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