A doctor has warned adults around the world that there are five things that could signal you have bowel cancer.
According to the Glasgow Colorectal Centre, bowel cancer is the fourth most common cancer in the UK, and it’s becoming more prevalent in the younger generation.
However, there are symptoms that not many people would correlate as being the disease - but they are commonly associated with it.
Dr Jack Ogden a GP at The Lagom Clinic in Bristol, UK told the Daily Mail that these five ‘subtle’ symptoms are ‘often overlooked’ by people, which can cause them to go undiagnosed for some time.
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With bowel cancer, once it has spread to other extremities, the chance of survival drops dramatically to just 10 per cent.
So, catching it as early as possible is key to treating it. Dr Ogden said these signs don’t cause pain but are still just as dangerous.
“Awareness of these silent signs can save lives. Paying attention to subtle changes and acting promptly is the best defence against colon cancer,” he said.
The first sign is iron deficiency anemia, which makes a person have 'unexplained fatigue, pale skin or shortness of breath'.
Anemia is very common for people to have, and it can also come along with other symptoms such as chest pain, heart palpitations, and even dizziness.
However, with bowel cancer, it could be down to a tumor bleeding, causing loss of blood that causes inflammation and for iron to not absorb properly.
The other sign is constipation, diarrhoea, or narrow stools.
People have different bowel movements depending on their diet and health at the time, but it could point to cancer.
For narrow stools, this is something that occurs when the tumor is obstructing the colon.
The third sign is when a person loses weight unintentionally and seemingly without cause.
The weight loss can happen when a person loses their appetite, or tumors stop nutrients from being absorbed.
The fourth sign is bloating and abdominal pain.
Whether it’s 'persistent cramping' or feeling full quickly after eating, it could be a warning sign for cancer.
The fifth sign is probably the most sinister - blood in the stool.
Blood can look black if it’s old, or it might not even be detected unless through a stool test.
Black or dark red blood can show that the bleeding is happening higher up than fresh blood, which could have been due to haemorrhoids or an anal fissure.
For Devon, from Seattle, Washington, she knew something was wrong long before her diagnosis.
Speaking to The Patient Story on YouTube, she said: “I felt like I needed to go to the bathroom, and the more that progressed, like, the less I was actually going.”
Devon was eventually diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, after it was found that Devon had a tumor growing in her rectum.
Once she began to experience ‘narrow stools’, she was certain she had cancer.
Sadly, even though she was cured, it came back and now she is living her life day-to-day.
Topics: Cancer, Colon cancer, Health
Britt Jones