There are many Cancer Warning Signs available to us, but many of these are unknown to the vast majority of people.
Unfortunately, cancer is now a widespread disease, and as such, it is highly important that we all know about these warning signs of cancer.
The difference between acting right away when you identify one of these signs on your body and not acting is simple:
- If you act, then you have a chance to stay alive and live a normal life.
- If you do not act, then it may be too late by the time you find out you have cancer.
So my top advice is that you must stay vigilant to the below 15 warning signs of cancer.
Now, if you are faced with any one of these signs, then take action.
Do not wait for the sign to disappear. Just take action. Go to the doctor and if he is not wanting to take action, then change to another doctor.
Your life depends on you making sure you get properly checked.
At the end of the day, you have nothing to lose. So, vigilance and actions are the most important things to do when faced with potential cancer. And the early warning signs of cancer do not lie. They are there to help you make the right call and take all the preventive measures required.
I am a human being as you are, but I have made sure that I had a skin malign cancer removed. And I can safely tell you that the doctor did not want it to be removed.
However, I was adamant. I could not let a piece of my skin changing color and developing like a mol. I know that mols are not dangerous, but this was not a mol. It was my skin that had developed malign cancer, but my doctor felt it was too early to make a decision.
So I insisted and I got it removed. It took only 30 minutes to remove it, but I now can sleep at night.
Now, if you are amongst individuals that neglect to identify or see the growing signs of cancer, then think twice. You’ll have no other chance. It is the difference between life and death.
What are the 15 warning signs of cancer?
Here are the 15 Cancer Warning Signs People Assume Aren’t Dangerous Until It’s Too Late.
1. Bruises Cancer Warning Signs
We are so used to bruises that we seem to undermine them. But these can teach you a lot about the health of your body. They can provide you with a clear indication of the growth of a tumor.
I do not say that any bruise can lead to a cancer warning sign such as Acute Myeloid Leukemia (AML) (1), but if your bruise does not heal for quite a while, then I would suggest you consult a doctor.
If you consult a doctor, you must be factual. What I mean by this is that you should know how long you had the bruise for. You should also know if it has changed colors a number of times and if it always hurt or it never did.
The more precise you are, the better the diagnostic will be. Note that if you have had the bruise for several weeks and that the doctor undermines it, I would definitely go and consult another doctor and inform about my worries. It is critical that you receive a thorough check.
2. Sudden unexplained weight loss
Unexplained weight loss can be seen as a great thing in real life, especially for women. We all want to lose weight and when this happens without you doing a thing, it is great.
However, it can also send you early warning signs of colon cancer. It can also be an early sign of other types of digestive cancers. So do not undermine these signs (2).
I truly think that you should be monitoring your weight as a top priority. This is especially true if you are not doing sport or engaging in a weight loss programme.
2.1 – My own experience with weight loss
I can only tell you from my own life experiences.
I had two friends who have suddenly lost weight. One who took action and is still alive and another one that has died of cancer leaving a wife and children without a husband and a father.
You may think that my friend who died did not take action. Well, he did take action. He went to his doctor and his doctor did not see that sudden loss of weight was that important.
Nevertheless, my friend insisted on and got blood tests. At this timeframe, the doctor did not see a thing. However, a few months down the line my friend was taken to hospital with cancer. His wife brought the different blood test results they had and the doctors at the hospital told her that the first test should have sent warning signs of liver cancer.
She is now suing her family doctor as they could have been early solutions for her husband if the cancer was detected right at the start.
As I said above, take action and if you are not sure that your doctor is taking you seriously, then go to see another one. You must be able to sleep at night without a single doubt.
3- Abdominal weight gain or bloating
This is definitely an early warning sign of ovarian cancer. Scientists are clear on this matter. And that has been made public many years ago.
The vast majority of ovarian cancer victims have reported some unexplained bloating. Again this happened suddenly and continued for a long period of time.
But worse than this, you need to know that you need to react quickly to this particular cancer. You do not have much time as with other cancers. In fact, there is just a few survival from ovarian cancer.
Yes, it is much worse than the vast majority of cancers. (3) The reason is simple, most of the time ovarian cancer is di diagnosed pretty late.
But there is another reason, to date, there are no effective treatment options. These two reasons should be enough for you to take action if you have ‘bloating’.
4- Shortness of breath or wheezing
If you develop shortness of breath, then you may have warning signs of lung cancer. But if you present other symptoms including a mixture of weight loss, a hoarse voice, chest pain, or a cough, then you better get to your doctor for a lung checkup (4).
Any of the above signs are early warning signs of lung cancer. But I want to stress that wheezing is one of the symptoms lung cancer patients remember noticing. And this is the symptom that they neglected.
So, now that you know the different lung cancer warning signs, please do not neglect them.
5- Difficulty swallowing
There are times where we get a sour throat. As we have had a sour throat once or twice in our lifetime (or more) we tend to undermine this symptom as being a small health issue.
However, if these symptoms keep repeating, they could be warning signs of throat cancer. (5)
But it can also be one of the early warning signs of lung and oesophageal cancer.
6- Frequent fevers and/or infections
This is another symptom that we tend to undermine.
But, this symptom is associated with one of the worse kind of cancer, that is leukemia (6).
Leukemia is a cancer of the blood cells. It usually starts in the bone marrow and it is also a donor of compatible bone marrow that could save your life. What can kill you, can also save you in this case.
Usually, leukemia causes the marrow to produce abnormal white blood cells. The cells work endlessly in hindering your body’s infection-fighting abilities. That’s why you get more infections and frequent fevers.
7- Anorexia
This is an interesting one as the vast majority of people seem to think that anorexia is only a psychological mental health issue.
This is far from reality. Anorexia can also be the warning signs of pancreatic cancer (7). And it is quite difficult to detect as doctors usually send their patients to a specialized mental institute that provides solutions to victims of anorexia.
What you should be looking for is if there is a sudden disgust for coffee or for other types of food that the patient was eating previously.
You should also ask yourselves the question if the patient wants to eat. Then if he/she is just disgust by food. And lastly, if he/she does not present mental health conditions where he/she wants to lose weight at any cost. If he/she does not fall within any of these categories, then he/she may be a victim of pancreatic cancer.
8 – Blood in the stool or rectal bleeding
This is a very common sign of colorectal cancer. And it is also a sign that you do not want to discard.
If you notice blood (8), you better seek professional advice from a doctor immediately.
9 – A sore, reddish or swollen breast
These are the early warning signs of breast cancer (9). Again, there is no time for you to think. You need to take action and get a doctor’s appointment immediately.
In essence, if you identify that you have a nipple that appears flattened; then go to the doctor.
This is also true if you have an inverted nipple or even if it is turned sideways.
These are symptoms that have been noticed by patients diagnosed with breast cancer.
10- Changes in nails color
If you find out that you have a brown or black dot under your nail, then you may have contracted early skin cancer warning signs (10). I would suggest thinking if you have not hit yourselves first. If you did not, then you better check with a visit to your local doctor.
You also need to know that pale or white nails are standard signs of liver cancer.
Now, you may have never heard of this team before, but “Clubbing” is a sign of lung cancer. Clubbing is defined as the enlargement of the fingers with your nails curving down over the tips.
11- Persistent indigestion and burping
Indigestion occurs when acid from your stomach goes back up. In essence, you have refluxes into your food pipe, that is your esophagus. This can be painful at times and can annoy you at other times (when you have a meeting or when you are about to sleep).
You can also get it if you have some kind of irritation in your stomach. Scientists are clear about this, you are more likely to contract burping just after eating, and in this case, it is called heartburn and you have nothing to worry about.
You need to remember that indigestion is common for anyone and the vast majority of time is not usually caused by cancer. And that is why it is dangerous as we tend to undermine it.
Heartburn is a warning sign that no one really diagnoses as a symptom of cancer disease. Obviously, we all experience indigestions at some point in our life and therefore we feel that this is normal.
However, this particular symptom is a real warning sign of cancer. Cancer Research UK (11) advise seeing a doctor if you have heartburn most of the week’s days and that for about 3 weeks.
In this case, you better try and find out why you are having this surge of burping. Note that persistent indigestion is known as dyspepsia (12). So go to the doctor if you have persistent burping.
12 – High number of Lymph Nodes
I am sure that you have some lymph nodes (13) on your body.
But the number of these nymphs nodes on your body can tell you a lot about your current health situation.
For instance, you can feel them being somehow swollen due to (maybe) an infection.
However, a lymph node that is uncomfortable, a bit swollen, become tender for a number of weeks, then you must consult your doctor about it. It is not the case of saying maybe it will go away etc. No, you must go straight to your doctor and if he does not take action, then check another doctor. You must be 100% sure. You will have no second chance.
13- Changes in your freckles or mole
This is another example of a sign of cancer that we tend to not take into account.
Again, we all have freckles and/or moles (even the tiniest ones) (14).
And we seem to forget them. What we should do is to look at them every month and see if they have changed in color, size, or even shape.
Any color change should be investigated a little further by consulting your doctor. This is especially true if your mole or freckle hurts a bit.
14- Weird and unusual hair growth
This is a warning sign that can lead to the diagnose of many different forms of cancers. If you feel your hair is growing too fast or too slow (suddenly), then you need to seek advice (15).
This can be a symptom of skin cancer or other form of hidden sickness. Make sure you insist on a full checkup.
15- Unusual Pain
If you have persistent pain in any one area of your body and this is not something you had in the past (for example, back pain or headaches), then a trip to your doctor would help.
I have had unusual headaches and I was asked to go and get ahead scan just in case. Nothing came out of that but the fact that I was healthy.
The only problem is that I had more and more headaches. So my doctor sent me to see a podiatrist. And it only took 10 mn for the podiatrist to tell me that I had one leg a little shorter than the other one which was causing headaches.
He manufactured insoles and since then I hardly have headaches.
Nevertheless, any pain in a given area of your body can be associated with a number of cancers. So, my advice is that you need to seek professional help.
Conclusions
Now you have all that you need to know to identify early warning signs of cancer. I gave you 15 ways to identify these. So you have no excuse.
If you have sour throat, anorexia, losing weight, fever, etc. then you should consult your doctor.
For me, I do a check-up every 6 months and if I could, I would do every three months. Unfortunately, this is a little costly, so I am only allowing myself to do a full check up on a six-monthly basis.
I can tell that you’ll definitely be sleeping better after having done your check-up.
Back to you
I invite you to start to watch for early signs of cancer and to take action as soon as you have a doubt. I do not invite you to go crazy at it, but at least to watch out for signs.
So, keep leaving your normal life, but keep an eye on the different symptoms.
You can find more healthy information on food, lifestyle, etc., by clicking here on Omigy posts.
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