Just coming back now after my stage 2 surgery…
Here’s the thing, my symptoms didn’t even seem to be colon or cancer related. I was having fatigue, out of breath, tired all the time.
Not unusual for a dude with 2 heart attacks and congestive heart failure, but the blood work was showing anemia, low red blood cell count, low hemoglobin, small red blood cells.
Something was chewing up the blood, but it wasn’t clear what.
Enter the colonoscopy/endoscopy… 17 polyps, 2 of which unusually large (20mm and 30mm). But NOT cancerous. Not even pre-cancer.
Rule of thumb is anything more than 5 or bigger than 5mm, you get re-checked 6 months later.
6 months later… 6 new polyps, and a 20mm monster that was full blown invasive stage 2 cancer.
Went under the knife 2/19, they pulled my sigmoid colon and all the related lymph nodes. If the cancer got into the lymph system, that’s stage 3 and cause for chemo.
Well, they got it all! No stage 3! But I’ve kinda been rolling around in bed ever since. 2 more weeks of recovery.
God damn, good catch! Wishing you the best of luck in your recovery and your remission.
Yeah, I tell this story because going from 0 to stage 2 in 6 months is terrifying.
Best of luck on your recovery!
Thanks!
Rectal bleeding, bloody stool, and narrow poops. You might also get intermittent constipation with no apparent cause, and a feeling like something is constricting your intestine.
Unfortunately it sounds like this isn’t because other cancers have fallen, just that this has increased.
I got diagnosed last year at 30 years old. I had lower abdominal pain that lasted a little over a month that I figured was IBS from a traumatic life event that recently happened. It was slowly improving until one day I woke up in extreme abdominal pain. There wound up being a mass at the very start of my large intestine.
The doctors found no obvious reasons as to why it happened- no family history, no substance abuse, no excessive energy drink or alcohol consumption. I now make a large effort to cut out as much processed food in my diet as I can.
Also up your fiber. Low fiber is linked to increased colon cancer risk and most Americans get well below their recommended daily dose.
Glad you’re still kicking with the living though and good luck
I doubt seriously that this epidemic is a fiber problem. This generation is ingesting something we shouldn’t be. I’d suspect plastics, but we’ve been eating out of Tupperware since the 1950s. Maybe PFAS? Maybe a newer plastic formulation? A more recent pesticide like Roundup? Some preservative we didn’t start using until the 1990s?
I impatiently await the scientific study that reveals the right link.
You’re going to be disappointed because there’s almost never any one thing.
We know, for a fact, that lower fiber intake increases colon cancer risk. So if you lower fiber intake while also increasing ingestion of something that increases risk, well how do you say which is the right link?
Oh, this goes with all the normal caveats of studies still need to be done, I’m not a doctor just try to stay informed, etc, but some more recent studies have shown a link between excess sugar intake and increased colon cancer risk. The sugar source doesn’t seem to matter so much as amount (so honey vs high fructose corn syrup doesn’t matter). We’ve been slowly adding more and more sugar to everything, at least here in America, so shrugs eat less sweets and more beans.
E. All of the above
I would suspect processed food too. It seems like this trend has tracked with the rise in ultra-processed foods.
I’ve done the same. The most processed food in my diet these days is cheese. The best number of ingredients to be listed on a package is one.
Processed foods have been around since at least the 1970s. We were eating Kraft dinner, La Choy, Doritos, canned foods, tv dinners, sugary cereals etc.
Thats 50 years. That’s not that long
Edit: From the Article
Experts aren’t yet sure why colorectal cancer has risen in younger people, but Siegel said it’s an example of the “birth cohort effect”. That people born after the 1950s face heightened risk “tells us that there was some exposure, some risk factor that was introduced in the middle of the 20th century that’s increasing our risk of this disease”, Siegel said, “and it’s increasing the risk more and more with every subsequent generation”.
Many are looking to changes in the food supply for answers. Increased consumption of processed foods, processed meats and foods packaged in plastic are all possible, not proven, contributors. “We now know microplastics can cross the blood–brain barrier, so the colon is clearly being exposed,” Siegel said.
The best number of ingredients to be listed on a package is one.
Is that even legal in the US?
Only if the ingredient is HFCS.
Leading cause of cancer death for under 50’s. Heart disease reigns supreme last I checked for untimely demises.
Age 25-44 the leading cause of death is unintentional injuries for males and cancer for females.
Reminds me of those why women live longer videos I saw on the internet.
