Symptoms Prior to Diagnosis
Did anyone notice weird symptoms prior to their diagnosis? About a year before my cancer diagnosis, I noticed my vision starting to go and I needed reading glasses for the first time in my life. Another weird thing--- my nails started to grow incredibly fast.
Comments
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Needing reading glasses can be age related, as can bc.
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LOL! Very true. What really piqued my interest was a few weeks ago I came across the following website that vision problems could be an early warning sign of cancer anywhere in the body. I'm just wondering what the nails have to do with it ;0) Here's the link:
http://www.the-lasik-directory.com/article_cancera...
Cancer and Vision
Cancer throughout the body can affect the eyes in many ways. The disease itself can cause vision problems and neurological problems. The treatments cause eye problems as well.
Blurred vision, double vision, and other visual disturbances are sometimes early warning signs of cancer. Most people think of brain tumors as the most likely type of cancer to cause vision problems, but any kind of cancer can affect the eyes. How does that happen?
One cause is that cancer tumors produce hormones and proteins which enter the bloodstream and circulate throughout the body, affecting tissues and organs far away from the cancer itself.
Another cause can be the body's immune response to a tumor. The result is a group of symptoms called Paraneoplastic Syndromes. They are degenerative conditions affecting the nervous system.
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An enlarged lymph node under arm a week before DX was all.
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Divot in left breast and quite a bit of fatigue. Vision worsened AFTER chemotherapy.
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I have been exhausted (also had vision changes) and have had hair loss for 5 years. So, yeah, basically I had treatment side effect symptoms BEFORE I was dx. I also have been very dry. Skin, eyes,hair. Thirsty all the time and achey. I want to blame everything on the cancer but maybe I am just getting old. Ha
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I agree with MTWoman regarding reading glasses: I had to start wearing those for work ( a computer programmer) when I was 35. Otherwise I would have to keep enlarging the font on my screen all day long. I got BC at 40.
My only weird symptom, I guess, was a lack of sex drive. It felt like menopause was approaching, although I'm still very much premenopausal. I started getting night sweats several days before my period. My other PMS signs changed. I started growing chin hair, ugh.
But I still think it had nothing to do with my BC. My main symptom was finding a lump, and here we are
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I felt very good this past year: I was more active than usual. Did lots of skiing in the winter, hiking in the summer. Summited a 14er and a few smaller mountains. My ski pass should arrive in the mail any day now, and I keep wondering if I will be able to ski this season at all, considering my chemo schedule.
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I would say unexplained fatigue that I was chalking up to having a lot of life changes in the past couple years - getting married, having a baby, breastfeeding, leaving my career to stay home, raising teenagers... all seemed like possible culprits. Even after my mastectomy, it was easy to tell myself "still recovering ". But now that I've started the ovarian suppression and Tamoxifen, I feel a lot more like my old self, my energy is coming back. It's comforting (how strange that sounds! to look back and know that there really was something going on inside.
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1. Severe breast pain 1.5 year before diagnosis
2. Fatigue - didn't really know why until I looked back
3. SEVERE and I mean severe - BODY ODOR. I could always skimp on deodorant my whole life, and it was never a big issue.
The summer before diagnosis, my mom told me I needed to change deodorants as I had a very bad odor. (Thank goodness for moms)
Then my cat who never, ever did this before would smell my breast and under my arm. I had to push her away.
I had to wash my bras or change them twice or more per day.
Lo and behold, when I discovered I had a 6 cm tumor and lots of nodes, I knew the cancer was the odor.
The minute that cancer was gone, the body odor was gone.
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I had a change in body odor too. Also extremely dry skin, when it had never been an issue before. As soon as cancer removed, within days, the dry skin was gone
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I went in because I was exhausted. I thought my hormons where off. I guess they were, I am ER+. lol No other symtoms that I know of.
Interesting comment on the body oder, I have had the same issue over the last couple of years just getting worse and worse. I wonder if that is related for me as well.
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When I would lie on my left side I would feel uncomfortable. If I woke up on that side it would be painful. I was extremely tired, but was also going through peri-menopause. I had a strange feeling of a lump in my throat every time I would swallow. It wasn't at all painful, but bothersome. I even went as far as having an ENT doctor do testing on me. They thought the feeling could be related to my on and off again acid reflux. The strange thing is after I had the cancer removed the surgeon said my throat may be a little sore because they placed a tubing down my throat during surgery. I did not feel any pain, but did notice that the lump feeling was completely gone. I chalked it up to maybe the tube they put down my throat may have actually helped. After reading your article, now I wonder if it had to do with the cancer. Also, I did have some eye issues. I would have never before equated it with the cancer. I started to have trouble with seeing close up. Naturally I was expecting that since I am getting older. My eye doctor did an exam and prescribed me bi-focals. I did not change my glasses right away. Within a few months my vision became extremely far sighted again and I practically have to put things to my face before I can read it. I never heard of it changing back.
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Was very tired all the time, had a red type rash just above my breast and dry skin
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Two cases of the shingles two years apart 4 years ago, 2 years ago and was diagnosed this March.
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I’ve been feeling fatigued and blah for the past 6 months. It wasn’t that I couldn’t get out of bed, I just had no desire to do anything. I chalked it up to depression and went to my psychiatrist who put me on antidepressants. The meds seem to be helping some but I still have bouts of fatigue. I don’t know if it’s cancer related or not.
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It's been roughly 5 months since my surgery and I've been taking high quality multivitamins everyday and I don't know if it was the surgery or the vitamins or a combination of both, but my double vision has cleared up---to the point where I can actually read on my computer without the aid of my prescription glasses! This didn't happen overnight, mind you. Maybe my body was deficient in nutrients or the tumor load was taking a toll on my health. Anyway, I've changed my eating habits and I've included plant based foods in my daily diet and of course, the Budwig cottage cheese and flaxseed combination. I've also cut down on my caffeine intake to one cup each morning. The only drawback to all of this is the number of times I have to go to the loo for a bowel movement. LOL! Oh well, the bile acids are doing their job. Oh blessed poo. ;0)
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Hello All!
I’m just waiting for my biopsy results. Boy is THIS FUN!
I’m wondering if anyone else had extreme body aches and swollen glands before being diagnosed? I’ve also had a low grade fever for about 3days now. My other symptoms are a painful lump under my left breast with the accompanying dimpling. Both the Mammo tech and the doc doing the US biopsy were not terribly encouraging. But then again, Im in Denmark, and people tend to play their cards very close to their chests. So who knows. But I feel fairly certain it’s BC. Gut feeling, ya know? That lump on the US was fugly...
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I have been chalking up various health issues to ulcerative colitis since being diagnosed with that 2 years ago, eye pain is actually the first sign of a flare for me. My GI doc had actually sent to me an eye doctor earlier this year to make sure there wasn’t some other issue with my eye. So this is quite an interesting theory. My last period before BC diagnosis was quite late and was preceded by a pain that I worried was a kidney infection,and the one since DX was much earlier than usual. I am ER+.
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Wow..I've never heard of those types of symptoms if the cancer wasn't metastatic.
My only symptom was extreme fatigue I'd been battling for a few months.
It's funny..many times, our gut knows something is wrong, but our brain convinces ourselves everything's fine.
I just chalked it up to maybe being pre-menopausal.
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Wow..that's really interesting about cancer causing vision problems, because I dealt with this, too! I was told I was in the initial stages of glaucoma. But when I got a second opinion, THAT eye dr said my eyes looked fine!
I even posted a thread about it. I was worried about a brain tumor
MRI was normal, tho.
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