This sounds stupid, but usually I only hear of the consequences of chemo. Without treatment, how long would it take for you to realize (pain-wise, not seeing a physical lump) that you have cancer?
This sounds stupid, but usually I only hear of the consequences of chemo. Without treatment, how long would it take for you to realize (pain-wise, not seeing a physical lump) that you have cancer?
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Depends on the cancer and its location.
Depends on they type of cancer. Bone cancer is extremely painful. Penis cancer probably hurts a lot too.
Yes it can be quite painful. My Mother was on some pretty powerful stuff towards the end of her hospice. The cancer spread and was ravaging her body wide.
My father died of cancer within 6 months of being diagnosed. It started in lungs (he was a non smoker), spread everywhere FAST.
Most days he was in excruciating pain, even with a morphine patch.
Maybe about a month before his passing, he went to pull himself up from a sitting position and snapped his arm clean in half.
Zero stars. Would not recommend.
Some do, some don’t until they progress a lot.
My grandfather had a recurrent melanoma on his ear. He wouldn’t let them remove enough of the ear to get the margins (he wanted to keep the ear, and the cancer didn’t spread too fast). Every 6-8 months, he’d complain of the irritation/jabbing pain and let the doctor take some more of the melanoma off. This went on for years.
My mom had lung cancer. She didn’t have much pain from it. She was out of breath and uncomfortable as it progressed, but by then she had plenty of drugs to help take the edge off.
My brother had chordoma. He was in pain for years before he finally got a diagnosis. Docs & hospitals labeled him as “drug seeking” because he was asking for help so often and in so much pain. After diagnosis, he had surgery (x2) and lots of drugs – including morphine & fentanyl. That only helped take the edge off and didn’t eliminate the pain.
My wife (and others I know) had pancreatic cancer. They were in terrible pain, especially near the end. Mrs. was in so much pain she had the self-administered morphine machine + fentanyl patches and she still cried in agony. Good friend just went through similar, but had IV morphine, liquid sublingual and fentanyl patches – and he was still in a lot of pain near the end. Thankfully he wasn’t conscious much.
Neither of them knew they had pancreatic cancer from “pain” until it was late. Mrs. was having minor back pain & stomach issues – nothing really showed up on tests/scans. Pain finally built up to where emergency visit found the lump. She survived 2 months. Friend was getting “routine” lung scan where they found a suspicious node. Biopsy found that it was pancreatic cancer which had already spread. He survived ~18 months.
Depends. Not all cancers are the same and location matters. My dad’s kidney cancer wasn’t exactly painful as much as it was aching. Meanwhile, my friend’s dad’s blood cancer was very very painful.
You have to understand that no two cancers are the same, even if they are the same type of cancer, and in the same region of the body.
Pancreatic cancer, for example, is known for being difficult to detect precisely because the symptoms don’t show up until it’s too late. It’s not until the organs like the liver start to fail that it presents pain, for example, in the gallbladder. People often live with cancer not knowing they have it until it’s detected in some way or other.
In other cases, the region and type of cancer can be in a location that causes immediate irritation and pain. A small tumour in the sinus, for example, because of the location, could give you sinus infections and headaches pretty early on in the diagnosis.
Towards the end of a terminal diagnosis, it is kind of variable which organs fail first and therefore that can dictate where and how the pain occurs. For example, a brain tumour may result in an instantaneous, painless collapse and death out of nowhere or lung cancer can be drawn out and painful, but it might be cardiac arrest that brings forth the official end of life.
There are so many variables that it’s difficult to give any straight answer, but to summarise, the malfunction of any organ is generally going to be a painful ordeal.
Cancer doesn’t hurt until it does, and then it is really bad. If the cancer you have is going to kill you, untreated cancer is probably one of the worst ways to die.
One day my father in law (born in the dust bowl, built his house, old school guy) went in the bathroom and couldn’t remember how to unzip his pants. Four weeks later he was dead from brain cancer. He chose no treatment and had very little pain.
My husband’s friends had prostate cancer, and was successfully treated for it.
Both of them are quite a bit older than I am, and he’s several years older than she. He’s 82, and was probably about 78 when he went through his cancer treatment.
She and I have discussed how draining going back-and-forth for radiation was, especially in the icy weather. Also, all the instructions he had to follow up regarding how much water to drink before treatments, etc.
I guess it depends on the type of cancer. She never mentioned him having actual pain from the cancer. I’ve known other people who have had prostate cancer, and never complained of pain.
I think it really depends on the type of cancer, and the location of the tumor.
My father was losing weight the last five years of his life. He kept thinking he had colon cancer, but the doctor said no. He KNEW something was wrong with him. It wasn’t until he had a brain bleed, and immediate brain surgery, but all the numbers that are supposed to be up or down, and all the numbers that were supposed to be down were up after the surgery Had a very sharp hospitalist since some of his blood to a specialized lab only to discover he had a not – very – common very very virulent of leukemia. That, combined with his cirrhosis of the liver (previously diagnosed) and severe heart attack at age 75 ganged up on him. He survived the brain surgery, sedated into oblivion the remaining two weeks of his life. At that point, the doctors explained to us that it was time to “pull the plug”. We did, he never regained consciousness, and he died a couple of days later.
I don’t ever recall him complaining of pain in the years before his diagnosis and death.
My breast cancer didn’t hurt at all, I didn’t even have a lump. But I also had a rare cancer of the nipple and that hurt a lot, it was like really bad dermatitis I guess.
Depends where it is. Cancer is basically just a lump that shouldn’t be there. If left long enough, it spreads and makes more lumps in other places. Cancer in certain locations will hurt, but most places it’ll go undetected for a while.
If you get it near an important organ it’ll probably interfere with the organ before you feel pain. Pancreatic cancer often causes diabetes. Cancer in the stomach area will often interfere with your digestion before you feel pain.
Basically you’re more likely to notice it from the side effects of the tumor pressing on something than you are to feel pain.
I promise I will be healthy for the rest of my life😰😳
I think obviously bone cancer would hurt. I had a friend doing chemo and he once told me “my fucking veins hurt”.
Yes. It can be excruciatingly painful.
It all depends on where the cancer is, the size, and sometimes, what the tumor is pressing up against.
My mother died of pancreatic/liver cancer. I expected the pain to be the biggest issue, but she was very conservative with pain management. Her biggest complaint, and most frightening issue at the end was that her lungs had liquid in them, and she could not lie down flat or she’d drown. She had a horrible fear of suffocating before all of this, and it was heartbreaking to see her short of breath.
To all those that have this shit-tastic disease in any of its forms, and all those with loved ones suffering with this shit, fuck cancer sideways.
In the last few weeks of my father’s liver cancer, his skin hurt if you walked past him too quickly. It hurt him when his arm hairs reacted to a slight breeze. I couldn’t give him a hug when I had to leave for work because that would have been worse. He felt an “odd hardness” one day. No pain then. 5 or 6 months later, however, and the situation was completely different. 3 months later and his skin hurt.
In general, from what I’ve seen and heard from people, it depends on the cancer, where it is or has spread to, how aggressive it is, how fast it spreads, and where you are in the (sorry to use this cold word) ‘process’.
If it’s a brain tumor then I’m pretty sure there’s a chance you won’t feel anything since there’s no nerves in the brain, of course this isn’t the case all the time.
I had a family member who didn’t know they had cancer until 3 days before they died.
They lived in excruciating pain for 3 months before that. They had a good bit of pain for roughly 4-6 months before that too.
They also suffered from loss of control, so lots of dropping things, falling etc.
By the time they found out they had cancer it was absolutely everywhere and they were in a tremendous amount of pain.
It depends. Cancer doesn’t hurt if it doesn’t push nerves or it hasn’t spread to neural plexus.
I think it depends. I have lung cancer that’s spread to my bones among other areas. The lung that doesn’t have the primary tumor & my bones in my ribcage hurt a lot. I’ve only had symptoms for maybe the last 6-8 months though. Literally could not tell anything (other than recurring sickness) was wrong by symptoms alone for around 4 years, then I had a final scan when I noticed I couldnt breathe in as much trying to sing a song. It was my only symptom non medicine related until it was considered incurable. Now it’s easier to sleep than to stay awake sometimes, my bones feel like termites are eating them and it’s not 24/7 but frequently oxygen makes my right lung feel like it’s on fire. I was told it has to do with the tumor type & the way it’s spreading 🤷♀️
Cancer is not one single disease.
Depends on the type of cancer and metastases.
I have prostate cancer, first diagnosed 2015. Never had any pain or inconvenience from the cancer itself. The treatments however……
My dad died within 6 months of being diagnosed.
He never went to doctors, like most workaholics.
When he couldnt go on the toilet for 10 days in a row he finally did and the doc told him he had a 2,5cm turmor in his pancreas (is that the right word?)
At first he was rather fine with the hard ass painkillers he got. Finished a lot of projects around the house and stuff. He refused chemo because he wanted to go with dignity and suffer as shortly as possible.
The last 2 months he got visibly worse. Being out of breath quicker and quicker and having waves of pain more often and more severe.
The last 2 weeks he went downhill MUCH quicker and spent them basicly in bed, looking like a mummy in a museum.
“Funny” side story: he died in a hospital bed in our living room (the brought it in since my mum took care of him) in winter
Because he was to be cremated and they didnt have a spot available or something he stayed in the bed for another 3 days after dieing before he got picked up.
We had to keep the window open so it was cold as fuck in the room. And since it was a large kitchen/living/dining room combo my mum and i had to cook and eat in there with him in the background.
He did not smell at all (until he got moved. Then it was BAD) and we got used to it rather quickly.
Dead people look a lot like sleeping people
Cant speak for all types of cancer but I have a mild oral cancer, non aggressive, it’s spreading but not at a rate that will pose a threat to my life. I do keep getting tumors on my tongue and throat. Most days I don’t notice it. Other it’s like an ache, sore and constant. Once in a while it will flare up though and I’ll be in an immense amount of pain. That’s also a sort of aching feeling but much deeper. My tongue will be offline at those times and I often have to wait for it to subside before I can form words.
My grandma died of metastasized lung cancer. The lung tumor didn’t hurt, the brain metastase didn’t hurt.
The skin metastases on the other hand hurt like absolut hell. She was on fentanyl for two month and then got morphine until they couldn’t up the dose any more. It worked as long as only cloth touched the skin, but anything more than that resulted in what seemed to be unbearable pain despite the opiates.
The issue with cancer in its early stages is it is often painless.
Basically, it mostly (unless it has some endocrine function) doesn’t cause pain unless it burst, bleeds or blocks or pushes something. The lump itself, painless.
The symptoms are mostly vague, subtle or non-existant which is why it’s easily missed, and why screening ptlrograms are so important, to try and pick up common cancers before they cause symptoms.