A symptoms checklist, combined with a blood test, can catch 80 percent of ovarian cancer in its earliest, most curable stages, a new study suggests.
Doctors used to call ovarian cancer "the silent killer." That's because it was thought to have no symptoms until the very late stages of disease. But women who had or who survived ovarian cancer insisted that they knew something was wrong, long before doctors finally diagnosed their malignancy.
Finally, a doctor listened. University of Washington researcher Barbara Goff, M.D., and colleagues analyzed patients complaints and, in a groundbreaking 2004 study, announced to the medical world that ovarian cancer is not silent.
The symptoms:
Bloating or increased abdominal size
Pelvic or abdominal pain
Eating difficulty or feeling full too quickly
Read the article from CBS News
Symptoms Warn of Ovarian Cancer รง here
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Bloating?
Abdominal pain?
Feeling full too quickly?
I'll be blunt....I have those symptoms almost every day!
Many women over 40 do.
I knew a woman who recently died of ovarian cancer...her gynecologist wouldn't even see her when she called complaining of symptoms.
Her symptoms?
Deep rectal pain and pressure in her lungs (because her lungs filled up with fluid).
She did all the right things, too...she had regular female check-ups. She was the perfect weight. She exercised every day. The GYN sent her to her family physician because she had "rectal pain." She had stage 4 ovarian cancer.
My point?
Everyone is different. I'm not saying ignore this study. But, if you have other symptoms and you don't feel right...go to your doctor and complain until you do feel right. Because it's easy to blow you off or send you somewhere else.
A good doctor will listen to you. And we all know about these studies...they change like the wind.
