{"id":1326,"date":"2020-11-17T14:42:31","date_gmt":"2020-11-17T13:42:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/youtumor.org\/there-are-worrying-symptoms\/"},"modified":"2021-01-14T11:57:39","modified_gmt":"2021-01-14T10:57:39","slug":"there-are-worrying-symptoms","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/youtumor.org\/en\/im-afraid-i-may-have-or-get-cancer\/the-fear-is-justified\/there-are-worrying-symptoms\/","title":{"rendered":"THERE ARE WORRYING SYMPTOMS"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\" class=\"underline\">It&#8217;s not always easy to distinguish between a worrying situation and a harmless condition<\/span><\/strong> on the basis of symptoms alone. However, a couple of examples will illustrate the approach to adopt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A slight intestinal disorder that we&#8217;ve had for years and hasn&#8217;t changed recently is certainly not an alarm signal. By contrast, an intestinal pain that we&#8217;ve never had before, which has increased over the last few weeks, and which is accompanied by weight loss, is a danger signal that needs to be investigated. Likewise, a headache that we&#8217;ve had for years is generally nothing to worry about, while a headache in a person who has never suffered from headaches, and which is accompanied by double vision, must be investigated urgently and thoroughly (brain CT scan).<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe above examples concern several symptoms or disorders which, when taken together, point in the direction of either alarm or reassurance.\n\n\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>By contrast, some symptoms, even when they occur alone, must always be regarded as alarm<\/strong><\/span> signals and therefore investigated by means of blood tests and imaging examinations; these are listed below.<\/p>\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Dysphagia, i.e. difficulty in swallowing food.<\/li><li>Weight loss of more than 4-5 Kg not due to attempts to lose weight. <\/li><li>Chest pain that worsens within a few weeks.<\/li><li>Cough that differs in intensity and, especially, duration from \u201cthe cough I sometimes get\u201d.<\/li><li>Dysphonia, i.e. hoarseness, with the same features as the cough described above.<\/li><li>Abdominal pain with the same features of intensity and duration as the above cough.\n<\/li><li>Nodules that can be felt, of at least 1-2 cm in size, hard (an important feature), recently noticed.\n<\/li><li>Blood loss, even a small amount, from any opening of the body (except the nose).    <\/li><\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s not always easy to distinguish between a worrying situation and a harmless condition on the basis of symptoms alone. However, a couple of examples will illustrate the approach to adopt. A slight intestinal disorder that we&#8217;ve had for years and hasn&#8217;t changed recently is certainly not an alarm signal. By contrast, an intestinal pain [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"parent":1498,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1326","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/youtumor.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/youtumor.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/youtumor.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youtumor.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youtumor.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1326"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/youtumor.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1326\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3700,"href":"https:\/\/youtumor.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1326\/revisions\/3700"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youtumor.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/youtumor.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}