Friends, Please read this for me... I know a little lengthy, but may save your life. I just saw this that another person posted. My first response was WOW!!! Thats what I had!!! As most of you know, I share things that I feel strongly about. THIS is what I had been diagnosed with last December. A lot of you may not have known this. Why am I sharing then? Because I dont want you to have this. And me sharing this, may save you or someone you know. I had been having vague abdominal pains for over a year. Didnt get better, didnt get worse. I had been cleared gynecologically. I requested a GI consult. The doctor insisted to put me on gastric spasm meds, which I refused, but I demanded a colonoscopy. I told him, I can live with the pain, as I am not into meds, as long as he could tell me for certain nothing else going on in my abdomen. I also insisted, that if colonoscopy was okay (looking inside colon,) that I wanted a CAT scan (to look at the rest of the abdomen.) I had a 4 mm polyp removed. No biggie. Lots of folks have those. 3 weeks later, the biopsy came back as Carcinoid/NET (Neuroendocrine Turmor). I was 39 yrs old. (read further) Why am I sharing this? Because of the research I did. My mind thinks very medically with stuff like this. I had good friends share their MD online sites with me, and looked and read everything I possibly could. I dove into learning everything about this. Best case scenerio, is it is localized, and they remove it. Cure. Worse case scenerio.... Most people go misdiagnosed for 10-15 yrs having gastric spasms, irritable bowel, indigestion, reflux, cramping, diarrhea, or a host of many other common diagnosis... But, MISDIAGNOSED is the KEY word here. They are given all sorts of meds...since, too young for the routine colonoscopy age. Then, when they hit 50 yrs old, and they have the colonscopy, it is TOO LATE. By this time, they are having liver and pancreatic issues, and they have about 6 mo to live. Note this is about age 50 yrs young!!! Most people, that you may have heard of, that are about 50 yrs or younger, that have liver or pancreatic cancer, typically will have had NET or carcinoid, as a precursor. It could have been possibly caught, and cured 10 to 15 YEARS EARLIER!!! So please, if you or someone you know is having the above symptoms, or vague, weird abdominal pains, PLEASE INSIST AND DEMAND on a colonoscopy!!!! Want to know a kicker in all this??? The week that my pathology report came back as NET/carcinoid.... the doctor told me he had another patient about my age with similar symptoms come in. Due to my diagnosis, he decided to do a colonoscopy on him, JUST BECAUSE OF MY DIAGNOSIS. Guess what that young man had??? Yep!! I didnt ask, but it made me wonder how many patients he was going back to do a colonoscopy on. Hopefully, it will have saved a few more lives. As for mine, I was very fortunate. Mine ended up as best case scenerio. They removed surrounding tissue and considered a cure. Yes, I do need to be followed up, but, I know it could have been MUCH worse. Please pass this forward to those you love.
Posted on: Tue, 11 Nov 2014 03:52:34 +0000