3 ms·

My mother in law is in this therapy right now. The doctors were surprised it isn't working (prior chemo worked pretty well giving her another year of life, once

My mother in law is in this therapy right now. The doctors were surprised it isn't working (prior chemo worked pretty well giving her another year of life, once it stopped they switched her to this treatment). They're looking at hospice care right now. When the cancer gets to stage 4, you're looking at when not if the cancer is going to kill you. So to everyone you know that doesn't get regular checkups, encourage them to do so. Both my parents have had cancer but it was caught early, my mother in law never went to a doctor after having her last kid ~25 years ago.

greggman 11y ago
I have a dumb question but ... how do you know when to check? I suppose I should google that. AFAIK doctors don't generally check until you show some kind of symptom (no idea what those symptoms are) I also remember a Ted talk about a high school student who designed a way to test for any cancer for $0.01 per test with 99.9% accuracy. No idea whatever happened to that https://www.ted.com/talks/jack_andraka_a_promising_test_for_pancreatic_cancer_from_a_teenager https://www.ted.com/talks/jack_andraka_a_promising_test_for_...
- mikekchar 11y ago
  Blood tests can detect a lot of cancers. I've been working in Japan for many years now. It is normal for people to get blood work done every year here. After age 40 they also do a barium test for stomach cancer. I think every year for that is a bit much, so I skipped it this year... They also usually do a chest X-ray every year which can catch tuberculosis as well as lung cancer. And for women obviously yearly pap smears and mamograms. Over 35 for men, I think you are supposed to get yearly prostate exams. I have not done this and I am planning to get an exam as soon as I can manage it. Don't wait for symptoms. It's sounds like a lot, but doing the above is really fairly straight forward and not expensive.

greggman 11y ago

I have a dumb question but ... how do you know when to check? I suppose I should google that. AFAIK doctors don't generally check until you show some kind of symptom (no idea what those symptoms are) I also remember a Ted talk about a high school student who designed a way to test for any cancer for $0.01 per test with 99.9% accuracy. No idea whatever happened to that https://www.ted.com/talks/jack_andraka_a_promising_test_for_pancreatic_cancer_from_a_teenager https://www.ted.com/talks/jack_andraka_a_promising_test_for_...

mikekchar 11y ago
Blood tests can detect a lot of cancers. I've been working in Japan for many years now. It is normal for people to get blood work done every year here. After age 40 they also do a barium test for stomach cancer. I think every year for that is a bit much, so I skipped it this year... They also usually do a chest X-ray every year which can catch tuberculosis as well as lung cancer. And for women obviously yearly pap smears and mamograms. Over 35 for men, I think you are supposed to get yearly prostate exams. I have not done this and I am planning to get an exam as soon as I can manage it. Don't wait for symptoms. It's sounds like a lot, but doing the above is really fairly straight forward and not expensive.