5 ms·

I'm curious about what kind of cancer masquerades as iron deficiency, an infection, and a benign tumor?

callmeal 6y ago
>I'm curious about what kind of cancer masquerades as iron deficiency, an infection, and a benign tumor? The kind of cancer where the patient can be easily dismissed by the doctor because of course they know best.
- chromatin 6y ago
  Thanks for your insightful contribution to the thread. I also hope to hear from the original poster about the type of cancer, because the story is interesting.
  - callmeal 6y ago
    I don't know if you're being straight or that was sarcasm. In any case, here's some links for you: [0] https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20180518-the-inequality-in-how-women-are-treated-for-pain https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20180518-the-inequality-i... [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/03/well/live/when-doctors-downplay-womens-health-concerns.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/03/well/live/when-doctors-do... [2] https://www.healthline.com/health/mental-health/doctors-gaslighting-patients#1 https://www.healthline.com/health/mental-health/doctors-gasl... [3] https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qvedxd/doctors-dont-always-believe-you-when-youre-a-black-woman https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qvedxd/doctors-dont-alway...
- arcticbull 6y ago
  "...doctor because of course they know best" is a really strange thing to say. I don't mean to invoke paternalism here -- but between a patient with Google and a doctor with years of medical training, residency and practice, they more than likely do know best. At least, better than the patient. They won't always be right, and you can ask for a second opinion, but they do know better. If they didn't, you could practice your own medicine.
  - Alex3917 6y ago
    > If they didn't, you could practice your own medicine. Which most people do.
    - arcticbull 6y ago
      No, they don't. They practice first-aid. There's a big difference between slapping on a band-aid and a DIY hip replacement, or cancer diagnosis. Maybe this is a uniquely American thing and with the self-sufficiency narrative being so at the fore. I don't fix my own car because I'm not a mechanic -- I share the symptoms with a professional. I don't tell my doctor what to prescribe or what's wrong with me because I'm not a doctor -- I share my symptoms with a professional. As a concrete example, advertising prescription drugs direct to individuals in Canada is illegal. It's illegal in most countries. [1] As it should be! [1] https://www.cmaj.ca/content/169/5/425 https://www.cmaj.ca/content/169/5/425
      - Alex3917 6y ago
        75%+ of American adults take supplements, and that’s just one of many different self-directed medical activities that people practice.
        arcticbull 6y ago
        I think you're unintentionally proving my point. Dietary supplements largely don't work, at all, and some of them are outright harmful. They basically do nothing, at best. So 75% of America probably, er, shouldn't. This is something a medical professional might tell you if you asked them. This visualization should help you understand the magnitude of just how little dietary supplements do -- it came up here on HN a while back as an example of a beautiful visualization [1]. Most multivitamins are totally worthless unless you're eating an incredibly poor diet. There's actually an association between multivitamin use and an increase in all-cause mortality [2] with a more pronounced effect in smokers [3]. So, I re-iterate, there's a reason these people went to school to become doctors. [1] http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/snake-oil-supplements/ http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/snake-o... [2] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/1105957 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullar... [3] https://academic.oup.com/aje/article/152/2/149/87699 https://academic.oup.com/aje/article/152/2/149/87699
liveoneggs 6y ago
acute myeloid leukemia
trynewideas 6y ago
Internal squamous cell carcinoma originating on an ovary. It never "masqueraded", it was just the kind of thing that causes a person to complain about uterine pain, which in turn causes every doctor they seek help from to apparently turn their brains completely off and blame it on either a UTI or menstruation. The more detailed misdiagnoses: heavy but otherwise normal periods from enlarged fibroids causing anemia, a UTI, and then a 7x4cm benign dermoid cyst. (A ROMA test prior to surgery came back with an exceptionally low score, which the gyno surgeon assumed excluded cancer as a possibility, and other tumors on an ovary wouldn't get that large in her opinoin. There was no actual proof of it being a dermoid cyst.) The cancer wasn't detected until lab analysis of the removed ovary and uterus showed it had been completely subsumed by cancer. Even then, after the surgery but before the labs, the surgeon said she thought it was endometriosis based on the scarring, which was actually from the cancer's spread. The surgery to remove the ovary was considered elective, because the tumor was never considered cancerous until after the surgery. The surgery request was put in between February 23 and 26 to be scheduled ASAP, but insurance stalled on the prior approval until after all elective surgeries here were cancelled due to COVID-19 capacity concerns. (Hospitals never came close to hitting capacity here during the span, and the hospital that eventually did the surgery in June had nearly empty ORs for two weeks prior.) The imaging in February hadn't shown any of the scarring, or the spots on other organs showing it had spread, that the post-surgery imaging in June revealed.
- cmrdporcupine 6y ago
  Oh man, this is terrifying, and here's the thing... how many of us or our partners start having erratic or 'strange' periods in the pre-menopausal, mid-40s, etc. points of their life? It's happening for my wife -- extremely short cycles, sudden intense periods, etc. and the doctors are kind of like "well this is within the bounds of normal"; not the exact same set of problems as you describe, but some overlap... but the doctor is young, it doesn't feel like she's taking my wife's concerns seriously. Do you have any advice on the kind of testing that _could_ have diagnosed your partner's situation earlier? And... wow... glad to not have to deal with the insurance situations you describe. But here the challenge is getting them to take you seriously enough to get access to imaging.

>I'm curious about what kind of cancer masquerades as iron deficiency, an infection, and a benign tumor? The kind of cancer where the patient can be easily dismissed by the doctor because of course they know best.

chromatin 6y ago
Thanks for your insightful contribution to the thread. I also hope to hear from the original poster about the type of cancer, because the story is interesting.
- callmeal 6y ago
  I don't know if you're being straight or that was sarcasm. In any case, here's some links for you: [0] https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20180518-the-inequality-in-how-women-are-treated-for-pain https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20180518-the-inequality-i... [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/03/well/live/when-doctors-downplay-womens-health-concerns.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/03/well/live/when-doctors-do... [2] https://www.healthline.com/health/mental-health/doctors-gaslighting-patients#1 https://www.healthline.com/health/mental-health/doctors-gasl... [3] https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qvedxd/doctors-dont-always-believe-you-when-youre-a-black-woman https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qvedxd/doctors-dont-alway...
arcticbull 6y ago
"...doctor because of course they know best" is a really strange thing to say. I don't mean to invoke paternalism here -- but between a patient with Google and a doctor with years of medical training, residency and practice, they more than likely do know best. At least, better than the patient. They won't always be right, and you can ask for a second opinion, but they do know better. If they didn't, you could practice your own medicine.
- Alex3917 6y ago
  > If they didn't, you could practice your own medicine. Which most people do.
  - arcticbull 6y ago
    No, they don't. They practice first-aid. There's a big difference between slapping on a band-aid and a DIY hip replacement, or cancer diagnosis. Maybe this is a uniquely American thing and with the self-sufficiency narrative being so at the fore. I don't fix my own car because I'm not a mechanic -- I share the symptoms with a professional. I don't tell my doctor what to prescribe or what's wrong with me because I'm not a doctor -- I share my symptoms with a professional. As a concrete example, advertising prescription drugs direct to individuals in Canada is illegal. It's illegal in most countries. [1] As it should be! [1] https://www.cmaj.ca/content/169/5/425 https://www.cmaj.ca/content/169/5/425
    - Alex3917 6y ago
      75%+ of American adults take supplements, and that’s just one of many different self-directed medical activities that people practice.
      - arcticbull 6y ago
        I think you're unintentionally proving my point. Dietary supplements largely don't work, at all, and some of them are outright harmful. They basically do nothing, at best. So 75% of America probably, er, shouldn't. This is something a medical professional might tell you if you asked them. This visualization should help you understand the magnitude of just how little dietary supplements do -- it came up here on HN a while back as an example of a beautiful visualization [1]. Most multivitamins are totally worthless unless you're eating an incredibly poor diet. There's actually an association between multivitamin use and an increase in all-cause mortality [2] with a more pronounced effect in smokers [3]. So, I re-iterate, there's a reason these people went to school to become doctors. [1] http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/snake-oil-supplements/ http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/snake-o... [2] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/1105957 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullar... [3] https://academic.oup.com/aje/article/152/2/149/87699 https://academic.oup.com/aje/article/152/2/149/87699

liveoneggs 6y ago

acute myeloid leukemia

trynewideas 6y ago

Internal squamous cell carcinoma originating on an ovary. It never "masqueraded", it was just the kind of thing that causes a person to complain about uterine pain, which in turn causes every doctor they seek help from to apparently turn their brains completely off and blame it on either a UTI or menstruation. The more detailed misdiagnoses: heavy but otherwise normal periods from enlarged fibroids causing anemia, a UTI, and then a 7x4cm benign dermoid cyst. (A ROMA test prior to surgery came back with an exceptionally low score, which the gyno surgeon assumed excluded cancer as a possibility, and other tumors on an ovary wouldn't get that large in her opinoin. There was no actual proof of it being a dermoid cyst.) The cancer wasn't detected until lab analysis of the removed ovary and uterus showed it had been completely subsumed by cancer. Even then, after the surgery but before the labs, the surgeon said she thought it was endometriosis based on the scarring, which was actually from the cancer's spread. The surgery to remove the ovary was considered elective, because the tumor was never considered cancerous until after the surgery. The surgery request was put in between February 23 and 26 to be scheduled ASAP, but insurance stalled on the prior approval until after all elective surgeries here were cancelled due to COVID-19 capacity concerns. (Hospitals never came close to hitting capacity here during the span, and the hospital that eventually did the surgery in June had nearly empty ORs for two weeks prior.) The imaging in February hadn't shown any of the scarring, or the spots on other organs showing it had spread, that the post-surgery imaging in June revealed.

cmrdporcupine 6y ago
Oh man, this is terrifying, and here's the thing... how many of us or our partners start having erratic or 'strange' periods in the pre-menopausal, mid-40s, etc. points of their life? It's happening for my wife -- extremely short cycles, sudden intense periods, etc. and the doctors are kind of like "well this is within the bounds of normal"; not the exact same set of problems as you describe, but some overlap... but the doctor is young, it doesn't feel like she's taking my wife's concerns seriously. Do you have any advice on the kind of testing that _could_ have diagnosed your partner's situation earlier? And... wow... glad to not have to deal with the insurance situations you describe. But here the challenge is getting them to take you seriously enough to get access to imaging.