Is My Persistent Sore Throat Actually Cancer? Not Likely, But You Should Still Push Your Doctor For Answers

“It’s important to know that while we have guidelines, guidelines, especially in this country, are meant to take care and do the right thing for the largest number of people, but it’s also with the littlest use of resources. And that’s the truth,” says Dr. Murrell. “My plan would be, ‘hey doc, I would prefer to see whether this treatment you have works, but let me come back in a month. If it’s not working in a month, what would the next step be?’ And the doctor should be able to tell you, ‘Well, if it’s not working in a month then I would do this.'”

Doctors sometimes miss symptoms.

“I was at my yearly gynecologist visit and my doctor felt a lump and sort of just dismissed it — asked my if I was on my period and he said women get changes in their breast during their cycle and then said I’ll see you again in a year,” says Heather Knowles, who has metastatic breast cancer. “And it turned out to be breast cancer in my spine and in my hip. I was angry at first but I’m not anymore. For me personally it didn’t have a negative outcome because I was proactive and did something. But it would affect someone else who may have still been early stage who did wait and come back in a year.”

According to Dr. Shah, hematologist at the University of California San Francisco Medical Center, sometimes cancer is very difficult to diagnose because for some cancers, the symptoms are non-specific. For instance, in some cases of multiple myeloma. “A cancer like multiple myeloma can sometimes be harder to diagnose and the reason is because sometimes the symptoms can be non-specific. It’s very common for someone to say ‘You know, I’ve been feeling really tired,” or ‘You know, I have this back pain and I’ve always had it but somehow it’s just not going away. It’s not unreasonable for that doctor to watch and wait, or to do a few X-Rays, maybe not find anything.”

Dr. Nina Shah, hematologist at the University of California San Francisco Medical Center, on when to take the next step and get testing for multiple myeloma.

According to Dr. Shah, “At the first sign of something abnormal on the blood or a new fracture, it’s important to take that to the next step and say ‘What am I missing, is there something else maybe that could be causing this? And that’s often when we’ll see a diagnosis of multiple myeloma.”

 

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