Healthwatch Bury Facebook Live for Bowel Cancer Awareness Month
April is Bowel Cancer Awareness Month, a fantastic annual opportunity to raise awareness of the fourth most common cancer in the UK. Every 15 minutes someone is diagnosed with the disease, that’s nearly 43,000 people each year.
Bowel cancer is also the UK’s second biggest cancer killer, however it shouldn’t be because it’s treatable and curable especially if diagnosed early. Nearly everyone survives bowel cancer if diagnosed at the earliest stage but this drops significantly as the disease develops. Early diagnosis really does save lives.
What is Bowel Cancer?
Bowel cancer is also called colorectal cancer. It affects the large bowel, which is made up of the colon and rectum.
The cells in your body normally divide and grow in a controlled way. When cancer develops, the cells change and can grow in an uncontrolled way.
Most bowel cancers develop from pre-cancerous growths, called polyps. But not all polyps develop into cancer. If your doctor finds any polyps, he or she can remove them to prevent them becoming cancerous.
Cancer cells may stay in the bowel or they might spread to other parts of the body, like the liver or lungs.
To learn more about the risk, and symptoms visit:
Main symptoms of bowel cancer
Symptoms of bowel cancer may include:
- changes in your poo, such as having softer poo, diarrhoea or constipation that is not usual for you
- needing to poo more or less often than usual for you
- blood in your poo, which may look red or black
- bleeding from your bottom
- often feeling like you need to poo, even if you've just been to the toilet
- tummy pain
- bloating
- losing weight without trying
- feeling very tired for no reason
It's important to know that most people with these symptoms don't have bowel cancer. Other health problems can cause similar symptoms. But if you have any of these, or if things just don't feel right, go to see your GP.
Complete your NHS bowel cancer screening kit
If you're aged 60 to 74 (lowering to 50 by 2025), live in England and registered with a GP practice, you’ll be sent a kit in the post automatically, every two years.
The kit is quick to complete and can be done in the privacy of your own bathroom using the step-by-step instructions on the box. You only need to collect one tiny sample of poo using the plastic stick provided, pop it in the sample bottle and post it for free, to be tested.
If something is found, you will be invited to have further tests, usually at a hospital.
The test works by checking for tiny traces of blood, which may not be visible to the naked eye. Blood in your poo is one of the signs of bowel cancer, but does not always mean cancer. Instead, it could be a sign of piles or polyps (growths in the bowel). Polyps are not cancer but could develop into cancer over time. So if you’re sent the kit, help yourself by remembering to complete it.
More Information:
www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/bowel-cancer
www.macmillan.org.uk/cancer-information-and-support/bowel-cancer
Support for patients with Cancer
www.burycancersupportcentre.com
www.maggies.org (not based in Bury but are a great source of support)
