Long considered a disease that mainly affects people over the age of 50, colorectal cancer is now progressing in younger patients. In remission, a British mother decided to share the four signs she would have liked to have identified earlier, convinced that they could have speeded up her diagnosis.
Recognize the signs before it’s too late
For several decades, colorectal cancer has been increasing at a worrying rate among adults under 50, with nearly 45,000 new cases and 18,000 deaths each year in France. In a video posted on TikTok, a British mother now in remission, Ellie Wilcock, talks about her journey and the symptoms she wishes she had identified earlier to trigger an earlier diagnosis.
She explains that this type of cancer can progress silently for years. According to her, “if they had been identified earlier, they would have allowed earlier treatment“, emphasizing how listening to the body’s signals is essential.
4 symptoms this patient wanted to share
Persistent pain resembling another pathology
The first warning for Ellie was discomfort which she initially attributed to a urinary infection. She confides: “I had persistent pain on the left side of my stomach, near my pubis… I thought for a long time that it was a urinary infection, because it radiated into my back. But urine tests came back negative“.
Unusual fatigue
Even more insidious than the pain, she describes a fatigue that transformed her daily life. In his words: “Before I got sick… I was exhausted all the time. When I got home I fell asleep almost immediately“.
Blood in the stool
This sign, often ignored out of modesty or habit, is crucial. Ellie insists: “Look at your stools. This is really important… When the cancer first came to me, I started having blood in my stools. That should have worried me immediately.“.
A marked loss of appetite
Contrary to the common belief that cancer causes immediate weight loss, she explains: “Cancer didn’t really make me lose weight… On the other hand, my appetite has practically disappeared…“.
Other warning signs and consult without delay
Beyond these four symptoms, other manifestations can also alert:
- Pain like intermittent intestinal colic with bloating that can last 1 to 2 days and followed by a fetid diarrheal outbreak (Koenig syndrome);
- Feelings of flatulence, heaviness, abdominal bloating;
- Alternating diarrhea and constipation;
- A change in general condition (fatigue, lack of appetite, particularly for meat, weight loss, low-grade fever);
- Hypochromic anemia (reflecting occult bleeding);
- Traces of black blood in the stools (melaena);
- Passage of red blood or mucus during or after bowel movements.
If you recognize one or more of these signs, even if you are young and far from the usual screening age, it is essential to talk to your doctor. A colonoscopy may then be prescribed to establish a diagnosis and remove any polyps before they develop.