The Colon Club

Well, after reading this I feel like less of a freak for having this at age 39.

http://www.webmd.com/colorectal-cancer/ ... RSS_PUBLIC

I thought it was interesting also that one person who posted somewhere--can't seem to find it now--mentioned that most of the young people they knew who got cancer were really into healthy living. That is even more mind boggling.

When I got it at 47 few years back they where saying then they where seeing it younger and younger

32 here...

Nickmark59 wrote:When I got it at 47 few years back they where saying then they where seeing it younger and younger

I was 46 when I was diagnosed, the GI doc who found it said it was only a matter of time before the age was dropped to 40 as they were seeing more and more people under the age of 50 being diagnosed. He said he wasn't going to wait until he was 50 to get his first colonoscopy, I believe he got it done when he was 44-45.

Because of me, my husband was checked at age 47, they found some pre cancer polyps, he fine today. My sister in law, at age 44, they found a few polyps and again at the age of 47. They are now recommending that she get checked every 3-4 years regardless of her age. My younger brother is the only one of us to come out clean. Just a few hemerroids, which they also found in me.

Because of me, other people were also checked, and at least one other person in their 40's was found to have precancer polyps. Guess it was good a few of us DID NOT wait until we were 50 for our first colonoscopy.

Lee

38 at diagnosis.

I had been living a completly gluttoneous indulgent livestyle and was ridiculously overweight and inert. I knew the hammer would come down someday in some form...just wasnt expecting it to come so early and so heavy.

Several doctors are neighbors of my parents and reported that they are seeing more and more colon cancer patients under 40 years of age including 2 in their 30's that week

30 at diagnosis. There is a line in a song by Gary Allan. Everytime I hear it I cry for a moment. It goes like this.."When I hit 30, it started pushing back". I have been mostly healthy but now I eat a vegan diet and I know its helped my liver tumor shrink and keep me feeling decent and good blood work so far in my 8 months of chemo.

Jennifer

Cancerislame wrote:30 at diagnosis. There is a line in a song by Gary Allan. Everytime I hear it I cry for a moment. It goes like this.."When I hit 30, it started pushing back". I have been mostly healthy but now I eat a vegan diet and I know its helped my liver tumor shrink and keep me feeling decent and good blood work so far in my 8 months of chemo.

Jennifer

I like the rest of the song better.

My 2 younger brothers who are now my age when I got it at 47 have still refused to go and get tested.Despite knowing and seeing what i went thru and in there minds i got it from my construction/ industrial work and diet. so it s not going to get them.
wrong there saying mines is genetic.

My wife was diagnosed in January 2011 @ 25, now she is 26. She was lucky to be diagnosed at stage 3 as she had very few symptoms, only a little discomfort in her abdomen. Diagnosed in Colonoscopy, which she insisted 3 times to Doctors!!!!!!! It was sheer luck as she had never been to Doctor in her whole life, and all of a sudden she wanted to know what is going on with the discomfort in her left side of abdomen…… Her friend had serious bowel issues and luckily she told my wife about colonoscopy……. That is how she was diagnosed at 25……..

Hmm. I wonder what's up with this? I was diagnosed at 42, and was one of those people with the "healthy" lifestyles, too. My genetic testing didn't come up with any answers (though I still think that had to be part of the cause - history of GI cancers on my dad's side, even if none were identified as CRC).

The thing that hits me the hardest in that article is the note that most younger patients are diagnosed at later stages because they don't get screened until they become symptomatic

Cancer just sucks.

40 at dx. Not a particularly healthy or unhealthy lifestyle. Docs all say it probably took ten years for the tumor to get from polyp to T3. If I'd paid a little more attention to the one or two incidences of blood in the stool, I could just as easily have been diagnosed at in my mid to late 30s.

I was 31 and have just started with my 2nd recurrrance.....

beth568 wrote:The thing that hits me the hardest in that article is the note that most younger patients are diagnosed at later stages because they don't get screened until they become symptomatic

Tell me about it Beth

If y'all don't recall/know...I was symptomatic. Went from passing my physical to "something is swollen Doc, let's get it figured out" a month later. Dx in a week and another month after that I was utterly unable to sit upright.

at 39


so I do really love that there seems to be impetus to lower the age! I'm just not so clear it would have helped me. It's so hard not to resent that perhaps my "'roids" were really earliest signs. I rasied the concerns, I thought I did the right thing, but didnt' really know enough about why these things were a problem to advocate for myself.

Looking back doesn't really seem to have much point though.

Bill5107 wrote:

beth568 wrote:It's so hard not to resent that perhaps my "'roids" were really earliest signs. I rasied the concerns, I thought I did the right thing, but didnt' really know enough about why these things were a problem to advocate for myself.

I cannot tell you how many times this has bothered me this year. I feel the same way.