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This is the symptom that you probably worry about the most, even if you don’t have it! Here are some facts that may surprise you. Cancer is not always painful, not even at the end. Cancer pain reacts to painkillers just like any other pain. When people with cancer do get pain, it is always possible to greatly relieve it, and sometimes even to get rid of it completely.
I know why you are anxious and frightened about the possibility of pain. You have read about, heard of, or known people who did have pain with cancer and whose pain was not controlled. You, yourself, may even have pain which is not being controlled right now. It doesn’t have to be that way for you.
We can do something about it. The most common reason for unrelieved cancer pain is simply ignorance— ignorance on the part of many doctors and nurses, as well as on the part of many people with cancer. Many doctors and nurses simply don’t know enough about the individual painkillers and how to use them most effectively. They don’t know how small the risk of addiction is when painkillers are used simply to control pain. Sometimes they don’t even know that it is realistic to aim for good control of cancer pain with painkillers.
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In case you still believe that experts always make better decisions than you could, here are some actual examples of what can and does happen. Some surgeons do pointless extensive and mutilating operations to remove secondary growths. Doctors often recommend intensive chemotherapy to patients with cancers for which it makes no difference to the average length of life. The only ‘benefit’ is that the growths of a minority of patients get smaller for a short time. Thus, chemotherapy is often recommended when it has only, say, a one in twenty chance of temporarily (for a few weeks or months) shrinking cancer growths and no chance at all of curing the cancer. Doctors sometimes continue patients on chemotherapy while their cancer growths are actually getting bigger and more extensive. Practitioners whose patients’ cancers continue to grow while undergoing treatment with cleansing diets usually still exhort them to persevere with their diets and take no medications at all, not even painkillers.
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Cancer is bad cells, pure and simple. Something goes wrong with the DNA, and eventually, a fast-growing collection of toxin-spewing, energy-absorbing, organ-destroying cells have begun to take over some part of your body. It can start just about anywhere, from your brain to your testicles, and end up just about anywhere else. Once cancer starts to migrate from its place of birth (a process known as metastasis), it’s hard to treat.
Your mission is to keep all that stuff from happening. Some of the risk factors, such as heredity and age, are out of your hands. But- and hear this well-most are not. Nearly two-thirds of cancer deaths in the United States are caused by factors entirely within your control. And guess what? Those controllable factors are none other than the usual suspects-smoking, a lousy diet, and a lack of exercise.
Studies have shown fairly clearly that obese men run a higher risk of at least colorectal and prostate cancer. Know that about 31 percent of American men are overweight (that is, 20 or more percent above their ideal weight) and you start to get the picture. What’s more, the extra pounds may affect men more than women, probably because men tend to carry the fat in their abdomen, where it’s more biologically active.
One way you get fat is by eating fat, especially animal fat. Not only does fat intake put you on the fast track to obesity but also there are strong indications that foods high in animal fat, such as dairy foods and red meat, increase your risk for a number of cancers, including prostate, colorectal, and even non-melanoma skin cancer.
Another way you get fat is through inactivity. It’s also another way you get cancer, especially colorectal cancer
Now to smoking. What don’t you already know about smoking’s sinister deeds? How about this: Smoking causes a whopping 30 percent of all cancer mortality, but not only because it’s responsible for more than 90 percent of lung cancer deaths. If you smoke, you also increase your risk for oral, esophagus, pancreas, larynx, bladder, and kidney cancers. And there’s newer evidence linking it to prostate and colon cancer, the latter in a special way. “Smoking seems to be an ‘early’ risk factor for colon cancer,” says Dr. Edward Giovannucci of Harvard Medical School. “If you’re smoking at age 20, that may not show up as a risk factor for colon cancer until age 60 or 70, whether you quit or not.”
So smoking, eating junk food, getting fat, and being lazy aren’t merely abstractions that are “bad for your health,” whatever that means. They can cause cancer. Put another way, not smoking, eating well, staying trim, and exercising are real things you can do to help prevent cancer.
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If you develop breast pain for which there is no obvious cause, and you cannot detect any swelling in the breast, it may first be worth checking that you are wearing a correctly fitting bra. Specialists see many women whose bras are too small or too large and are causing them considerable discomfort or failing to provide support for their breasts. Good lingerie departments in large department stores and specialist shops have trained staff who will measure you for the right size of bra, and many of whom have experience in assisting women to find well-fitting bras following breast surgery. Bras of sizes outside the normal manufactured range which cannot be ordered by shops can be specially made. A breast care nurse, consultant, or someone in the appliance department at your local hospital should be able to give you advice and information about where to obtain these. After gaining or losing weight, you will need a larger or smaller bra, but many women continue to wear the same size for many years, even though their dress size may have altered.
How to measure yourself for a bra
It is quite simple to measure yourself for a bra if you prefer not to be measured by someone else, or if you want to check that the bra you are wearing is right for you.
1 First, with your bra removed, measure around your back and across your ribs, with the tape measure passing under your bust. If the measurement (in inches) is an even number, add 4 to obtain your bra size. If the measurement is uneven, add 5.
For example:
actual measurement = 31 inches
add 5 (as this is an uneven number) = 36. (1)
Therefore, your correct bra size is 36 inches.
2 Next, measure from the centre of your spine, under your arm and across the fullest part of one breast to the bone between your breasts. This gives a more accurate figure than measuring around your back and across both breasts. (You may need to ask someone to do this for you.) Double the number of inches obtained to give the full measurement. Then take away your bra size (measurement (1) above), and use the chart below to find your cup size.
For example:
measurement of half body = 20 inches
double this (20 x 2) = 40 inches
subtract bra size (1) = 40-36 = 4 inches (2).
Measurement (2) above Cup size
1 inch A
2 inches Â
3 inches Ñ
4 inches D
Therefore, in the example given above, the correct bra size is 36D.
This method is useful as a guide when buying a bra. However, sizes vary slightly amongst the different manufacturers, and the only way to be sure you get a well-fitting bra is to try some on.
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