A 25-year-old woman in the United States who couldn’t stop burping has revealed her symptom was caused by undiagnosed, late-stage cancer.
“The first sign something was wrong – although I didn’t know it at the time – was when I began excessively burping,” Ms McBreen told NeedToKnow. “I would burp 5-10 times a day. This was not normal for me,” she added.
Ms McBreen explained that her health started deteriorating and she started dealing with “excruciating” pain, a loss of appetite and an inability to go to the bathroom. As a nurse, she then trusted her instincts that she had some sort of “obstruction” and immediately went to the hospital. Later, a CT scan revealed that she had stage 3 colon cancer and a tumour obstructing her large intestine.
“I never thought it could be linked to such a horrible disease,” she said. “It truly was an out-of-body experience,” the 25-year-old added of her diagnosis. “I remember the first thing I could say was, ‘I am not ready to die.’ Never in a million years did I think that any vague symptom I had was actually stage 3 colon cancer,” she said.
“Excessive burping isn’t your textbook sign of colon cancer – but my oncologist told me that it was likely the start of my symptoms,” she said. “GERD was a symptom in my case because my tumor was slowly causing a complete bowel obstruction,” she added.
Post a commentShe is now encouraging others to listen to their bodies if something feels off. Notably, colon cancer is the third most common cancer in the world, after lung and breast cancers.