The top three questions to our Ask the Nurse service
Monday 25 April 2022
Charlotte Dawson is one of the nurses on our Ask the Nurse service. She's been involved in caring for patients with bowel cancer for most of her career, working as a stoma care nurse, colorectal nurse specialist and nurse endoscopist.
Our nurses are here to help and can provide you with information, and signpost you to further support. Find out more about Ask the Nurse. In this blog Charlotte talks about the most frequently asked questions she receives.
Having worked on Ask the Nurse for several years, the enquiries we receive are wide ranging and cover different issues faced by people affected by bowel cancer. These include diagnosis to treatment, diet, work, travel, living with advanced bowel cancer, talking to family and friends, helping others, promoting awareness and understanding research to list just a few.
The three most common questions we receive fall broadly under these topics:
Symptoms
Many people who contact us are concerned they may have symptoms of bowel cancer. The symptoms of bowel cancer can include:
- bleeding from your bottom and/or blood in your poo
- a persistent and unexplained change in bowel habit
- unexplained weight loss
- extreme tiredness for no obvious reason
- a pain or lump in your tummy
Our advice is to always contact your GP so they can make a clinical assessment and decide whether further investigations are needed. Most people with these symptoms don't have bowel cancer. Other health problems can cause similar symptoms. But if you have one or more of these, or if things just don't feel right, contact your GP.
Bowel cancer is very treatable but the earlier it's diagnosed, the easier it is to treat. People whose cancer is diagnosed at an early stage have a much higher chance of successful treatment than those whose cancer has become more widespread.
Family history and screening
Another common question is about family history of bowel cancer or inherited conditions. Many people contact us wanting to know what their own risk might be (or that of other family members) and what screening is available. Whilst family history and inherited conditions are complex areas, we can provide information on how people can access such services as family cancer clinics. These services are available on the NHS to people who have either a strong family history or possibly an inherited condition. Specialists in genetics will take a detailed family history and, if indicated, will advise on what tests might need to be done to determine an individual's risk. If you have a strong family history of bowel or any other types of cancer speak to your GP about a referral to a family cancer clinic.
Treatment for advanced bowel cancer
We also get contacted about treatment options for advanced bowel cancer. Advanced, secondary or metastatic disease is when the cancer spreads from the bowel to other parts of the body, most commonly the liver or lungs.
We get asked questions about different chemotherapy regimens and the use of targeted therapy drugs. People also seek information about other treatments for secondary disease such as ablation therapy and HIPEC (Hyperthermic Intraperitoneal Chemotherapy).
Whilst we can't advise people about their specific treatment, we can provide information about current treatments which might be available and signpost people to the information and support that we provide as a charity for people living with advanced bowel cancer. For example we have a dedicated advanced bowel cancer section of our website.
