When looking out for lung cancer symptoms, it’s natural for people to consider the symptoms that impact the lungs directly, such as trouble breathing or frequent coughing.
While it is important to keep these issues in mind and pay attention to them, it’s also important to remember that some symptoms show up elsewhere in the body. These may include things such as:
- Weight loss that you cannot explain.
- Never feeling hungry.
- Feeling constantly fatigued.
- The wasting and deterioration of muscles.
- Consistent headaches.
- Pain in your joints.
- Other instances of bone pain and even bone fractures.
- Issues with memory and memory loss.
- Feeling unsteady on your feet.
- Additional neurological symptoms, which can have a variety of impacts on brain function.
- Swelling in your face or your neck.
- Excessive bleeding.
- A general feeling of persistent weakness.
- Blood clots, which can be dangerous and sometimes fatal in their own right.
As is common with medical conditions, this vast array of symptoms could point to other issues, as well. Headaches can come from sleep disorders such as grinding your teeth at night; excessive bleeding could be due to a disorder in which your blood does not clot properly.
However, it is important to remember that these symptoms may also relate to lung cancer, especially if you are at a high risk — if you’ve been exposed to harmful materials at work, for instance — and if you also see some of the more traditional symptoms at the same time.
Those who do develop cancer, especially in the course of their occupation, must know all of the legal options they have when facing high medical bills, extensive treatments and a potentially fatal outcome.
Source: LungCancer.org, “Symptoms of Lung Cancer,” accessed March 23, 2018