Early Symptoms and Signs of Pancreatic Cancer

Could Surgery for Pancreatic Cancer Saved Steve Jobs - Why Did Alternative Medicine Fail Him

Cancer Cells Seen by Electron Microscope

The story of Steve Jobs unfortunate death becomes a little clearer with the release of his biography. It appears Steve sealed his fate log ago by thinking he could cure his pancreatic cancer with positive wishful thinking and alternative medicine for cancer.

While many of us have heard of miracle remissions and recoveries from cancer, pancreatic cancer is one of the most difficult to survive. It's true the cancer was determined not to be the most serious type of pancreatic cancer, but it still was not something one would normally try to cure only mostly with alternative medicines.

While I am no expert on this subject, a number of my friends have contracted pancreatic cancer, both in the United States and in Asia. I was thinking deeply about this last week and realized something quite interesting.

Why Not Combine Surgery & Approved Alternative Treatments

While this is not any scientific study in any manner I can report that of six friends that contracted pancreatic cancer none of them that tried to cure themselves with alternative medicine for cancer survived. It is also correct to report that unfortunately none of those who avoided alternative cancer totally in favor of surgery and other types of treatment recommended by their doctors survived either.

Two had tried alternative medicines only, one had undergone surgery and other treatments not of the alternative type. All died. Those using alternative medicine did live a bit longer and did not have to undergo surgery. The other three in the group survived. Two of them had some form of surgery and doctor prescribed treatments, augmented by alternative medicine for cancer reviewed and approved by their doctors. The third had no surgery but did have, in addition to alternative medicine some treatments recommended by the doctor.

What this tells us, I am not sure. It does seem important enough to related in this article, just to inform anyone that may need or be looking for ideas on how to tackle the disease of pancreatic cancer. There was one other common factor in all of those six cancer patients; all were diagnosed very early in the progression of the cancer.

Early Symptoms and Signs of Pancreatic Cancer.

So what are the early symptoms of pancreatic cancer? Anyone can look these things up, and everyone should realize that looking up information about serious diseases on the Internet should never replace advice from ones own medical caregiver.

According to WedMd.com these are the most important early signs of pancreatic cancer.

Pancreatic Cancer Symptoms: Location Matters
Initially, pancreatic cancer tends to be silent and painless as it grows. By the time it's large enough to cause symptoms, pancreatic cancer has generally grown outside the pancreas. At this point, symptoms depend on the cancer's location within the pancreas:

Pancreatic cancer in the head of the pancreas tends to cause symptoms such as weight loss, jaundice (yellow skin), and fat in the stool, with or without abdominal pain.
Pancreatic cancer in the body or tail of the pancreas usually causes belly pain and weight loss.
In general, symptoms appear earlier from pancreatic cancers in the head of the pancreas, compared to those in the body and tail.

Pancreatic Cancer: Gastrointestinal Symptoms
Because pancreatic cancer grows around important areas of the digestive system, gastrointestinal symptoms often predominate:

Abdominal pain
More than 80% of people with pancreatic cancer eventually experience some abdominal pain as the tumor grows. Pancreatic cancer can cause a dull ache in the upper belly and back pain. The pain may come and go.

Bloating
Some people with pancreatic cancer have a sense of early fullness with meals (satiety) or an uncomfortable swelling in the abdomen.

Nausea and/or Diarrhea
Fat in the stool (steatorrhea). As pancreatic cancer reduces the pancreas' ability to secrete fat-digesting enzymes, more fat ends up in the stool. These fatty stools can be strange-smelling, and float more than normal.

Pale-colored stools
If the duct draining bile into the intestine is blocked by pancreatic cancer, the stools may lose their brown color and become pale or clay-colored. Urine may become darker.

If any two of these symptoms occur at the same time, a doctor should be seen immediately. If the symptom of the pale colored stools or fat in the stool occur a doctor should be seen immediately.

It is my hope that this information will have helped some to catch cancer early so that they may join the group of three friends of mine that survived pancreatic cancer. All of those three have lived, so far, over ten years after success fighting the disease.

To your good health.


Tags: alternative medicine cancer, early symptoms, pancreatic cancer, alternative medicine, alternative medicine for cancer

Relevant Links
http://www.tbyil.com/cancer
http://www.webmd.com
http://www.tbyil.com/remedies.htm