If you care about your health, it’s important to anticipate potential diseases and conditions, so you can adequately guard against them and seek treatment as early as possible. For example, if you know you have a family history of heart disease, you can employ countermeasures like improving your diet and getting more exercise so you can delay, or even fully avoid acquiring this disease.
Unfortunately, not all diseases are easy to identify or possible to avoid. Among these diseases is pleural mesothelioma, a cancer of the lungs.
What are the earliest signs of pleural mesothelioma? And what should you do if you notice them?
An Intro to Pleural Mesothelioma
Pleural mesothelioma is a type of mesothelioma, which itself is a specific kind of cancer. Like most cancers, it begins with a simple cell mutation and can eventually spiral out of control, causing tumorous growths throughout the body and eventually leading to death. Unlike most cancers, mesothelioma is both rare and aggressive, making it difficult if not impossible to treat.
Mesothelioma is so named because it affects a particular area of the body – the mesothelial lining that surrounds certain organs. The primary cause of mesothelioma is exposure to asbestos, a material that releases jagged fibers into the air whenever it’s disturbed. These fibers can lodge themselves into the mesothelial lining of your organs, causing inflammation and eventually cancerous developments.
Pleural mesothelioma is the most common type of mesothelioma because it affects the lining of the lungs, which you’ll use to breathe in these fibers. While there are some treatment methods that can keep pleural mesothelioma at bay, this disease is almost always fatal.
The Trouble With Detecting Pleural Mesothelioma
Like with most types of cancers, the earlier you detect it, the more options you have. But there’s a problem with this: pleural mesothelioma is very difficult to detect early. There are a few reasons for this.
Mesothelioma typically develops over the course of 20 to 60 years. After being exposed to asbestos, it might be 20 years or longer before you even notice your first symptoms. At that point, you may have completely forgotten about your asbestos exposure, if you even knew you were exposed to asbestos in the first place.
On top of that, the earliest and most common symptoms of mesothelioma are relatively mild and innocuous, so much so that they could easily be mistaken as symptoms for a cold or flu.
Why Early Detection Is So Important
Despite this, early detection is critically important for people with pleural mesothelioma. That’s partially because mesothelioma spreads so fast and aggressively; if you catch it early, you might be able to halt its growth and buy yourself many more years of fulfilling life. Also, if you catch the cancer before it spreads, you can increase your number of possible treatment options, giving you more opportunities to keep this disease under control.
The Earliest Signs of Pleural Mesothelioma
So what are the earliest signs of mesothelioma of the lungs?
- Common respiratory symptoms. Initial symptoms of this type of mesothelioma affect the lungs and respiratory system, but in ways that may seem innocuous at first. For example, you might develop a persistent cough or have extra trouble breathing. On the surface, these symptoms may be indistinguishable from those of a common cold – but they don’t go away with time.
- Hoarse voice and trouble swallowing. In line with this, you may develop a hoarse voice or trouble swallowing.
- Lower back pain. Surprisingly, mesothelioma of the lungs can cause lower back pain. It may start as mild at first, but it often grows worse over time.
- Unusual, unexplained weight loss. Mesothelioma, like many cancers, is associated with unusual, unexplained weight loss. Keep a close eye on your weight to keep track of this.
- Fatigue and exhaustion. Physical fatigue has many potential root causes, but it can be a result of pleural mesothelioma.
- Night sweats. Similarly, people with pleural mesothelioma may experience excess sweating at night – and difficulty sleeping overall.
- Swelling in the face or arms. You may also notice swelling in your face or arms.
- Fluid buildup in the lungs. People with pleural mesothelioma eventually experience fluid buildup in the lungs. Unfortunately, fluid buildup can be associated with a number of other diseases and conditions as well.
Have You Been Exposed to Asbestos?
If you know you’ve been exposed to asbestos, or if you suspect that it might be a possibility, it’s important to remain critically vigilant of your respiratory health as you get older. Tell your medical providers about your suspected asbestos exposure, pay careful attention to the development of symptoms, and follow the advice of your doctors. It’s also a good idea to get legal support, as you might be entitled to compensation for your exposure.