Afraid to tell Doctor

Anyone else have this problem? I'm finding myself afraid to tell my oncologist about pain I'm having, afraid It'll be signs of more spreading and they won't want to treat me as aggresively as I want. My biggest fear is the word 'inoperable'. So now I've got sharp abdominal pain and really bad joint pains, as well as cramping. Anyone know about these symptons with metastatic BC?

Hi Linda,

My mum also has pain in her left arm ever since (if I could recall correctly) completing chemo. I also though of 'spreading ...'. She did bone scans and some other tests and the result didn't show anything serious, according to her doc. But she has to take some medicines to have more calcium. You should tell your doc this kind of things and do scannings and tests if required.

Just some thoughts.

Linda please tell your doctor thee not knowing will drive you nuts. I too don't like telling i get sick of more test but i would rather know then not. I might be saving my own life.

If you don't tell the doctor they won't treat you at all, that's even less aggressive. Any condition is inoperable until the doctors know it's there! So you are choosing the worst of all possible worlds.

If these pains appeared fairly rapidly then its probably chemistry rather than cancer. Bone mets are likely to start in just one place, it takes quite a time to develop to the pain stage, and reaching that stage simultaneously in several places is pretty unlikely. So pains in several places at once is more likely to be some sort of systemic problem than a local one like cancer.

Tim Jackson

Perhaps I wasn't clear, I am due to see a surgeon to remove cancer in my lung. After they do that I figure it's safe to mention the joint pain as well as the unusual bruising (just a little of that... small bruises that turn up in in places that are unlikely to be bumped or otherwise traumatized). It's just the decision to operate or not on lungs seems to depend on whether there is any other spreading and I am not ready to leave that stuff in my lung, just because there might be another problem elsewhere.

Forgot to mention, the pain has been gradual, but it still may be a combination of tendonitis in wrists and arthritis for ankles.

FWIW, my oncologist, upon looking at the part of my bone scan that features quite black wrists and ankles, said, dismissively, 'That's probably arthritis. Mets don't show up in the extremeties. I've never seen anything below the knees or elbows.' The radiologist's report, too, says it's probably degenerative in nature and not malignant.

Anyone else ever hear anything like that?

I have been told that before,