Bladder cancer – what are the signs and symptoms of bladder cancer

Bladder cancer

Bladder cancer

Symptoms of bladder cancer

Blood in your urine is the most common symptom of bladder cancer.

The medical name for this is haematuria and it’s usually painless. You may notice streaks of blood in your urine or the blood may turn your urine brown. The blood isn’t always noticeable and it may come and go.

Less common symptoms of bladder cancer include:

a need to urinate on a more frequent basis

sudden urges to urinate

a burning sensation when passing urine

If bladder cancer reaches an advanced stage and begins to spread, symptoms can include:

pelvic pain

bone pain

unintentional weight loss

swelling of the legs

When to seek medical advice

If you ever have blood in your urine – even if it comes and goes – you should visit your GP, so the cause can be investigated.

Having blood in your urine doesn’t mean you definitely have bladder cancer. There are other, more common, causes including:

urinary tract infection, such as cystitis

a kidney infection

kidney stones

urethritis

an enlarged prostate gland, in men

World Cancer Day #WorldCancerDay #WeCanICan – get informed about the new global statistics and how how to take part in the WCD social media Thunderclap

World Cancer Day 2017 - Global Statistics

World Cancer Day 2017 – Global Statistics

Saturday 4th Feb 2017 is World Cancer Day 2017.

This year it is of particular importance to me as one of my friends was diagnosed with aggressive bladder cancer just over one month ago. Last week he was given a 50-50 chance of surviving 2017.

So it would be great if you would take part in tomorrow’s social media thunderclap. Find out a bit more about it here.

But better information is important as is regular screening for cancer.

So get the facts with this new infographic, highlighting global cancer statistics, trends with an action list of what you can do to prevent cancer.

Service Dogs and Screening for Breast Cancer. This is amazing.


Metastatic Breast Cancer Awareness Day

Metastatic Breast Cancer Awareness Day

As many of you know today is Metastatic Breast Cancer Awareness Day. You can read our most here about ten things you need to know about Metastatic Breast Cancer.

And as many of you may also know we have been covering the whole issue of service dogs as part of therapy during the process of deciding to get a dog for our autistic son.

So you can imagine my fascination and delight when I read a blog post yesterday in the UK’s Daily Telegraph by Judith Potts called “Medical detection dogs have the go-ahead for the first European Breast Cancer Detection Trial”.

Ms Potts shares “One small charity has just received the go-ahead from the Ethics Committee of the Bucks NHS Trust to conduct the first European “Breast Cancer Detection Trial, using the olfactory powers of dogs.” The Medical Detection Dogs charity was founded in 2007 and, since then, has been training dogs in the UK – and advising clinics in other parts of Europe, Australia and the USA – to detect prostate, renal and bladder cancer, using urine samples. The success rate is staggering – with prostate cancer, the results achieved show a “93 per cent reliability, compared to the 75 per cent of false positives found by the traditional PSA tests”.”

This method of diagnosis may provide significant benefits of such techniques as the mammogram for Metastatic Breast Cancer.

So we strongly recommend Ms Potts’ blog post for more information.

We will certainly following the story closely her at PatientTalk.Org.


Urology Awareness Week – please help us raise awareness of urological cancers: kidney, prostate and bladder cancers!


Urology Week is an initiative of the European Association of Urology, which brings together national urological societies, urology practitioners, urology nurses and patient groups to create awareness of urological conditions among the general public.

The efforts of the 2014 campaign focus on creating awareness on the three most common urological cancers: kidneyprostate and bladder cancer. A cancer diagnosis has profound effects on patients’ lives and the lives of their loved ones. Work and social life are disrupted, and work, financial and even legal issues become pressing. It is important to create awareness about the different possibilities for treatment and the support available for patients.

You can find more details of events near you here.

The European Association of Urology have produce a poster which would be great if you could like and share.

Urology Week 2014

Urology Week 2014