Woman diagnosed with hard-to-detect cancer shares key symptoms she had as cases soar among young people

A woman diagnosed with a hard-to-detect cancer shared the key symptoms she experienced as cases soar among young people.

Earlier this year, figures found that bowel cancer (often referred to as colon or rectal cancer) was rising in those under 50 years old.

This type of the disease is when it’s found anywhere in the large bowel which includes the colon and rectum.

While it is one of the most common types of cancer in the UK, the symptoms can often be dismissed by patients as something else - but the NHS encourage early bowel cancer screenings as it may mean it’s easier to treat.

And only in her 30s, TikToker Bri Mahon found she had stage 3 colorectal cancer.

She shared a video to the social media platform to share all of her symptoms that led to her ‘getting checked out and getting a colonoscopy’.

Bri says she had ‘just gut issues in general’ for some time like bloating, adding that the signs ‘would point more towards Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)’.

But when she cut out the likes of gluten and dairy and took various allergy and blood tests, 'nothing concerning came up'.

Feeling as though her stomach was ‘irritated and bloated a lot’, she then noticed a ‘change in her anxiety and fatigue’.

Around two years ago, she had to ‘step back’ from the work she was doing and thinks it’s because her body ‘was really, really, really tired’.

Then after giving birth to her twins premature, she noticed blood in her stool shortly after, passing it off as ‘haemorrhoids from pregnancy’.

“My IBS symptoms were flaring up, and I just kind of thought that was it,” Bri added.

With her babies in the NICU, she was stressed out and tired anyway so justified any fatigue and stomach problems as being down to that.

“But it's when I found and started to see more regular blood in my stool. I got pretty concerned as kind of like red blood,” she explained.

“And then I really got concerned when the blood turned a lot darker, and my urgency to go to the bathroom was kind of like out of control, and I would either be insanely constipated or I'd be going to the bathroom and just dark blood would be coming out.”

Bri says this only happened for a few months and it led to her calling her doctor.

At first, they thought it could be an autoimmune disease, but following a colonoscopy and biopsies, they found it was stage three cancer.

To the list of bowel cancer symptoms, the NHS include blood in your poo, bleeding from your bottom and feeling very tired for no reason.

If your poo is black or dark red or you have bloody diarrhoea, you should ask for an urgent GP appointment or get help from NHS 111.

If you’re bleeding non-stop from your bottom or there’s a lot of blood, for example, the toilet water turns red or you see large blood clots, then go to A&E or call 999.