Hi everyone, I found GRACE while googling some symptoms i’ve had (I know, bad idea) but thankfully this site seems to have helped ease my worries a little bit. However, I’d still like to maybe get some feedback from anyone willing.
I am 21 years old and started experiencing pain in my right shoulder 2 weeks ago. A few days later the pain worsened and began radiating down my right arm and into my hand as well as my right breast. I now have pain in the right side of my jaw which I can only assume is related. I had an x ray recently for other reasons but I know sometimes a pancoast tumor can “hide” on a x ray.
I have an appointment with my GP for a physical on Wednesday and am going to bring these symptoms up to her but in the mean time I can’t help myself from expecting the worst. I do smoke marijuana ocassionally mixed with tobacco but all of my friends are heavy smokers so I have been around it pretty often for the last few years. Wondering if anyone here has experienced the same symptoms and if they were given a diagnosis what was it? I can’t remember any injury that could have caused this pain and it feels like it is getting worse and worse each day, yesterday and today are the worst it has been so far. Any and all responses are welcomed!
Thank you for reading and I hope to hear from some of the wonderful people on this site soon.
Reply # - March 11, 2018, 01:33 PM
Hi hlo96,
Hi hlo96,
Welcome to GRACE. As you say, Googling a set of symptoms often leads to misdiagnosing a problem much more serious than that which is actually causing those symptoms. In your case, as you may have read here already, your age and the length of your smoking history make it very unlikely that you have a pancoast tumor. Smoking can cause cancer but the process tends to take many years, often at least as many years as you've walked this Earth. In addition, by the time lung cancer causes symptoms as significant as those you describe, the disease has been around quite a while.
I've been active on this site for nearly ten years, and I have yet to see a member with circumstances even remotely similar to yours (usually somewhat older and with a longer smoking history) come back to tell us that they were eventually diagnosed with a pancoast tumor.
I certainly hope that your doctors can find the cause of your pain, and that an intervention will be found so that you may once again be comfortable.
JimC
Forum moderator
Reply # - March 14, 2018, 07:19 AM
It sounds more like a pinched
It sounds more like a pinched nerve in the neck. I've had two at once and they cause the symptoms you spoke of. I remember when I had mine, I Googled and never saw anything about a pancoast tumor or lung cancer at all. I was young also, not as young as you but still young.