Questions about changes before diagnosis

We figure Mark had it about 5+ years before diagnosis. That is going off of the “gallbaldder” symptoms that he had off and on for those 5 years…..Right upper quadrant pain (pretty significant) with burping, bloating and occasional chest pain. He went to the doc 2 1/2 years before diagnosis and had a negative ultrasound and never had the HIDA scan.
Unfortunately there are a lot of things we could blame in on for my husband. He has a family h/o colon cancer and multiple other cancers (prostate, skin, uterine and lung) all in 1 degree relatives. He has a h/o Hodgkin’s lymphoma and the cc was located at the edge of the radiation field for that. He also lived “downstream” from an apple orchard then golf course growing up….think 60’s and 70’s with pesticide and other things. Then he worked for years as a machinist exposed to solvents and metals.
Then he is diabetic (from the previous radiation) and has taken a variety of medications for this including oral meds and insulin. I know that the elevated liver enzymes were ignored for years as they are a side effect of several of the drugs. He was over weight about 50# and started on statins for cholesterol. He also spent several years as a volunteer firefighter which who knows what he was exposed to fighting fires.
The only things he didn’t do was smoke….never never but was exposed to second hand. And he has never traveled outside the US.
I can’t think of any specific stressor that might have happened around the time the cancer would have started growing. We had four kids at home and the time so there was always stress but nothing out of the normal.

Duke, I think it’s great you are trying to gather all the information you can. Someday some one will figure something out.

KrisV

My husband has diabetes, has had a quadruple bypass and a year before his diagnosis, and had a stent put in the “widow maker” vein in his heart a year before his diagnosis. He was on Crestor for many years but discontinued because of side effects (neuropathy). Put back on prior to his cc diagnosis. John had no symptoms other than weight loss, but he was experiencing major stress/depression since he retired two years ago. He was experiencing some forgetfulness/memory issues prior to retiring…thought it was due to the anesthesia from surgery. I know that stress is deadly to your body and often wonder if that compromised his immune system.
He cardiologist told him last month that he has certainly beaten the odds with all the major traumas his body has been through. Praying that his luck holds out and that I am still giving you updates for many years.
Melinda A

Duke,

Two years before diagnosis my mother-in-law developed a heart arrhythmia which she started treatment for. I think that she was also under quite a bit of stress around this time.

1.5 years before diagnosis, she began to act strange, just not herself. Confused in a way-forgetful. Unable to handle any life situation that was slightly out of the norm.
She also began to change her diet, complaining of stomach issues. She thought it was a possible gluten allergy.

3 months prior to diagnosis, she told me that she thought she had stomach cancer, and that she had been losing weight. 2 months, right upper quadrant pain, ascites.

In the late 1970s she was accidentally caught in the spraying field of a bi-plane crop sprayer, and developed fulminant hepatitis sometime after that, which she recovered from. This hepatitis was not related to a virus. It developed for an unknown reason.

Unresectable Intrahepatic CC June 2010.

This is a topic I think about from time to time. We moved cross country, from east coast to west, seven years ago, to a less stressful job environment for my husband. My husband expects a lot from himself though, so I’m not sure his stress level was actually any lower The doctors believe his CC started about two years prior to diagnosis in May 2014. My husband has inherited high cholesterol, and has been on statins for more than 30 years. We followed a heart healthy diet (limited red meat, no cheese or dairy, lots of cold water fish and leafy greens). My husband was about 15 pounds overweight though. I have read that certain conditions, such as diabetes, being overweight, a high sugar diet, etc., can cause a chronic state of inflammation in the body and, with the body trying to fight the inflammation, it may compromise it’s ability to repair cell damage or overcome cell mutations that could lead to cancer. So in our case, I have thought my husband’s HCC may have been due to chronic inflammation or maybe tied to his high cholesterol levels. Or perhaps something in his diet. He also spent two weeks in South Korea 12 years ago, so could have contracted liver flukes – I think pretty unlikely though as it was such a long time ago. The idea mentioned in this thread about statins impacting liver function is interesting. I had not thought of that. However, my husband’s liver function tests were always normal until just before diagnosis. I do think that, because the cc is originating in the bile ducts, it is highly likely that the culprit(s) has something to do with something ingested or is somehow involved in the digestive process. I can’t wait for this mystery to be solved, as it can potentially allow so many people to make choices that could prevent CC from ever starting.

Darla, I , too, have wondered about the statin drugs. I was taking one from 2002 until 2010, and took myself off of it on suspicion that it was causing some bad side effects for me (they went away or almost went away after I discontinued the drug). Nothing will get me to take one again. I haven’t done any recent research to see if any connections have been found to CC, but it certainly seems to be something that should be researched due to the potential liver damage.

Duke…..one year before diagnosis, I contracted C-Diff, a nasty, bacterial infection of the colon. Despite treatment and confirmed that the infection was gone, I continued to have semi-diarrhea like bowel symptoms. After diagnosis and surgery, I found out about H. Pylori and asked to be tested. Sure enough, I had antibodies that confirmed I had had H. Pylori, but not if it was still in my system. A “poo” test confirmed that it was no longer in my body, Since I had not been treated for H. Pylori, it seems the only way it was removed was by “cutting” it out surgically, which is what I believe happened when they removed the left liver lobe during resection . I haven’t had those symptoms since surgery.