A 36-year-old man whose oral pain and fever were dismissed as “hypochondria” is warning Americans to keep pressing doctors for answers after he was finally diagnosed with deadly oral cancer.
A week before the illness was detected, Mark, who lives in Denver, attended an annual checkup where he was told he was “perfectly healthy.”
Routine tests he had undergone, such as urine and blood tests, had come back normal.
Previous appointments with doctors, in which she had recounted her set of symptoms, had proven futile, and some attributed her symptoms to mental health problems.
It wasn’t until she visited another doctor and demanded more tests that her rare oral cancer was discovered.
“I learned the hard way that the annual visit to the doctor and the standard blood tests they perform are not always a good indicator of your health,” Mark said in a TikTok. video which has obtained almost 900,000 visits
He added: ‘They normally cannot predict or diagnose diseases such as cancer. Know yourself better than anyone else and any doctor, and sometimes even better than the results of a test. That’s why it’s so important to be persistent.”
Mark had been experiencing a mouth ulcer that would not go away, leading him to request a biopsy of the sore.
When tests revealed that Mark had tongue cancer, he underwent a procedure to remove part of his tongue and 41 lymph nodes in his neck.
Mark had been experiencing symptoms primarily related to the gastrointestinal system, combined with lightheadedness, chest tightness and mental confusion for several years, he said.
The problems led him to be ‘in and out’ of doctors’ offices, emergency rooms and numerous specialist clinics, undergoing tests that returned normal results.
He was told he was too young to worry about his health and was referred to a therapist for mental health support.
However, earlier this year, when new symptoms such as fever, night sweats and a mouth ulcer appeared, she decided to contact another doctor and push for a biopsy of the ulcer, which was reserved for the week after her checkup. annual.
The test confirmed that he had tongue cancer, a disease that mainly affects people over 60 with a history of excessive alcohol consumption and smoking, something Mark had never done.
Human papillomavirus, or HPV, a common sexually transmitted virus, is also a major risk factor.
Mark had received a clean bill of health at his annual physical, but a biopsy of his tongue ulcer just a week later revealed he had stage 1 tongue cancer.
After his surgery, he stayed in the hospital for three days and had to receive nutrition through a feeding tube that ran through his nose and into his stomach.
Mark’s diagnosis was stage 1 oral squamous cell carcinoma (SCC). This is the most common form of oral and tongue cancer and affects the cells that line the surface along the side of the tongue.
Symptoms of tongue cancer include weight loss, ear pain, red or white spots in the mouth, persistent sore throat, numbness of the tongue, and swelling of the jaw.
The disease can be treated with chemotherapy, radiation, surgery to remove all or part of the tongue, and surgery to remove lymph nodes in the neck.
Tongue cancer is rare, accounting for about one percent of new cancer cases in the U.S. The National Cancer Institute estimates there will be 19,300 new cases of the disease and 3,300 deaths in 2024, representing the 0.5 percent of all cancer deaths.
Overall, rates and deaths from tongue cancer have increased slightly since 1992, while rates of all early-onset cancers, diagnosed before age 50, have increased.
Some attribute the increase to the rise in HPV cases, which have increased recently, especially among men.
About 70 percent of patients diagnosed with the disease are still alive, on average, five years later.
Mark said: ‘As you can imagine, I’m quite frustrated, both with the healthcare system and with myself. I’m not here to criticize (doctors)… my only interest at the moment is to remind people that no one is perfect, not even the most trained and experienced doctors.’
Mark said he was repeatedly called a hypochondriac and told his symptoms were made up or the result of poor mental health.
There may have been early signs of Mark’s cancer as early as 2020.
He developed an ulcer on his tongue in the same place where a non-healing cancerous ulcer eventually developed. However, when doctors removed and examined the lesion, she showed no signs of cancer.
But persistent pain in the months after the procedure prompted him to visit the doctor twice. On both occasions, doctors assured him there was no cause for concern.
And then, in February of this year, the ulcer returned, which is now known to be cancer.
While the tumor was still in its early stages, it had severely invaded his tongue, leading surgeons to recommend a procedure to remove part of the tongue.
In February, Mark underwent surgery to have about a quarter of his tongue removed.
Doctors also performed a partial neck dissection, which involved removing 41 lymph nodes from his neck to ensure that all of the cancer was removed from his body.
After surgery, he stayed in the hospital for three days, where he was hooked up to a feeding tube.
After the procedure, he suffered difficulties speaking and swallowing, but began working with a speech-language pathologist. After a few weeks, he was almost fully recovered.
More complete tests after his surgery showed that there was no cancer in his lymph nodes and clear margins were taken on his tongue to remove all the cancer in the area.
Doctors then decided he would not need any more treatments like chemotherapy or radiation. However, Mark had his doubts.
He said, “I feel incredibly lucky and grateful,” but because of the story of being laid off for so long and being told the symptoms were mental, “I think I have a little bit of trauma and distrust from all of that.”
Mark then contacted other doctors to get another opinion, but did not post any updates.
His overall message to patients around the world: “Please make sure that if you ever have symptoms (like mine)… listen to your body.”