Send a birthday reminder to a friend turning fifty — or older — letting them know that colorectal cancer screening can save their life.
Free musical online cards feature Peter and Polly Polyp and are personalized with your name, your friend’s name, and any special message that you want to send.
Friends don’t let friends forget about polyps!
Men and women in Wyoming are encouraged to take the 2009 Pledge to Screen for Colorectal Cancer. People who complete the pledge receive information and a blue “buddy bracelet” to remind them to be screened.
Residents of Wyoming who are uninsured or whose insurance doesn’t cover colonoscopy screening may be eligible for the Wyoming Colorectal Cancer Early Detection Program (WCCEDP). Eligible residents have lived in Wyoming at least one year, have incomes below 250 percent of poverty, and are over 50. People under 50 can also participate if they have special family or personal health histories. Read the rest of this entry »
Colorectal cancer develops with few, if any, symptoms at first.
It depends a little on the location of the colon cancer. If the cancer is closer to the anus (left side), symptoms may include blood in or on the stool, a change in bowel habits, stools that are narrower than usual and general weakness and weight loss. These symptoms are more typical for colon cancer and physicians would easily recommend a colonoscopy for further work up. However if the tumor is on the right side, almost a foot away from the anus, the symptoms may be more general such as unexplained stomach discomfort, frequent gas, pains, or indigestion, unexplained weight loss and chronic fatigue.
People are more likely to get a colorectal cancer screening if it is scheduled during December or around their birthdays. Norwegians who received an invitation from the Norwegian Colorectal Cancer Prevention Trial to come in for a sigmoidoscopy in December kept that appointment more often than in any other month.
Reminders sent the week of a person’s birthday also increased the possibility that they would keep their appointment. Read the rest of this entry »
The percentage of colorectal cancer deaths prevented by colonoscopy may be overestimated.
While still very effective in preventing colorectal cancer and deaths from the disease, limits of the test may be larger than previously thought. Patients need to know that having colonoscopy does not guarantee that they won’t get colorectal cancer.
Experts now say that screening colonoscopy may reduce death from colorectal cancer by 60 to 70 percent and may not keep patients from dying from cancers on the right side of their colons at all.
A new Canadian study found that some people who died of colorectal cancer had a colonoscopy in the years before their cancer diagnosis. A previous completed colonoscopy reduced chances of dying from colorectal cancer by two thirds in patients with cancers on the left side of their colons but did not decrease risk of death among those with right-sided cancers. Read the rest of this entry »
