Living with pancreatic cancer

Treatment for some patients with pancreatic cancer can eradicate the disease. Treatment completion may be both thrilling and worrisome. Despite your relief upon finishing treatment, it might be difficult to stop worrying about cancer returning. If you’ve had cancer, this happens frequently.

Many pancreatic cancer patients may never fully recover from the disease, or cancer may return to another area of the body. To help keep cancer under control for as long as possible, these patients could have frequent treatments with chemotherapy, radiation therapy, or other therapies. It can be challenging and extremely frustrating to learn to live with cancer that does not get better.

Following-up care

Even if you have finished your treatment, your physicians will want to watch you carefully. It’s important to keep all of your follow-up visits. Your doctors will inquire about any issues you may be experiencing and may order physical examinations, blood tests, or imaging scans to check for cancer or medication side effects.

All pancreatic cancer survivors should inform their medical staff immediately if they experience any new symptoms or issues since these might be signs of a disease recurrence, a new illness, or a second malignancy.

Medical tests and visits

Depending on the initial severity of your cancer, the course of treatment, and other circumstances, your schedule of doctor appointments, examinations, and tests may change. Most frequently, doctors advise follow-up visits (which may include CT scans and blood tests) every three months for the first two years following treatment and then every six months for the next several years for patients with no cancer symptoms. Make careful to heed your doctor’s recommendations for additional tests.

Keeping copies of your medical records and your health insurance

It’s crucial to maintain health insurance even after your treatment is over. Even though nobody wants to consider their cancer returning, tests and medical appointments are expensive.

You could find yourself visiting a new doctor at some time following your cancer treatment who is unaware of your medical history. To provide your new doctor with the specifics of your diagnosis and treatment, preserving copies of your medical records is crucial.

Assistance with pain and nutrition

Due to insufficient nutrition, pancreatic cancer frequently results in weight loss and weakness. These signs and symptoms might result from the disease itself or its therapy. You can work with a group of physicians and nutritionists who can provide information about your specific dietary requirements and nutritional supplements. This might assist you in maintaining your weight and dietary consumption. Many people use oral pancreatic enzymes to aid in meal digestion and absorption.

A feeding tube may need to be inserted into the stomach in cases of severe nutrition issues to increase nutrition and energy levels. Usually, this is just temporary.

Terminal illness as a turning point

A terminal illness is a disease or condition that is incurable and almost always results in death.

Examples of conditions that can be terminal include:

How much longer can someone with terminal illness expect to live?

A person with a terminal disease may live for a few hours, days, weeks, months, or even years. It frequently relies on their diagnosis and any current treatments. When a patient has a terminal condition, it can be challenging for medical personnel to estimate how long they will survive (their prognosis).

Receiving a terminal diagnosis might be startling or unpleasant since some individuals assume that the word “terminal” denotes impending death. You could be concerned about this as well. It could be beneficial to remember that each person’s experience with a terminal disease is unique. As the illness advances, a person’s condition may occasionally gradually deteriorate. It is not usually a straight route; some people may discover that they feel better or worse at certain stages of their sickness.

Dealing with Pancreatic Cancer, Expert Opinion It’s complicated and symptoms are hard to detect

The incidence of pancreatic cancer may be rare, but it doesn’t mean the number of people seeking treatment for pancreatic cancer in Delhi will not rise.

What is pancreatic cancer?

Pancreatic cancer develops within the tissues of the pancreas, which is an absolutely vital organ located behind our stomach. The pancreas plays a critical role in the digestion process by producing enzymes that help the body digest fats, carbohydrates, and proteins.

The pancreas also produces two very important hormones: glucagon and insulin which are responsible for keeping glucose under control and metabolism. Insulin assists the cells in metabolize glucose to produce energy and glucagon helps raise glucose levels when they are too low.

Due to the location of the pancreas, pancreatic cancer can prove more difficult to detect and is often diagnosed in advanced stages of the disease.

Symptoms of Pancreatic Cancer 

Pancreatic cancer will not show symptoms until it has reached an advanced stage of the disease and because of this reason, there typically aren’t really any early symptoms of pancreatic cancer.

Even once cancer has advanced, the most common symptoms can be subtle. They can be appetite loss, unexpected weight loss, stomach, and lower backaches, blood clotting, jaundice, and depression.

Pancreatic cancer that has spread can worsen preexisting symptoms and as cancer will spread, people experience some additional symptoms.

Pancreatic cancer causes

The exact cause of pancreatic cancer is in fact: unknown. This cancer occurs when abnormal cells begin to grow inside the pancreas.

Normally, healthy cells will grow and die in moderate amounts but in cancer, there is an increased amount of abnormal cell production, and these cells will take over the healthy cells in the end.

While doctors and researchers don’t know what exactly causes these mutations/changes in the cells, they do know some common factors that may increase the risk of developing this type of cancer.

The two most significant risk factors include inherited gene mutations and acquired gene mutations. Genes control the way our cells act, so changes to those genes can lead to cell abnormalities which lead to cancer.

Your treatment will depend on the stage where the cancer is, but getting early treatment is essential, as always when it comes to dealing with cancer. Get in touch with our expert oncologists at Delhi’s best hospital for cancer treatment, Oncoplus.

 

The signs you should be wary of 

No more than 29% of people survive pancreatic cancer for more than a year post an interventional procedure that is required in its advanced stage. This clearly makes timely detection and intervention all the more important. It is, therefore, necessary to be aware of this medical condition and the availability of treatment options.

Understanding the Clinical Aspects of the Disease

The pancreas is a delicate organ divided into three main parts and it produces the digestive juices that flow into the digestive tract; these juices help with the digestion of partially digested food by the stomach. The body and the tail of the pancreas produce insulin which plays a major role in controlling blood sugar. The pancreas is clearly quintessential for the digestion and absorption of food in our bodies.

The disease has no known causes, and this is what makes detection even more critical, while scientists try to find the root causes but to date have been unable to pinpoint the same. Some potentially attributable causes like lifestyle choices like smoking, drinking, high BMI among others can potentially trigger as well as increase odds of developing pancreatic cancer. The main reason behind most cases of pancreatic cancer is detected late is because of the location of the organ itself, according to oncologists here at Delhi’s best pancreas cancer hospital. Since it is located located in the posterior part of the body, nascent tumors don’t show up nor do other symptoms. It is only by the time the tumor starts spreading simultaneously affecting other organs that patients begin to realize or exhibit any symptoms. Some of the rather commonly observed signs of pancreatic cancer are the late and unforeseen onset of diabetes around 50years of age, jaundice, sudden weight loss, itching on the skin to name a few.

Beginning with yellowing skin, the tumor at the head of the pancreas affects the exocrine function which causes digestive failure in the process. Some patients may also report a sudden new-onset of diabetes if the tumor starts off toward the tail of the pancreas. About 95% of all cancerous (malignant) tumors in the pancreas, the abnormality formed in the head which (due to its closeness with the intestine) also affects the functioning of the small intestine. Patients may experience itchiness all over their bodies due to the deposit of bile salt crystals under the skin.

As cancer is a silent killer but extremely potent and lethal, it’s time to rely on advanced technological treatment options to better manage the patient outcomes and we offer the best treatment for pancreatic cancer in south Delhi, using the latest technologies available with the best chances of success offered as well.