Early Warning Signs of Ovarian Cancer

Ovarian cancer is termed a silent disease because it typically isn’t found until it is in the advanced stages. In most of these cases by the time the cancer is detected it has already spread to other parts of the abdomen. However, there are some early warning signs that can help you to detect ovarian cancer before it is too late.

Doctor do not know what percentage of ovarian cancer cases have early warning signs. The majority of women who are diagnosed with the disease often experienced symptoms. However, since most women who were diagnosed were in the advanced stages it is impossible to determine how many of these had symptoms before the cancer started to spread.

Another fact is that many cases of ovarian cancer often take months to diagnose. Almost half of the ovarian cancer cases take more than three months and a handful take longer than a year to diagnose. Therefore, it is possible that a number of women have early warning signs.

The most common early symptom is abdominal swelling and bloating. Although this is often ignored as being just a little extra weight. However, not all women will have the same symptoms. Therefore, it is important to learn about all the possible warning signs so you can recognize them and get to the doctor before it is too late. Other early warning signs include: abdominal or pelvic pain, gastrointestinal symptoms such as gas, vaginal bleeding or discharge, urinary problems, fatigue, fever, back pain and difficulty breathing.

While a majority of the time these signs will not be a result of ovarian cancer it is important to have them checked out. This way if you do have ovarian cancer you can catch it early and have a better chance of treating it.

Jeanette Pollock is a freelance author and website owner of ovariancancerdomain.com. Visit Jeanette's site to learn more about warning signs of ovarian cancer.