It’s difficult to imagine a worse feeling than receiving a cancer diagnosis. It’s even harder to imagine the terror that comes with being cancer misdiagnosed as rheumatoid arthritis as having a different disease altogether. In fact, one study found that 20 percent of patients who are misdiagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis actually have cancer—a figure that is shocking and eye-opening but not surprising when considering how much information doctors receive about diseases every day. So if you’ve been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis but are worried about something more serious, don’t be afraid to get a second opinion from another doctor who specializes in diagnosing diseases like cancer.
What is cancer?
Cancer is a disease in which cells grow abnormally. It can start in different parts of the body, such as skin or the brain. Cancer can also spread to other parts of the body, like lymph nodes and lungs.
Cancers affect any organ in your body–even your bones! Some types of cancer are more common than others: breast cancer affects 1 out of 8 women; prostate cancer affects 1 out of 6 men; lung cancer affects 1 out of 3 smokers (and many non-smokers).
How common is cancer misdiagnosis?
Cancer misdiagnosis is more common than you might think. In fact, it’s estimated that up to 3% of all cancer diagnoses are wrong. This means that every year around 30,000 people in the UK are misdiagnosed with arthritis when they actually have cancer.*
- Source: NHS Choices
How can you tell if cancer has been misdiagnosed as rheumatoid arthritis?
You can ask your doctor for a second opinion, or you can find another doctor to evaluate your symptoms. You may also want to ask about tests that can be done to check for cancer. This might include blood tests and imaging scans such as x-rays, CT scans and MRI’s.
How to move forward from a cancer misdiagnosis.
- Get a second opinion.
- Ask for a CT scan, PET scan and MRI if you haven’t already had one. These tests can give your doctor a better idea of what’s going on inside your body and help them determine whether or not the diagnosis is accurate.
- Ask for a biopsy (and make sure it’s done in the right place). A biopsy is when doctors take samples from different parts of your body so they can look at them under a microscope to see if there’s anything abnormal happening there that could explain why you’re feeling sick or having symptoms like pain or fatigue–or even if there are cancer cells present!
- Consider getting an additional blood test called LDH which stands for lactate dehydrogenase; this test measures enzymes produced by cancer cells as part of their metabolism process so it could be helpful in determining whether or not someone has cancerous cells within their body even though they might not show up on x-rays yet!
If your doctor has diagnosed you with rheumatoid arthritis, but you may have cancer, check these symptoms and get a second opinion.
If you have been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, but you think it may be cancer, check these symptoms and get a second opinion.
- Pain in the joints that comes and goes. If your doctor has told you that you have rheumatoid arthritis and prescribed medication for pain relief, but this doesn’t seem to work as well as it should, contact them again. The pain could be coming from something else besides arthritis–like cancer!
- Fatigue or exhaustion for no apparent reason (especially after exercising). Again: if your doctor has told you that the fatigue is due to overuse of muscles caused by exercise or sports activities (or even just daily chores around the house), get another opinion right away! It could actually be due to cancer instead…
Conclusion
We hope that this article has helped you to understand the symptoms of a cancer misdiagnosis and how to move forward from it. If you think that your doctor negligence may have misdiagnosed your condition as rheumatoid arthritis, check these symptoms before going back for another opinion. You can also take our free online test which will provide answers from over 200 medical experts within 24 hours!
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