Woman who was diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer reveals the 5 signs she ignored

There are five signs that could indicate you could have colon cancer according to a woman who was diagnosed with it.

At the age of 44, TikToker Cherl was diagnosed with stage three colon cancer in 2012, but following a lengthy fight, she was given the all clear and has been raising awareness of the deadly disease ever since.

Cherl has shared the five signs she had cancer that she ignored.

Drastic bowel movements

“I would go three to four days without having a bowel movement and then diarrhea. This was in the early stages when if I had gone to the doctor and they did a colonoscopy, they might have seen the pre-cancerous polyps,” she explained.

While being constipated shouldn't worry you, if it becomes more frequent then it could be a sign of cancer.

But for Cherl, she was experiencing these problems for a number of years before her diagnosis completely unaware she had cancer.

Feeling faint from chest pain

"All of my blood was going to my tumors," she told her viewers, as she described suffering from chest pain and becoming dizzy.

But when she was taking part in exercise that would raise her heart rate, she'd feel it on her chest once again. Adding: “It felt like my heart was going to beat out of my chest. And anytime I would stand up, I would feel faint."

Stomach aches

If you're thinking of what would be a sign of colon cancer then stomach aches would top the list, although they're so common it's rare that the cause is cancer.

“Every time I ate something, I would get sick. My stomach would just hurt. It came to the point that I became an introvert because I couldn’t go out,” Cherl explained.

“I couldn’t do that because who knows when I would have to excuse myself and go to the bathroom. If you have a stomachache after two out of three meals, there’s something wrong.”

Iron levels were low

Two decades before she discovered she had cancer, she tried to donate blood with Red Cross but they turned her away because her iron levels were too low.

"Iron deficiency anemia is the most common extraintestinal symptom in patients with colorectal cancer (CRC)," writes Leonidas Chardalias, Ioannis Papaconstantinou, Antonios Gklavas, Marianna Politou and Theodosios Theodosopoulos - authors of a 2023 study into iron deficiency anemia in colorectal cancer patients.

"Inflammation associated with malignancy leads to functional iron deficiency via the hepcidin pathway, whereas chronic blood loss causes absolute iron deficiency and depletion of iron stores."

Blood in your poo

“I just thought it was normal, and then later on, when the cancer progressed, the blood was really dark, almost black. I was thinking the whole time that I had an ulcer,” Cherl said after sharing that she suffered from hemorrhoids earlier in life.

If you’ve been affected by any of these issues and want to speak to someone in confidence, contact the American Cancer Society on 1-800-227-2345 or via their live chat feature, available 24/7 every day of the year.