Doctors in the city of Ashford confused 17-year-old Jake Spencer's cancer with sciatica - a pinched sciatic nerve , which causes severe pain in the lumbar spine and lower limbs. The story of how a man was treated for three years from another disease was published in the Daily Mail, NOVA reported.
When Spencer started experiencing pain in his left hip during a driving course, he assumed it was a muscle strain caused by repeatedly pressing the clutch pedal. Gradually, however, the pain in his leg became so strong that he hardly left the house.
The young man went to a doctor, who diagnosed him with sciatica of the sciatic nerve, prescribed painkillers and physical therapy. When those methods didn't work, Spencer again sought help. Doctors prescribed him a course of shock wave therapy, but this did not alleviate his condition.
Spencer then requested a full examination, and the results of a biopsy revealed synovial sarcoma, a rare and extremely aggressive form of soft tissue cancer. This happened three years after the first symptoms appeared. “If the tumor had not been detected, I might have lost my leg,”, admitted the young man.
Spencer underwent 5 weeks of radiation therapy and then surgery to remove 13 centimeters of soft tissue from his thigh. At the next examination, doctors discovered that the cancer had spread to the lungs. In May 2020, he underwent another surgery and a course of chemotherapy. The young man is now in remission.
Earlier in the UK, 24-year-old Mathilda Croome had her intestines removed after developing symptoms of a rare disease that went undiagnosed for two years. The girl remembers that the first symptoms appeared when she was 14 years old.