A man who was diagnosed with cancer at 21 has warned others about the consequences of ignoring these common symptoms.
Taking to TikTok, Jay Shew, from Sydney, Australia, posted a video explaining some of the symptoms that led him to the doctor's office to undergo tests before eventually being diagnosed with stage four Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
According to the Mayo Clinic, Hodgkin's lymphoma is a type of cancer that affects the lymphatic system.
The lymphatic system is part of the body's germ-fighting and disease-fighting immune system but healthy cells that make the system up can mutate and grow out of control, leading to Hodgkin's lymphoma.
Shew's symptoms began in August 2023 and within a few months he was diagnosed with the most advanced stage of the disease.
He now uses his platform on social media to raise awareness about getting professional intervention when things don't feel right in your body.
In his video, which has now been viewed over 610,000 times, the content creator talks about the symptoms he experienced that he initially brushed off.
"I didn't have any symptoms at the time, I was just living normal everyday... A couple of days later, my results come back," Shew said. "[The doctor] calls me and she says: 'Your calcium is high.'"
At first, he said he didn't think much of it, but he now realized it was because his bones were fighting off a disease.
"I didn't know that," he added.
Soon after, people started noting changes in his appearance, though he could not see it himself.
"I start to drop a lot of weight and I legit like go white. I turned like a ghost, I was so pale. I didn't notice," he continued in the video. "I looked in the mirror and I was like: 'I'm fine? I don't look skinny, I don't look pale.' I couldn't see it."
One person even questioned whether he was a "cancer patient", but obviously Shew did not know he was battling the disease at the time.
The next symptom he discussed was his severe back pains and oftentimes it was so bad that he woke up in the middle of the night.
"I'd wake up in the middle of the night or in the morning and it felt like my lower back was breaking," he recalled to his followers. "It was that bad."
He then talked about another symptom that occurred while he was sleeping: night sweats.
"So I'd wake up in the middle of the night and I'd be sweating. One morning, I woke up and I thought I p**sed the bed - that's how bad it was," he continued. "I looked at my shirt and I was like: 'This is sweat?'"
Shew's next symptom was extreme fatigue.
"Another symptom was, I was very, very tired and I could not move. I'd wake up and a couple hours later I'd be back in bed having a nap," he stated, before noting that alongside this he also experienced symptoms like dry skin and chest pains.
Even after being prescribed antibiotics, the chest pain would not go and it would come back worse than the last time.
Thankfully, Shew has undergone treatment which ended in July, and is currently doing much better.
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