As cancer begins to grow and ravage your body, it can be difficult to get a peaceful night's sleep.
When it comes to cancer, everyone feels scared. Not only because of the high mortality rate, but also because when it breaks out, it causes a lot of pain and discomfort. Especially in the evening, at night when sleeping.
Here are 5 typical abnormalities when sleeping at night that show cancer is "ravaging" our bodies that we need to pay attention to:
1. Twitching or cramps in the arms or legs
Body convulsions, sudden and uncomfortable contractions of the limbs, also known as cramps, often occur at night in people with cancer. It will be accompanied by insomnia, weakness, fatigue, loss of appetite, and sudden unexplained weight loss. At the same time, this condition occurs frequently, even while sleeping and repeats frequently over a very long period of time without any pattern.
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It is more common in people with liver cancer, lung cancer, kidney cancer, and brain tumors. In addition, arteriosclerosis, anemia, incorrect lying position, excessive exercise, etc. can also cause sudden convulsions and cramps. So it is best to see a doctor to find out the cause and treat it promptly.
2. Prolonged insomnia
Insomnia can be a single disease or it can also be a symptom of many other dangerous diseases, including cancer.
Many studies have shown that cancer and sleep disorders are closely related. Most cancers cause sleep disorders to some extent.
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The characteristic of insomnia due to cancer is that it often causes repeated awakenings in the middle of the night or around 3-4 am. Especially once awake, the body will always be restless, it is very difficult to fall asleep again and almost no relief by taking conventional medicine.
The reason is because cancer causes pain, difficulty breathing, chest tightness, coughing and nerve compression at night. Especially cancers related to the liver, kidney, stomach, and brain.
3. Chest tightness, difficulty breathing or persistent cough
There are many causes of cough such as cold, sore throat, itchy throat... But cough caused by these diseases can be relieved by taking cough medicine. As for cough caused by cancer, it will be concentrated at night, usually dry cough, accompanied by difficulty breathing, taking medicine forever will not cure.
This is often seen in lung cancer, or the strong development of tumors that compress internal organs. The cough may be accompanied by chest tightness or difficulty breathing, or sometimes all three symptoms at the same time.
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But chest tightness and shortness of breath at night also often appear separately when suffering from some cancers. This symptom is easily confused with chest pain caused by heart disease. However, pain caused by heart disease mostly occurs during the day. Because at night, the heart has the function to self-regulate to help reduce pain or not appear when going to sleep.
So if you often have chest pain, heart palpitations accompanied by difficulty breathing at night, especially being awakened by pain while sleeping, quickly seek help from a doctor.
4. Bone pain
Overwork and incorrect sleeping posture can cause body aches, especially bone pain when sleeping at night. However, if you have persistent pain that cannot be relieved by resting or taking painkillers. At the same time, the pain is worse at night and comes from the bones, be careful of cancer.
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Because studies show that about 70% - 80% of cancer patients will have bone metastases, leading to bone pain. At first, it is often intermittent pain, more pain when moving, but as the disease continues to develop, it will cause continuous pain, severe pain even when doing daily activities.
The most common sites of pain are the spine, ribs, pelvis, thigh bones, and leg bones. Cancers that are more likely to develop bone metastases include lung cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer, and thyroid cancer.
5. Persistent fever
Normally, adults will rarely have fever in the evening and at night than children even when suffering from common diseases. However, if the fever is persistent, has no clear cause and often appears more often and is worse at night, it is very possible that you have cancer in your body.
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Because cancer cells grow rapidly, causing ischemia and hypoxia of tumor cells, causing tissue necrosis leading to high fever. At the same time, some tumors will secrete antigens that affect the immune system's response mechanism. Or tend to invade the body's thermoregulatory center, and then increase body temperature.
Meanwhile, cancer weakens the immune system, especially at night. This leads to persistent fever that cannot be cured by medication. Cancer-related fever is also accompanied by other abnormalities such as pain, fatigue, rapid weight loss, loss of appetite, etc.