Hello, I hope someone will advise me because I am so scared that I have throat cancer that I can't sleep or perform any of my daily activities anymore, because this is all I think about. I am a 19 year old male.
I had an on and off sore throat and hoarseness for many many months, but was a smoker, so didn't think too much about it. However, I quit around two months ago and not long after that the sore throat and hoarseness started again and continue to this day. Furthermore, During the last month I developed difficulty swallowing and difficulty breathing. Not only does food sometimes feels like it sticks to my throat when swallowing, I have difficulty performing the swallowing action itself, even when I only have saliva in my moath. It's as if my muscles are harder to contract or something. The breathing problems feel as if something is blocking the air flow and I need to put extra effort in if I want to take a deep breath. Furthermore, my chest often hurts when I swallow. During the past few days, I developed this constant urge to clear my throat, but it is impossible to do so no matter how much I try. It's as if something is stuck there.
I have been told I have acid reflux before. I saw 2 GPs about this problem in the last weeks and both of them didn't even bother to look at me after learning that I have a history of acid reflux, they just gave me some omeprozol and told me not to come back for a month.
The symptoms seem far too severe for a simple thing like acid reflux, especially since I have been living with it for a few years and never had anything this bad. I have found online that these symptoms are consistent with throat ir esophagus cancers and now am in absolute panic mode. I cannot sleep or focus on anything else but the thoughts of cancer and dying.
Therefore, I have the following questions:
Is it possible that acid reflux would cause symptoms so severe?
How likely is it to be cancer?
What else could be causing this?
And finally, how fast are these types if cancer? How risky is it to wait the month for an appointment? Because all I can think about is how the cancer is growing and spreading and how it will be to late by the time anyone actually tests me.
