A WEEK after my health exam came back normal, I was diagnosed with rare oral cancer – now I’m warning everyone about what doctors missed

A 36-year-old whose mouth pain and fever were dismissed as “hypochondria” is warning Americans to keep pressing doctors for answers — after he was ultimately diagnosed with fatal oral cancer.

A week before the disease was diagnosed, Mark, from Denver, attended an annual check-up and was told he was “perfectly healthy.”

The routine tests he had undergone, such as urine and blood tests, had returned to normal.

Previous appointments with doctors, during which he had opened up about his collection of symptoms, had proven unhelpful, with some attributing his symptoms to mental health problems.

It was only when he visited another doctor and demanded further tests that his rare oral cancer was discovered.

“I learned the hard way that your annual doctor visit and the routine blood work they do is not always a good indicator of your health,” Mark said in a TikTok video which has generated almost 900,000 views

He added: ‘They generally cannot predict or diagnose diseases such as cancer. You know yourself better than anyone else or any doctor and sometimes even better than the results of a test. That’s why it’s so important to be persistent.’

When tests revealed that Mark had tongue cancer, he underwent a procedure to remove part of his tongue and 41 lymph nodes in his neck.

Mark had been suffering from symptoms mainly related to the gastrointestinal tract for several years, mixed with dizziness, chest tightness and brain fog, he said.

The problems led him to be “in and out” of doctors’ offices, emergency rooms and numerous specialty clinics, where he underwent tests that returned normal results.

He was told he was too young to worry about his health and was referred to a mental health therapist.

However, when new symptoms such as fever, night sweats and a mouth ulcer appeared early this year, he decided to return to contact another doctor and insist on a biopsy of the ulcer, which had been booked for the week after his annual check-up.

The test confirmed he had tongue cancer, a disease that mainly affects people over 60 with a history of heavy drinking and smoking, which Mark has never done.

The human papillomavirus, or HPV, a common sexually transmitted virus, is also a major risk factor.

Mark had been given a clean bill of health at his annual medical check-up, but a biopsy of his tongue ulcer just a week later revealed he had stage 1 tongue cancer.

After his operation, he remained in the hospital for three days and had to be fed through a feeding tube that went through his nose into his stomach.

Mark’s diagnosis was stage 1 oral squamous cell carcinoma (SCC). This is the most common form of mouth and tongue cancer, affecting the surface cells along the side of the tongue.

Symptoms of tongue cancer include weight loss, ear pain, red or white spots in the mouth, persistent sore throat, numbness of the tongue, and swelling of the jaw.

The disease can be treated with chemotherapy, radiation, surgery to remove all or part of the tongue, and surgery to remove lymph nodes in the neck.

Tongue cancer is rare and accounts for approximately one percent of new cancer cases in the US. The National Cancer Institute estimates that there will be 19,300 new cases of the disease and 3,300 deaths by 2024, accounting for 0.5 percent of all cancer deaths.

Overall, rates and deaths from tongue cancer have increased slightly since 1992, while rates for all early-onset cancers, diagnoses before age 50, have increased.

Some attribute the increase to more HPV cases, which have been increasing recently, especially in men.

About 70 percent of patients diagnosed with the disease are still alive on average five years later.

Mark said: ‘As you can imagine, I’m quite frustrated, both with the healthcare system and with myself. “I’m not here to bash (physicians)… my only interest right now is to remind people that no one is perfect – not even the most skilled and experienced physicians.”

Mark said he was repeatedly called a hypochondriac, that his symptoms were made up or the result of poor mental health.

There may have been early signs of Mark’s cancer as early as 2020.

He developed an ulcer on his tongue in the same place where the cancer eventually developed and that would not heal. However, when doctors removed and tested the lesion, it showed no signs of cancer.

But persistent pain in the months after the procedure led him to visit a doctor twice. On both occasions, doctors assured him there was no cause for concern.

And then, in February this year, the ulcer – now known to be cancerous – came back.

While the tumor was still in its early stages, it had severely invaded his tongue, leading surgeons to recommend a procedure to remove part of the tongue.

In February, Mark underwent surgery to remove about a quarter of his tongue.

Doctors also performed a partial neck dissection, removing 41 lymph nodes in the neck to ensure all cancer had been removed from his body.

After the operation, he remained in the hospital for three days, where he was connected to a feeding tube.

After the procedure, he had trouble speaking and swallowing, but he started working with a speech-language pathologist. After just a few weeks he had almost fully recovered.

More extensive testing after his surgery revealed that there was no cancer in his lymph nodes and clear margins were taken on his tongue to remove any cancer in the area.

Doctors then decided he did not need any further treatment such as chemotherapy or radiation. However, Mark had his doubts.

He said, “I feel incredibly lucky and grateful,” but because of the history of being laid off for so long and being told the symptoms were mental, “I think I have a bit of trauma and distrust from all of this.”

So Mark reached out to other doctors to get another opinion, but hasn’t posted an update.

His overall message to patients everywhere: “Please make sure that if you ever have symptoms (like mine),… listen to your body.”