#1 Lung Cancer Symptom and Lung Cancer Treatment

Test your house for asbestos. Lung cancer of the type mesothelioma has been linked to it and asbestos is in fact the second most common cause of lung cancer. Specialist companies can test your house, garage or anything else you own for asbestos usually for free and will charge you a fee to dispose of the material safely.
Tip 6
Eat raw food. Fruit, raw vegetable and greens all help to maintain a healthy digestion. This makes you fit and some people claim it can help you reduce the risk of cancer.

Tip 7
Lose weight. Obesity is linked to some forms of cancer, but the main benefit of maintaining a healthy weight is that you will be better able to take the punishing side effects of some of the treatments and you will also recover quicker. The same goes for being fit.

Tip 8
Go shopping with a healthy grocery list. It ll make you focus on the right kind of foods to get and help you achieve the healthier life you are working towards. Here is a list to print out: http://nutrition.about.com/library/ngrocery_list.htm

( self help and positive attitude, know what to expect, hope for the best, prepare for the worst, exercise will help your body fight the side effects of the treatment and strengthen the healthy part of your lungs. )

Do the fitness and exercises the therapists give you to recover. It is vital that you do exercise as much as you can and that you push yourself harder than what you normally would as your physical fitness level is critical in coping with the side effects and recovering from the side effects of the treatments.
There will be days where you feel so ill with side effects that you feel as if you can t move. Try anything, just to keep active. It gives you something to focus on and it gives you something to work on.
Keep a diary. Track how you feel each day and track the exercises you managed to do. It s good for you to see that you are making progress and it can help the doctors determine how well you are coping with the side effects.
Find an outlet for your emotions. You will go through every single one of them in turn, so make sure you find something or someone to share them with. Or cope with them in a way that makes you happy. If sharing your emotions and your fears with your family is something you don t want to do, then don t. A lot of people say they don t want to spread the misery further than they have to, and who am I to disagree. But the better prepared they are for the worst possible outcome, the better they will cope with it.
Take supplements and protein drinks if eating regular food becomes difficult. You need nutrition to keep your body going through the worst of the side effects of the radiotherapy or chemotherapy. If you are assigned a nutritionist, take their advice. If you are not assigned a nutritionist find out why not!
Take up dancing. It is a great way to keep fit in a fun way. You can do it in private or you can do it in a club or even a dance class if you don t know which foot is supposed to go where or in what order. Dancing is a relatively low impact fitness type but it provides you with great health benefits and if you can walk you can dance.
Take up Tai Chi. Tai Chi is the Chinese martial art of exercising in slow motion. The breathing techniques you re taught not only work on your physical fitness, but on the mind too. You get so focused on doing the movements correctly it works almost like a form of meditation, which will help you cope with the feelings that you re dealing with.

Your doctor may suspect a predisposition to lung cancer based on your medical, family and smoking history. He may note wheezing, difficulty breathing, obstruction of the airways or infections in the lungs that make him suspicious. There are other signs he may notice that lead him to decide to test further to rule out or diagnose lung cancer.

Chest X-ray
The first test that most doctors order when they suspect any sort of lung condition is a chest x-ray. In most cases, the technician will take both back to front and side views to give a good view of the lungs from different angles. A specialist will study the chest films for any signs of lesions, spots or other suspicious areas on the lungs. A chest x-ray alone isn t enough to diagnose lung cancer, but it can show suspicious areas and growths to investigate further.

CAT Scans
A CAT scan (also called CT scans) may be ordered if x-rays are negative or ambiguous. Cat scans give a more detailed view of the lungs by combining multiple views to create a cross-section of the body. In addition to views of the lungs, a doctor may order CAT scans of the abdomen or brain to examine for metastatic tumors. CAT scans are more sensitive than standard chest x-rays, and may reveal lung masses that are missed on x-rays.

A special type of CAT scan is sometimes ordered if more detail is needed. The low-dose helical CT scan (or spiral CT scan) is far more sensitive than either x-rays or standard CAT scans. However, like both of those, it can t detect cancer only abnormal formations in the lungs. About 90% of the growths discovered in a spiral CT scan are non-cancerous.

The doctor may also order MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) to obtain detailed information about the location of a tumor. Because MRIs use magnets, anyone with a pacemaker, artificial heart valves or any other surgically implanted device can t use MRI, to avoid the metal parts attracting the magnets in the MRI.

PET Scans
While CAT scans and x-rays can determine size and location of a tumor, PET scans can determine whether the tumor is actively growing. By using a radioactive dye, a PET scan (positron emission tomography) produces a three-dimensional colored image that can show the metabolic activity within the lungs. By studying those images, doctors can tell whether a tumor is active, and may be able to identify the types of cells that make it up.

Sputum cytography
By examining a sputum sample under a microscope, a doctor may be able to detect cancerous cells that will positively diagnose lung cancer, as well as tell the doctor what kind of cancer it is. Sputum cytography is the least expensive type of tissue diagnostic test available, but it is not very reliable. Even if there is lung cancer present, the cancer cells may not be present in the sputum. In addition, there s a possibility of false positives, as non-cancerous can sometimes change in reaction to injury or illness and appear to be cancerous.