Symptoms

Read about the symptoms of mouth and oropharyngeal cancer and when to see your doctor.

Ulcers that do not heal

A broken area of skin (ulcer) that will not heal can be a symptom of mouth cancer. About 80 out of 100 people (80%) with mouth cancer have this symptom. 

Pain in your mouth

Pain or discomfort in your mouth that doesn't go away is the other most common symptom of mouth cancer. 

White or red patches in the mouth or throat 

An abnormal looking patch could be a sign of cancer or precancerous changes:

• White patches are called leukoplakia.
• Red patches are called erythroplakia. 

These patches are not cancer, but if left untreated they may lead to cancer. 

A funagal infection called thrush in the mouth can cause red and white patches. The white patches of thrush usually rub off, leaving a sore red patch underneath. If you have anti fungal treatment and the patches go away, they are not related to cancer.  

Difficulty swallowing 

Mouth cancer can cause pain or a burning sensation when chewing and swallowing food. Or you might feel like your food is sticking in your throat. Difficulty swallowing can also be caused by a harmless narrowing of the foodpipe (oesophagus). 

Speech problems

Cancer in your mouth or throat can affect your voice. Your voice might sound different. It may be quieter, husky, or sound as if you have a cold all the time. Or you might slur some of your words, or have trouble with pronouncing some sounds. 

A lump in your neck

You may have a lump in your neck caused by an enlarged lymph node. Swelling in one or more lymph nodes in the neck is a common symptom of mouth and orpharyngeal cancer. 

A hot red painful lump usually means an infection, rather than a cancer. Lumps that come and go are not usually due to cancer. Cancer usually forms a lump that slowly gets bigger. 

Weight loss

Weight loss is a common symptom of many different types of cancer. Mouth and oropharyngeal cancer can make it painful to eat and diffcult to swallow. This might cause weight loss. 

Extreme weight loss (when you are not dieting) can be a sign of advanced cancer. 

Bad breath

Most people have bad breath at some point in their life and it is not cancer. 

But if you have cancer, bad breath might be worse and happen more often. 

Other symptoms

These can  include one or more of the following:

• a lump or thickening of your lip 
• a lump in your mouth or throat 
• unusual bleeding or numbness in your mouth 
• loose teeth for no clear reason 
• difficulty moving your jaw 

We were the babies who grew up without the internet and went on to find online jobs.

If you were born between 1977 and 1983, you belong to a group being re-defined as Xennials.

We had analogue childhoods, wedged between Gen X and Millennials, and adapted to a digital revolution in adulthood. Xennials are a mix between the so-called pessimistic Gen X and optimistic Millennials, says TR Ashworth Associate Professor of Sociology at the university of Melbourne Dan Woodman.

“The idea is there’s this micro or in-between generation between the Gen X group – who we think of as the depressed flannelette-shirt-wearing, grunge-listening children that came after the Baby Boomers and the Millennials – who get described as optimistic, tech savvy and maybe a little bit too sure of themselves and too confident,” Professor Woodman told Mamamia. 

Woodman is a Xennial, born in 1980, and during his Canberran high school years he memorised landline phone numbers and watched prime-time TV. 

Although he warns an entire cohort of people won’t have one value set or one set of dispositions, Xennials did grow up during a unique time. "Around technology they do have a particular experience – we hit this social media and IT digital technology boom in our 20s," said Associate Professor Woodman.

"It was a particularly unique experience. You have a childhood, youth and adolescence free of having to worry about social media posts and mobile phones. It was a time when we had to organise to catch up with our friends on the weekends using the landline, and actually pick a time and a place and turn up there.  

"Then we hit this technology revolution before we were maybe in that frazzled period of our life with kids and no time to learn anything new. We hit it where we could still adopt in a selective way the new technologies," he added.

Woodman started his first email account after he finished high school. He sent emails, letters and post-cards during his gap year travelling. 

DOING yoga naked may not be everyone’s idea of a great way to work out.

But for a growing number of men and women across the UK it’s the hot new fitness trend. And the craze may not be that much of a stretch of the imagination — both yoga and being naked have health benefits, so why not combine the two?

Yoga’s many health-boosting properties are well-documented — from reducing anxiety and stress to easing back pain and improving lung capacity.

Being naked helps the immune system by aiding Vitamin D absorption and reducing the risk of infection and skin complaints.  Plus, exercising with no clothes on means you’ll burn more brown adipose fat. Naked yoga teacher and devotee Doria Gani, from Battersea, South London has been practising the art for seven years since battling cervical cancer.

And in that time demand for her lessons has soared.  

She says: “There is a sense of freedom practising yoga naked. “Lots of people equate being naked with sex but this couldn’t be further from the truth in a naked yoga class.

“Part of yoga is to honour and connect with your body. 

“Practising yoga naked frees you from negative feelings about your body and allows you to be more accepting and more deeply connected with yourself and the world around you. “Naked yoga helps you discover an entirely new way of looking at your own body. It teaches you to embrace your imperfections in a way other exercise classes don’t. It’s a holistic mind and body approach.

“Naturally, people are quite scared at the beginning because they don’t know what to expect. But seeing my clients’ confidence nurtured and growing is amazing.”

Doria — who offers one-to-one classes — urges anyone familiar with the yoga poses to try it naked and see and feel the benefits.

But she advises beginners to see an instructor first.

Here, Doria reveals popular naked yoga poses and tells how they can benefit body and mind.  MANY yoga practitioners feel this position helps improve circulation.

DORIA SAYS: "With your head beneath your heart, your blood will now flow in the opposite direction.

It helps clear congestion and aids venous return – blood pumping back to the heart.

Strengthens shoulders and arms, corrects posture and improves memory.

Voyager 1 is the first spacecraft to reach interstellar space. It originally was launched (along with Voyager 2) in 1977 to explore the outer planets in our solar system. However, it has remained operational long past expectations and continues to send information about its journeys back to Earth. 

The spacecraft officially entered interstellar space in August 2012, almost 35 years after its voyage began. The discovery wasn't made official until 2013, however, when scientists had time to review the data sent back from Voyager 1. Voyager 1 was actually the second of the twin spacecraft to launch, but it was the first to race by Jupiter and Saturn. The images it sent back have been used in schoolbooks and newspaper outlets for a generation. Also on board was a special record, carrying voices and music from Earth out into the cosmos.

Voyager 1 launched on Aug. 20, 1977, and Voyager 1 launched about two weeks later, on Sept. 5. Since then, the spacecraft have been traveling along different flight paths and at different speeds. The Voyager missions were intended to take advantage of a special alignment of the outer planets that happens every 176 years. It would allow a spacecraft to slingshot from one planet to the next, assisted by the first planet's gravity. Infographic how the voyager space probes work.  

Education in Jamaica is modeled on the British system. Private pre-school is available, with primary education for the ages of 5-11 years. Following this, the Lower School or Forms 1-3 caters to children from 10-13 or 14, and Upper School or Forms 4 & 5 with students are informally classified as Arts, Sciences, Industrial Arts and Business students. Sixth form is an optional, two year, advanced post secondary program. At the end of this course, students participate in the CAPE (Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Exams). Entry into Sixth Form is extremely competitive.  International schools can be the perfect solution for an expat student (multinational corporation executives, children of diplomats, NGO staff) in Jamaica. There may be some local population, but the schools are usually geared for an international student body. Schools follow a curriculum model from the US, UK, or France. Primary instruction may be any language (and multiple languages are usually taught), but it is usually in English or French. Schools provide similar standards of schooling around the globe, providing for an easy transition between schools whether they are in France or Vietnam. Schools also provide internationally accepted accreditation such as the international schools. 

"I don't suggest that everyone who votes BNP is racist," said the Conservative shadow minister for communities Eric Pickles in 2009, the day after Griffin and Brons were elected to the European parliament. "If we do that, the BNP benefits." In one sense, Pickles was right: blanket condemnation of BNP voters by mainstream politicians would have been a strategic mistake. For peripheral supporters, tempted to vote for the BNP because of their dismay at a lack of housing or a feeling of being ignored by the three big parties, this would merely have confirmed their suspicion that politics was run by an uncaring elite.  But the best available information on the attitudes of BNP voters speaks for itself. According to a study by the academics Matthew Goodwin and Robert Ford, a significant proportion (between 31% and 45% of those surveyed) shared the BNP's biological racism – that black people, for instance, were intellectually inferior to white people. A greater number still (81%) held strongly hostile attitudes to Islam. The immigrants who most exercised BNP voters, and whom the BNP targeted most often with its propaganda, were non-white. 
The BNP gained support by exploiting racism in combination with economic resentment. It targeted people who felt they had been passed over for housing, or for regeneration money, and resented the presence of "Africans" in their borough, or felt it was unfair for Asians to be given resources, even when they were demonstrably in greater need. When the BNP was defeated, it was by campaigners who offered voters a positive, non-racist alternative. "I'm not racist, but I don't think these Asians should get houses before us white people," is a racist statement – but kick away the economic grievance that underpins it, and you undermine the racism on which parties such as the BNP thrive. 

The math teacher in Faye Ruopp loves to look at life in equations. One of her favorites after she was diagnosed in June 2014 with breast cancer was “lumpectomy + radiation = mastectomy.” She would notice this theme of “less is more” often during her treatment at Dana-Farber’s  Ruopp, 64, was preparing to welcome her son and daughter-in-law back to Boston with their new daughter, Ruopp’s first grandchild, when she received the call no one expects.

“You experience a range of emotions when you get news like that,” she says of her diagnosis of stage I, ER+ breast cancer. “Even though I was shocked and surprised, when you’re a mom and a grandmother you think of your children and grandchildren first, and I wanted to protect them.”

Ruopp had seen her sister and many friends undergo chemotherapy through the years, and was nervous about the impact it would have on her quality of life – particularly her ability to work and spend time with her new granddaughter. Luckily, due to the nature of her tumor, Ruopp was able to forego both chemotherapy and the more invasive mastectomy in favor of a lumpectomy followed by targeted radiation therapy and hormone therapy.