A man has urged everyone to look out for more unusual signs of throat cancer as he ‘refused to believe’ doctors when they explained the cause of his condition
A man has issued a warning on important throat cancer signs everyone needs to be aware of, as he had no idea the disease can be linked to oral sex.
Frank Lane assumed that it was a ‘load of rubbish’ when doctors told him the reason he’d developed the disease, but now he’s educating others on the potential causes.
The HGV driver found a hard, egg-sized lump on his neck while shaving two years ago but didn’t think much of it, putting his symptoms down to swollen glands from his gym workouts. It comes as BBC Gardeners’ World fans are in tears as star shares tragic cancer news.
READ MORE: Girl, 8, found dead in bath with crushed hand and blisters after ‘missed warning signs’READ MORE: ‘My husband could still be alive if we got him the vaccine – I’m so angry’
After two weeks with no signs of improvement, 60-year-old Frank visited his GP, who found a mass on his tonsils and sent him for a biopsy.
He recalled: “I was having a shave, felt my neck and thought ‘that feels a bit hard’. It was just a slight swelling. When the doctor looked in my mouth she could actually see it sticking out of the top of my tonsils, it was the size of a boiled egg.
“I was very tired but I just thought it was down to work and not getting enough sleep. I was also waking up to go to the toilet three or four times a night, but I put that down to getting older. My partner said to give it a fortnight as it might be my glands – [caused by] the stress of going to the gym.”
Just 10 days after the biopsy, Frank, from Basingstoke, Hampshire, received the shocking diagnosis of throat cancer. He says that doctors told him it was caused by human papillomavirus (HPV), contracted through oral sex – a factor actor Michael Douglas had in his own throat cancer diagnosis in 2010.
HPV is a group of viruses that affect the skin and moist linings of the body and can be spread during oral sex and penetrative sex. It can also cause changes to the cells of the cervix, leading to cervical cancer if not treated. The condition doesn’t tend to show any symptoms, with most people not knowing they have it at all.
After chemotherapy and radiation treatments, Frank is now thankfully cancer-free and has regular bi-monthly check-ups with his doctor.
Explaining that he’d stopped smoking 10 years ago, Frank was initially in disbelief, explaining: “[When he said] you’ve got throat cancer from oral sex…it was a surprise. When I got told, I was thinking ‘f**k that, I’m never doing it again’.”
“[The lads at work] said I was talking a load of rubbish, I told them to Google it and I saw the color drain from their faces. The consultant said because of the shape of the virus inside my biopsy they ascertain it’s from about 40 years ago.
“I was having fun, but I wasn’t messing about with loads of different girls,” he said of life in his 20s.
Frank, a former Royal Corps of Signals serviceman for 12 years, had two initial chemotherapy sessions at Henley Hospital in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, in January 2024.
When the treatment failed to shrink the tumour, doctors prescribed an intensive six-week radiotherapy program to target the cancer.
“I was in the army for 12 years and that [radiotherapy] was the most painful thing I’ve ever experienced in my life,” Frank admitted.
Now, 16 months after finishing his treatment, Frank is urging others to get any unusual symptoms checked out.
Frank shared: “I’ve been telling a lot of people – colleagues at work, people I chat to and meet at the gym and they’re like ‘oh my God, you’re kidding me?'”
According to Cancer Research UK however, there are 11 symptoms in particular that you need to look out for when it comes to throat cancer, and many could easily be mistaken for another, less serious ailment.
These symptoms are as follows:
- Ear pain
- A persistently sore throat
- Finding a lump in your neck
- Experiencing pain or difficulties when swallowing
- Changes to your voice or speech
- Weight loss that you can’t explain
- Coughing
- Shortness of breath
- The sensation of something being stuck in your throat
- A persistent sore tongue
- Ulcers which don’t heal or red and white patches found in the mouth