My cancer was found purely by chance.

[patchworker]

I sometimes have twitchy movements, and my head nods a bit. Not serious, but irritating. So my GP sent me to a Neurologist, who prescribed tablets to try to ease it. But the tablets didn't help at all, in fact they made it much worse, and I was twitching and jerking all over, including the muscles of my face and mouth, which made it difficult to swallow. I went back to my GP, but this time saw a new young doctor, and when I told him I had difficulty swallowing, he insisted on an endoscopy. He wouldn't listen when I told him it was the tablets causing it. A few days later I saw my original doctor, and the tablets were stopped, and the twitching and jerking stopped, and I could swallow normally again. But the endoscopy went ahead, and found a T1 adenocarcinoma.

The only symptom was a dry tickly cough, which I had hardly noticed. All this was more than four years ago, I've been very lucky. I had an esophagectomy and there's no sign of my cancer recurring.

But how many other people had a persistant dry cough? Is it a common symptom?

[SteveJ]

Hi Patchworker.

I did have a persistant cough for a while but this was after surgery and I was told it was caused by reflux

[Hidden]

Persistent coughs are always worth investigation for underlying causes, and I agree that sometimes it can be reflux-related. The difficulty in swallowing is definitely an alarm symptom and is usually caused by the tumour going two thirds round the circumference of the oesophagus, so the 'new young doctor' did well to refer you!