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Cancer Survivors Reveal When They First Noticed Something Was Wrong

We tend to think of cancer as something so scary that it should be easy to know when something is wrong. We imagine lumps and bumps and growths - things we think we would notice as cancer right away. These Reddit users are showing the world why cancer goes undetected for so long so often.


One Reddit user asked: Cancer survivors of Reddit, when did you first notice something was wrong?

A lot of them seem so ... normal.

Scratching 

Giphy

I was scratching my balls and felt a hard knot. Froze for like ten seconds, panicking internally, thinking it's definitely cancer then remembered that cancer is actually pretty rare and it's far more likely to just be a cyst or something. Went to the doctor anyway because I'm not an idiot.

It was cancer.

  • I did not get to keep the ball. They have to look at it under a microscope to determine the specific type of cancer and for that they usually slice it up a bit so there wouldn't have been much to keep anyway.
  • The knot was rock hard and attached to the testicle, inside the sack and maaaybe a tiny bit more sensitive than the testicle normally is, otherwise completely painless but your mileage may vary. In some cases the tumor will start growing inside the testicle causing it to swell, in others the testicle might even shrink. If it's soft and squishy it's probably not cancer but still have it checked if you're worried. A simple ultrasound can determine if it's a solid tumor and requires further attention.
  • If it comes and goes it's also most likely not cancer. Cancer will generally only get bigger without treatment.
  • They do offer you a prosthetic replacement, although I refused because I heard it can be uncomfortable in some situations and I don't notice a difference anyway.
  • You can still have sex with one ball. The remaining testicle takes up the workload of the removed one. I'm not infertile and don't have testosterone problems but that can happen in some cases.
  • I was 21 when first diagnosed and 22 when I relapsed.
  • Treatment didn't cost me anything because I live in a country with universal healthcare.
  • Checking regularly is good but don't overdo it. Generally once a month is enough.
  • Testicular cancer is rare as it accounts for roughly 0.5-1% of male cancers.

- summonator

A Second Opinion

Felt like sh!t all the time. Fatigued constantly and losing my physical strength. Finally went to my family doctor who said it was just aging. Went for a second opinion and they found high cancer markers in my blood test. Spent the next few months going back and forth to various specialist while they tried to pin point it. Finally turned out to be both lymphatic and testicular cancer. I was very lucky. I lost six lymph nodes and a treacherous left testicle and came out of it clean after having to do very little treatment. But with what I went through (and what I spent!) I have a new respect for people who survive more severe forms of cancer.

- darthbiscuit80

A Twinkle In Your Eye

For me it started with my eyes in my late 30's. Felt perfectly fine otherwise, but my eyes would have these weird all-over "flashes", kind of like what you see after you stare too long at the sun, especially when I was moving from dark to light places (like waking up in the morning, or turning on a light in a dark room at night). Got my eyes checked, doc said my retinas had some severe "high pressure areas" and it might be the start of macular degeneration. I got some new glasses and went on with life figuring this was just going to be my new normal.

Thank f*cking god I had a routine yearly doctor's exam scheduled about 2 months after that. I felt 100% fine other than this weird eye thing, but the routine blood work came back so bad my doctor actually threw the first results away, saying it had to be a lab error. Second results came back even worse, and they sent me to a cancer specialist. Rare type of bone marrow cancer.

They caught it early, and its highly treatable with a 95% chance of living a relatively normal life afterward. But if they hadn't, I'd have been in critical condition, maybe dead, within a couple of years. Turns out my system was so overloaded with cancerous white blood cells that my blood was thick like potato soup. It was blowing out the veins in my eyes, which resulted in those "flashes". They went away after about the first 2 weeks of treatment.

GO TO YOUR DOCTOR REGULARLY.

- pbspry

Too Sick

Randomly ended up so sick i was bed bound for a month. Got every test for the flu/cold/viruses they could think of. Ended up getting an ultrasound on my stomach; they saw a mass while doing so and also scanned my pelvic area. Turned out to be ovarian cancer but luckily for me it was contained in the football sized tumor attached to my right ovary, which i obviously didn't know was there. Month later i was cut open, had it removed. Minus one ovary and the constant fear it'll come back later and I'm cancer free. For now.

- SakuraUme

Volleyball

Ewing's sarcoma, diagnosed at age 12.

The first time I remember noticing it was during a volleyball game. I spiked and landed and felt a sharp pain in my left thigh.

I ignored it and it would bother me on and off for a few months. I was trying not to let my parents worry, because my older sister has CF and was going through a rough patch. I was limping most of the time, but occasionally it wouldn't hurt at all.

One day I was walking downstairs at school and as I took a step I was blinded by pain, screamed and collapsed. By the time my mom got to school to pick me up it was barely a dull ache, but she said we should get x-rays just in case. This was around 5 months after the volleyball pain.

The results came back showing cancer. I started treatment immediately. 13 months of chemo, ~100 nights in hospital. Two years of physical therapy to lose my limp.

- imsomessedup

Pressure, Itching, Blood

August 1st, 2015. I woke up and felt a strange pressure in my chest. The night before I had picked something up and I figured I just strained myself. Didn't think much of it.

Until around November. I started getting itchy. Like, really itchy. Mostly on my legs, but pretty much everywhere. I always struggled with having itchy skin after a hot shower, so at first I didn't pay it too much attention, until it started getting annoying. I tried new shampoos and body wash, washed and changed my sheets, looked for bed bugs, lice, anything I could think of.

Finally, on March 31st 2016, a few weeks after my 21st birthday, I was just getting into bed when I coughed. Now, for context, I also suffer from frequent bloody noses. So I'm used to coughing and having a bloody nose.

But this time when I coughed, I felt blood coming from down inside of me, rather than up from my nose.

I immediately grabbed a cup and started coughing up blood into it, right next to my girlfriend in bed. I managed to tell her to call 911, and I threw myself into the bathroom.

And there I was, holding on to the sink for dear life, coughing up more and more blood. I couldn't stop, every time I tried to catch my breath I would feel a tickle and have to cough, sending more blood out. That bathroom looked like the elevator from the Shining by the end of it.

Finally, ten minutes goes by, and the ambulance arrives. I had basically made my peace with this world and was prepared to let go... but then the coughing finally subsided, and I could breathe again without coughing up blood.

Took a ride to the ER. They kept me for a week, poking and prodding me, doing tests. I almost got sent home with a diagnosis of tuberculosis. But finally they confirmed it was cancer. Stage four hodgkin's lymphoma to be exact.

Sounds bad and scary, but out of all the types of cancers known, this one is fairly easy to cure and has a high success rate of not reoccurring.

So, I did chemo for 6 months. That sucked. Finished in October 2016. I'm just about to go into my last post treatment check up tomorrow, and hopefully if everything is good I won't have to keep getting check ups every year.

Interestingly, however, I always had a feeling in my mind that one day I would get cancer. I can't exactly describe why I thought this, but I did. And it turned out to be true.

Everyone, go get yourself checked out. You do not want to wait to long and let things progress. Do what you can to have good health, because without it we are nothing.

Also, my girlfriend was such a fucking trooper. She handled herself and the situation incredibly well for how scary that must have been for her. Lord knows I would be terrified if our roles reversed and she was the one in trouble. I only pray I can handle things as good as her. If you're reading this, I love you and I am so proud you kept your cool!

- emf3rd31495

Sense Of Impending Doom

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I wish I had a better answer. I was pregnant for the first time and my gut was relentless, telling me something wasn't right. I didn't feel right. I brushed a lot of it off as pregnancy hormones but something just wasn't right. It caused sleep loss and anxiety, I went to ER at 9 weeks and was told i had a uti (now as a midwifery student my bacterial load was low enough that I know I didn't have a uti.) I went back around 10.5 weeks, again to my doctor at 12 and 14. I'd had a scan at 5 weeks and it was normal.

Finally at 18 weeks I went in to the emergency room again because I couldn't shake this feeling of impending doom. I got a resident for the first time and she just said that sometimes first time moms need to see their babies to shake worries. She sent me for an anatomy scan. Dead baby, mass of 'snowstorm' tissue. It was a molar pregnancy, placenta was massive and riddled with mutations. I was scheduled for a D&C. My follow up a month later was 5 mins with an ob who told me it "wasn't like the baby was term, you can have more babies. Wait a year."

Within days the sense of dread crept back. Three months later I joined an online support group for women who had molar pregnancies and found out I should have had twice weekly blood work and follow up scans to make sure there was no retained placenta tissue. By then the stuff missed in DC had taken over and metastasized. I'm lucky I found those women, they saved my life and my doctor filed a formal complaint against the incompetent ob that we trusted to do my care.

- ryersonreddittoss

Increasingly Tired

Just over a year ago, I had been increasingly tired and fatigued over a period of 6 months. I had also been dealing with lower leg swelling, to the point that I could barely wear shoes. I had been out with my mom and was so out of breath I couldn't walk the 100 yards or so into a grocery store.

I was admitted to the hospital with a hemoglobin of 4, and incredibly low thyroid levels. Fast forward a day or two and I start with what can only be described, without being gross, as an incredibly irregular period. I was scheduled for a uterine biopsy a few weeks after discharge and was found to have endometrial cancer.

We attempted the conservative course of treatment as I'm only 32 and have not had kids yet. This was all fine and well until January when 2 masses were found in my uterine wall. Fast forward two months and an MRI shows that even on hormone suppression therapy, the masses were growing. I had a complete hysterectomy on March 29 of this year. One of the masses was 70% through the uterine wall. Luckily my lymph nodes were clear and I didn't need chemo or radiation.

- AuntKeeks

Walking To Class

When I was walking to class one day in high school (I'm now 23) and my legs just gave out and I collapsed to the floor. Had to have a random student walking by help me to my feet, and even then I wasn't stable. I had been having weird symptoms for the month prior, but that was the one thing that really made me think that something was wrong.

Turned out to be a rare type of bone marrow cancer called POEMS Syndrome that only few other adolescents have ever had. At least that's what my doctors have told me.

Unfortunately, I've relapsed, but recent blood work has been looking really good so hopefully I'm back in remission soon!

- JTSJohnson

No Childlike Energy

I noticed something was wrong since I was in 5th grade. I was always so tired compared to other kids. I didn't have that boundless energy kids are supposed to have, or at least I didn't feel like I did. I always felt glum, or dull. It was hard to sleep. Sometimes I felt too hot or too cold. I had unhealthy amounts of anxiety - my heart was pounding over the most stupid stuff. That spiraled into paranoia, which is just terrible for a kid to have to go through. The worst of it all was the brain fog. I struggled to concentrate and just THINK. It pissed me off to no end - why couldn't I just think of 'A' when I wanted to? There was so much mental noise and fog - almost like your head and ears are stuffed with cotton. For some reason this completely killed my confidence in myself. I felt like I just wasn't as good as the other 'healthy' kids.

My dad doesn't deal with health stuff. So I'd bring it up to my mom. She told me I was exagerrating, That it was because I was on the computer too much, ate poorly, and didn't sleep enough.

This routine went on until I was 16 or so when I finally got sick of it and mentioned it to my primary doctor during a checkup - and here comes my mom chiming in x y z above for why I felt the way I did. Doctor touched my neck area and felt a lump. Got an ultrasound eventually and yup there it was!

My mom caved and said that nodules run in her family - she's got more than a dozen! Nice to know. Also why nobody did a full blood test to see my thyroid hormone levels is beyond me. Apparently my sister and grandma (dad's side) are hypothyroid.

They wanted to 'watch' it for a few years lmao to see if it got bigger.

Finally at 18 I got things moving.

I got two biopsies on my left side since there was an obvious nodule- the first one not going well and they decided they wanted to do another. Whoever said biopsies are painless is a huge liar. The results were what I hoped, because I knew something was wrong with me. My parents didn't want me to have any surgeries. I feel like they wanted to pretend that nothing was wrong.

Finally, at 19, I had two hemithyroidectomy operations for what they found were papillary carcinomas - one in a calcified nodule and little 'granules' in two of my lymph nodes and the other side of my thyroid. I may need radiation later, but right now I'm avoiding it. I'm taking meds for the rest of my life - that's fine with me!

The surgeries were a month apart from each other. I was 19 at the time and right in the middle of college. It was really hard for me, considering that my family and SO at the time were nay sayers or straight up indifferent to me while I finally pushed for treatment.

In hindsight, I should have had them both removed in one operation. They told me I had the option the first go around, but I wanted to keep function if I could. How could I do it if I had no idea what was going on with the other side? They refused to do a biopsy on the opposing side during surgery - lame. They also knicked the nerves for my vocal cord during the first surgery, so I couldn't speak properly for 6 months and had to see a specialist for an implant to restore function if it didn't heal. Thank goodness it did. I sounded absolutely terrible - like those folk that have those voiceboxes. It hurt, speaking was a struggle. I sound normal now, but it's hard to carry on talking with the risk of sounding out of breath lol.

Now that I'm on thyroid meds- I feel infinitely better compared to before. I have a lot more clarity than before. I still have anxiety which is strange, it's like a reaction to things at this point. I hear it's a side effect of the meds. I'm working on improving my mindset - it's getting better. I sleep better.

It's hard to get your dosage right, but when you do it's like you feel close to normal again. I get off days pretty often, and don't feel well if I'm off schedule. HOWEVER I'm a heck of a lot happier now!!!

Also, my sister and mom got biopsies afterwards for themselves for nodules they have - 'just in case'.

- ca1i4nia


H/T: Reddit

People Reveal The Weirdest Thing About Themselves

Reddit user Isitjustmedownhere asked: 'Give an example; how weird are you really?'

Let's get one thing straight: no one is normal. We're all weird in our own ways, and that is actually normal.

Of course, that doesn't mean we don't all have that one strange trait or quirk that outweighs all the other weirdness we possess.

For me, it's the fact that I'm almost 30 years old, and I still have an imaginary friend. Her name is Sarah, she has red hair and green eyes, and I strongly believe that, since I lived in India when I created her and there were no actual people with red hair around, she was based on Daphne Blake from Scooby-Doo.

I also didn't know the name Sarah when I created her, so that came later. I know she's not really there, hence the term 'imaginary friend,' but she's kind of always been around. We all have conversations in our heads; mine are with Sarah. She keeps me on task and efficient.

My mom thinks I'm crazy that I still have an imaginary friend, and writing about her like this makes me think I may actually be crazy, but I don't mind. As I said, we're all weird, and we all have that one trait that outweighs all the other weirdness.

Redditors know this all too well and are eager to share their weird traits.

It all started when Redditor Isitjustmedownhere asked:

"Give an example; how weird are you really?"

Monsters Under My Bed

"My bed doesn't touch any wall."

"Edit: I guess i should clarify im not rich."

– Practical_Eye_3600

"Gosh the monsters can get you from any angle then."

– bikergirlr7

"At first I thought this was a flex on how big your bedroom is, but then I realized you're just a psycho 😁"

– zenOFiniquity8

Can You See Why?

"I bought one of those super-powerful fans to dry a basement carpet. Afterwards, I realized that it can point straight up and that it would be amazing to use on myself post-shower. Now I squeegee my body with my hands, step out of the shower and get blasted by a wide jet of room-temp air. I barely use my towel at all. Wife thinks I'm weird."

– KingBooRadley

Remember

"In 1990 when I was 8 years old and bored on a field trip, I saw a black Oldsmobile Cutlass driving down the street on a hot day to where you could see that mirage like distortion from the heat on the road. I took a “snapshot” by blinking my eyes and told myself “I wonder how long I can remember this image” ….well."

– AquamarineCheetah

"Even before smartphones, I always take "snapshots" by blinking my eyes hoping I'll remember every detail so I can draw it when I get home. Unfortunately, I may have taken so much snapshots that I can no longer remember every detail I want to draw."

"Makes me think my "memory is full.""

– Reasonable-Pirate902

Same, Same

"I have eaten the same lunch every day for the past 4 years and I'm not bored yet."

– OhhGoood

"How f**king big was this lunch when you started?"

– notmyrealnam3

Not Sure Who Was Weirder

"Had a line cook that worked for us for 6 months never said much. My sous chef once told him with no context, "Baw wit da baw daw bang daw bang diggy diggy." The guy smiled, left, and never came back."

– Frostygrunt

Imagination

"I pace around my house for hours listening to music imagining that I have done all the things I simply lack the brain capacity to do, or in some really bizarre scenarios, I can really get immersed in these imaginations sometimes I don't know if this is some form of schizophrenia or what."

– RandomSharinganUser

"I do the same exact thing, sometimes for hours. When I was young it would be a ridiculous amount of time and many years later it’s sort of trickled off into almost nothing (almost). It’s weird but I just thought it’s how my brain processes sh*t."

– Kolkeia

If Only

"Even as an adult I still think that if you are in a car that goes over a cliff; and right as you are about to hit the ground if you jump up you can avoid the damage and will land safely. I know I'm wrong. You shut up. I'm not crying."

– ShotCompetition2593

Pet Food

"As a kid I would snack on my dog's Milkbones."

– drummerskillit

"Haha, I have a clear memory of myself doing this as well. I was around 3 y/o. Needless to say no one was supervising me."

– Isitjustmedownhere

"When I was younger, one of my responsibilities was to feed the pet fish every day. Instead, I would hide under the futon in the spare bedroom and eat the fish food."

– -GateKeep-

My Favorite Subject

"I'm autistic and have always had a thing for insects. My neurotypical best friend and I used to hang out at this local bar to talk to girls, back in the late 90s. One time he claimed that my tendency to circle conversations back to insects was hurting my game. The next time we went to that bar (with a few other friends), he turned and said sternly "No talking about bugs. Or space, or statistics or other bullsh*t but mainly no bugs." I felt like he was losing his mind over nothing."

"It was summer, the bar had its windows open. Our group hit it off with a group of young ladies, We were all chatting and having a good time. I was talking to one of these girls, my buddy was behind her facing away from me talking to a few other people."

"A cloudless sulphur flies in and lands on little thing that holds coasters."

"Cue Jordan Peele sweating gif."

"The girl notices my tension, and asks if I am looking at the leaf. "Actually, that's a lepidoptera called..." I looked at the back of my friend's head, he wasn't looking, "I mean a butterfly..." I poked it and it spread its wings the girl says "oh that's a BUG?!" and I still remember my friend turning around slowly to look at me with chastisement. The ONE thing he told me not to do."

"I was 21, and was completely not aware that I already had a rep for being an oddball. It got worse from there."

– Phormicidae

*Teeth Chatter*

"I bite ice cream sometimes."

RedditbOiiiiiiiiii

"That's how I am with popsicles. My wife shudders every single time."

monobarreller

Never Speak Of This

"I put ice in my milk."

– GTFOakaFOD

"You should keep that kind of thing to yourself. Even when asked."

– We-R-Doomed

"There's some disturbing sh*t in this thread, but this one takes the cake."

– RatonaMuffin

More Than Super Hearing

"I can hear the television while it's on mute."

– Tira13e

"What does it say to you, child?"

– Mama_Skip

Yikes!

"I put mustard on my omelettes."

– Deleted User

"Oh."

– NotCrustOr-filling

Evened Up

"Whenever I say a word and feel like I used a half of my mouth more than the other half, I have to even it out by saying the word again using the other half of my mouth more. If I don't do it correctly, that can go on forever until I feel it's ok."

"I do it silently so I don't creep people out."

– LesPaltaX

"That sounds like a symptom of OCD (I have it myself). Some people with OCD feel like certain actions have to be balanced (like counting or making sure physical movements are even). You should find a therapist who specializes in OCD, because they can help you."

– MoonlightKayla

I totally have the same need for things to be balanced! Guess I'm weird and a little OCD!

Close up face of a woman in bed, staring into the camera
Photo by Jen Theodore

Experiencing death is a fascinating and frightening idea.

Who doesn't want to know what is waiting for us on the other side?

But so many of us want to know and then come back and live a little longer.

It would be so great to be sure there is something else.

But the whole dying part is not that great, so we'll have to rely on other people's accounts.

Redditor AlaskaStiletto wanted to hear from everyone who has returned to life, so they asked:

"Redditors who have 'died' and come back to life, what did you see?"

Sensations

Happy Good Vibes GIF by Major League SoccerGiphy

"My dad's heart stopped when he had a heart attack and he had to be brought back to life. He kept the paper copy of the heart monitor which shows he flatlined. He said he felt an overwhelming sensation of peace, like nothing he had felt before."

PeachesnPain

Recovery

"I had surgical complications in 2010 that caused a great deal of blood loss. As a result, I had extremely low blood pressure and could barely stay awake. I remember feeling like I was surrounded by loved ones who had passed. They were in a circle around me and I knew they were there to guide me onwards. I told them I was not ready to go because my kids needed me and I came back."

"My nurse later said she was afraid she’d find me dead every time she came into the room."

"It took months, and blood transfusions, but I recovered."

good_golly99

Take Me Back

"Overwhelming peace and happiness. A bright airy and floating feeling. I live a very stressful life. Imagine finding out the person you have had a crush on reveals they have the same feelings for you and then you win the lotto later that day - that was the feeling I had."

"I never feared death afterward and am relieved when I hear of people dying after suffering from an illness."

rayrayrayray

Free

The Light Minnie GIF by (G)I-DLEGiphy

"I had a heart surgery with near-death experience, for me at least (well the possibility that those effects are caused by morphine is also there) I just saw black and nothing else but it was warm and I had such inner peace, its weird as I sometimes still think about it and wish this feeling of being so light and free again."

TooReDTooHigh

This is why I hate surgery.

You just never know.

Shocked

Giphy

"More of a near-death experience. I was electrocuted. I felt like I was in a deep hole looking straight up in the sky. My life flashed before me. Felt sad for my family, but I had a deep sense of peace."

Admirable_Buyer6528

The SOB

"Nursing in the ICU, we’ve had people try to die on us many times during the years, some successfully. One guy stood out to me. His heart stopped. We called a code, are working on him, and suddenly he comes to. We hadn’t vented him yet, so he was able to talk, and he started screaming, 'Don’t let them take me, don’t let them take me, they are coming,' he was scared and yelling."

"Then he yelled a little more, as we tried to calm him down, he screamed, 'No, No,' and gestured towards the end of the bed, and died again. We didn’t get him back. It was seriously creepy. We called his son to tell him the news, and the son said basically, 'Good, he was an SOB.'”

1-cupcake-at-a-time

Colors

"My sister died and said it was extremely peaceful. She said it was very loud like a train station and lots of talking and she was stuck in this area that was like a curtain with lots of beautiful colors (colors that you don’t see in real life according to her) a man told her 'He was sorry, but she had to go back as it wasn’t her time.'"

Hannah_LL7

"I had a really similar experience except I was in an endless garden with flowers that were colors I had never seen before. It was quiet and peaceful and a woman in a dress looked at me, shook her head, and just said 'Not yet.' As I was coming back, it was extremely loud, like everyone in the world was trying to talk all at once. It was all very disorienting but it changed my perspective on life!"

huntokarrr

The Fog

"I was in a gray fog with a girl who looked a lot like a young version of my grandmother (who was still alive) but dressed like a pioneer in the 1800s she didn't say anything but kept pulling me towards an opening in the wall. I kept refusing to go because I was so tired."

"I finally got tired of her nagging and went and that's when I came to. I had bled out during a c-section and my heart could not beat without blood. They had to deliver the baby and sew up the bleeders. refill me with blood before they could restart my heart so, like, at least 12 minutes gone."

Fluffy-Hotel-5184

Through the Walls

"My spouse was dead for a couple of minutes one miserable night. She maintains that she saw nothing, but only heard people talking about her like through a wall. The only thing she remembers for absolute certain was begging an ER nurse that she didn't want to die."

"She's quite alive and well today."

Hot-Refrigerator6583

Well let's all be happy to be alive.

It seems to be all we have.

Man's waist line
Santhosh Vaithiyanathan/Unsplash

Trying to lose weight is a struggle understood by many people regardless of size.

The goal of reaching a healthy weight may seem unattainable, but with diet and exercise, it can pay off through persistence and discipline.

Seeing the pounds gradually drop off can also be a great motivator and incentivize people to stay the course.

Those who've achieved their respective weight goals shared their experiences when Redditor apprenti8455 asked:

"People who lost a lot of weight, what surprises you the most now?"

Redditors didn't see these coming.

Shiver Me Timbers

"I’m always cold now!"

– Telrom_1

"I had a coworker lose over 130 pounds five or six years ago. I’ve never seen him without a jacket on since."

– r7ndom

"140 lbs lost here starting just before COVID, I feel like that little old lady that's always cold, damn this top comment was on point lmao."

– mr_remy

Drawing Concern

"I lost 100 pounds over a year and a half but since I’m old(70’s) it seems few people comment on it because (I think) they think I’m wasting away from some terminal illness."

– dee-fondy

"Congrats on the weight loss! It’s honestly a real accomplishment 🙂"

"Working in oncology, I can never comment on someone’s weight loss unless I specifically know it was on purpose, regardless of their age. I think it kind of ruffles feathers at times, but like I don’t want to congratulate someone for having cancer or something. It’s a weird place to be in."

– LizardofDeath

Unleashing Insults

"I remember when I lost the first big chunk of weight (around 50 lbs) it was like it gave some people license to talk sh*t about the 'old' me. Old coworkers, friends, made a lot of not just negative, but harsh comments about what I used to look like. One person I met after the big loss saw a picture of me prior and said, 'Wow, we wouldn’t even be friends!'”

"It wasn’t extremely common, but I was a little alarmed by some of the attention. My weight has been up and down since then, but every time I gain a little it gets me a little down thinking about those things people said."

– alanamablamaspama

Not Everything Goes After Losing Weight

"The loose skin is a bit unexpected."

– KeltarCentauri

"I haven’t experienced it myself, but surgery to remove skin takes a long time to recover. Longer than bariatric surgery and usually isn’t covered by insurance unless you have both."

– KatMagic1977

"It definitely does take a long time to recover. My Dad dropped a little over 200 pounds a few years back and decided to go through with skin removal surgery to deal with the excess. His procedure was extensive, as in he had skin taken from just about every part of his body excluding his head, and he went through hell for weeks in recovery, and he was bedridden for a lot of it."

– Jaew96

These Redditors shared their pleasantly surprising experiences.

Shopping

"I can buy clothes in any store I want."

– WaySavvyD

"When I lost weight I was dying to go find cute, smaller clothes and I really struggled. As someone who had always been restricted to one or two stores that catered to plus-sized clothing, a full mall of shops with items in my size was daunting. Too many options and not enough knowledge of brands that were good vs cheap. I usually went home pretty frustrated."

– ganache98012

No More Symptoms

"Lost about 80 pounds in the past year and a half, biggest thing that I’ve noticed that I haven’t seen mentioned on here yet is my acid reflux and heartburn are basically gone. I used to be popping tums every couple hours and now they just sit in the medicine cabinet collecting dust."

– colleennicole93

Expanding Capabilities

"I'm all for not judging people by their appearance and I recognise that there are unhealthy, unachievable beauty standards, but one thing that is undeniable is that I can just do stuff now. Just stamina and flexibility alone are worth it, appearance is tertiary at best."

– Ramblonius

People Change Their Tune

"How much nicer people are to you."

"My feet weren't 'wide' they were 'fat.'"

– LiZZygsu

"Have to agree. Lost 220 lbs, people make eye contact and hold open doors and stuff"

"And on the foot thing, I also lost a full shoe size numerically and also wear regular width now 😅"

– awholedamngarden

It's gonna take some getting used to.

Bones Everywhere

"Having bones. Collarbones, wrist bones, knee bones, hip bones, ribs. I have so many bones sticking out everywhere and it’s weird as hell."

– Princess-Pancake-97

"I noticed the shadow of my ribs the other day and it threw me, there’s a whole skeleton in here."

– bekastrange

Knee Pillow

"Right?! And they’re so … pointy! Now I get why people sleep with pillows between their legs - the knee bones laying on top of each other (side sleeper here) is weird and jarring."

– snic2030

"I lost only 40 pounds within the last year or so. I’m struggling to relate to most of these comments as I feel like I just 'slimmed down' rather than dropped a ton. But wow, the pillow between the knees at night. YES! I can relate to this. I think a lot of my weight was in my thighs. I never needed to do this up until recently."

– Strongbad23

More Mobility

"I’ve lost 100 lbs since 2020. It’s a collection of little things that surprise me. For at least 10 years I couldn’t put on socks, or tie my shoes. I couldn’t bend over and pick something up. I couldn’t climb a ladder to fix something. Simple things like that I can do now that fascinate me."

"Edit: Some additional little things are sitting in a chair with arms, sitting in a booth in a restaurant, being able to shop in a normal store AND not needing to buy the biggest size there, being able to easily wipe my butt, and looking down and being able to see my penis."

– dma1965

People making significant changes, whether for mental or physical health, can surely find a newfound perspective on life.

But they can also discover different issues they never saw coming.

That being said, overcoming any challenge in life is laudable, especially if it leads to gaining confidence and ditching insecurities.