Woman with 'deadly but preventable' cancer shares four symptoms she initially ignored

A woman who was diagnosed with a common but preventable cancer has shared four signs she 'didn't think were a big deal' at first.

Today marks the start of Cervical Cancer Prevention Week, dedicated to raising awareness of a condition that affects more than 3,000 women in the UK each year. It is the fourth most common cancer in women worldwide and the 14th most common across the country. However, 99.8% of cases are preventable, according to Cancer Research UK.

To mark the occasion, medical experts and sufferers are encouraging the public to spread awareness. Taking to TikTok, a woman named Natasha, who previously had cervical cancer, has shared four symptoms she initially ignored before she was diagnosed.

"First one: abnormal bleeding," Natasha said. "Now this can mean anything, so this can be bleeding after intercourse, which I had, or just random, sporadic bleeding [...] or irregular periods."

Natasha said she noticed this symptom "for a while", but brushed it off because she'd had irregular periods before and didn't see it as a "big issue" until she received her diagnosis.

Pain during sex, also known as dyspareunia, can be a sign of cervical cancer. It is also a symptom of a number of other conditions.

Natasha continued: "I can't even explain to you how it felt. All I can say is that it wasn't nice and it wasn't pleasant. But again, because I'd just had quite rubbish periods and bad period pains, I put it down to that all the time. I was wrong."

Third on Natasha's list was fatigue. "This one isn't spoken about a lot because not everyone does get this unless you're in the really advanced stages of it," she said.

"The fatigue I had, I can't even explain it. I needed to be asleep all the time, and obviously this is