USUALLY, I’m the one sitting behind the GP’s desk, offering advice.
But when I was 39 years old, I found myself on the other side, being told I had bowel cancer.
That was seven years ago. But I have just been discharged from hospital after further surgery, and it hit me again last week, hearing the news that Dawson’s Creek actor James Van Der Beek has died of the disease, aged 48.
The rise of bowel cancer in young people is being investigated by scientists.
It is something that Sun columnist, the late Dame Deborah James, was passionate about – having been diagnosed at 35.
Her legacy, the BowelBabe Fund, is pivotal to such research.
ASK DR PHILIPPA
My wife suffers from a heavy, fuzzy head and it really affects her walking
ASK DR ZOE
I got an intensely itchy rash during a hospital stay – will I have it forever?
It was launched just a few weeks before her death in 2022, aged 40. So in the spirit of Dame Debs, I’m taking this chance to remind you of the main symptoms of bowel cancer.
Any change in your bowel habits that persists for three weeks, such as diarrhoea, constipation, frequency or feeling like you haven’t properly emptied, is worth telling your GP about. Blood in stools, abdominal pain, tiredness and unexplained weight loss are also signs.
While Dr Zoe is still recovering from a back operation, I’m here to answer readers’ questions this week . . .
INSOMNIA IS CHRONIC
Q) MY wife has had problems sleeping since March 2025
Sometimes she just cannot drop off and ends up sitting downstairs on the sofa playing games on her phone or lying under a blanket in an attempt to sleep.
She gets highly irrational and says that no one cares and she would be better off dead. I don’t think she would do anything stupid.
She is 59, has depression and anxiety, and has been having counselling for several years. Can you offer any advice?
A) Many of us know how awful it is when you can’t sleep and how it affects you the next day.
Insomnia is common and can be related to mental health conditions such as anxiety and depression, leading to issues drifting off, staying asleep or waking up very early and not being able to get back to sleep.
Then poor sleep – or no sleep – worsens low mood, irritability and negative thinking, and the cycle can keep going.
You mention that your wife has said she would be better off dead when she can’t sleep. Although you feel she wouldn’t act on this, please contact her GP for a full mental health and medication review.
If you are more concerned, contact NHS 111 or emergency services and remember, the Samaritans are available 24/7on 116 123.
Good sleep hygiene is hugely important to improve sleep.
Create a calm bedtime routine and a dark, cool bedroom, using the bed only for sleep and sex, not for watching TV or scrolling.
Both you and your wife can avoid screens for at least an hour before bed, avoid caffeine or alcohol and aim for daylight exposure and gentle activity during the day.
Keep a regular bedtime and wake-up time, even at weekends – the latter is most important.
If she can’t sleep, she is wise to get up and go to another room. This is so our brains learn to associate bed with sleep, not worrying about not sleeping.
But could she read a book before trying to sleep again, rather than use her phone?
Cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia can be very effective. Depending on where you live, there are NHS CBTi apps and services such as Sleepio and Sleepstation.
I am glad she is having counselling, but it is also important that she sees her GP.
Painful joints after thyroid removal
Q I HAVE terrible wrist, finger and ankle pain. I had my whole thyroid removed in two operations in 2023, aged 59, and I’m on 125mg levothyroxine.
I tried telling the surgeon about my pain but she didn’t seem interested.
Recently I went to my own GP with lower back pain that went on for weeks. I only got to see a therapist who said it was a pulled muscle and gave me co-codamol (which upset my stomach).
Any suggestions would help. I feel I’m wasting the doctors’ time.
A) I am really glad you asked this because you are not wasting anyone’s time, and what you are describing is very important. After the thyroid is removed, you will be prescribed the hormone levothyroxine as a tablet because your body can no longer make it itself.
Thyroxine is a hormone that affects almost every tissue in the body, including muscles, joints and bones.
If the levels are too low it can lead to joint and muscle aches and pains and stiffness.
The first step here would be to ask your GP for thyroid-function blood tests to see whether or not you are taking the correct dose.
It can be that the dose you need changes over time. However, it may be that your joint issues are not related to the thyroid surgery and replacement.
It can be due to age-related osteoarthritis, inflammatory arthritis and other conditions, and yes, your back pain could also be related to a pulled muscle.
It is important to be assessed by your doctor to take all of you into consideration, not just your thyroxine, or solely the pain in your finger or ankle – but all of you together.
If your pain relief is making you unwell then please also discuss this with your doctor.
Medications can and do have side-effects.
Q) JUST over 18 months ago, I had my prostate operated on – cored through the middle so I could come off tamsulosin and finasteride.
But in the last four months, I have had to start the medication again and also have had continuing water infections. Now and again I have an urgent need to pass urine. I also feel like I have finished peeing, before the drip starts again.
My GP has given me more antibiotics to take for three months. I am frustrated. I thought the op would cure this. My prostate is slightly enlarged, but all OK otherwise.
A) Whether or not surgery on the prostate means you stay off meds forever will depend on the type carried out.
If you have a radical prostatectomy, the entire prostate is removed, but if you have a transurethral resection of the prostate (TURP), where the inner core is bored out, as you have had, the remaining tissue can grow again over time, leading to symptoms.
The prostate is a walnut-sized gland that straddles the urethra, the tube from the bladder to the outside world.
If the prostate gets larger, it can compress or obstruct the urethra, leading to symptoms like getting up multiple times in the night to pass urine.
If medications aren’t helpful, the TURP operation can be carried out for this.
It has a quicker recovery and lower risks of serious complications than a radical prostatectomy.
As there is still prostate tissue left, it can grow with age and may explain why your symptoms have restarted and why you need the medication.
Sometimes the bladder doesn’t fully empty, which increases the risk of infection, and your GP has given you antibiotics.
If these don’t help, please see your GP again and possibly ask for a referral back to the urologists. If you notice blood in the urine, please also see your GP.
MEASLES OUTBREAK BLAMED ON LOWER MMR JAB UPTAKE
CHILDREN could be forced to self-isolate for three weeks as measles cases rip through the country.
A “big outbreak” in London has prompted the UK Health Security Agency to alert parents to the symptoms.
There have been 96 cases of the highly contagious disease so far this year (up to February 9) of which 77 per cent were in children under the age of ten.
Enfield, north London, and Birmingham, have been identified as infection hotspots. Nearly two-thirds of all infections – 63.5 per cent, or 61 cases – were in London.
More than half of those were concentrated in Enfield, which reported 34 cases.
Dr Vanessa Saliba, consultant epidemiologist at the UKHSA, said most of those affected are “unvaccinated children under ten, with some being hospitalised”.
Enfield’s NHS Ordnance Unity Centre For Health said on its website that there was a “fast-spreading measles outbreak in several schools” across the borough.
Dudu Sher-Arami, Enfield Council’s director of public health, wrote to parents: “If your child is identified as being a close contact of a person with measles and they are unvaccinated, they may be excluded from school for 21 days.”
Figures in the West Midlands reported 26 per cent of cases, with Birmingham recording 21 infections, equivalent to 22 per cent of the national total. The surge in measles cases has been fuelled, in part, by falling uptake of the measles, mumps and rubella jab.
MMR jab rates have fallen to 84 per cent, the lowest since 2010, well short of the 95 per cent needed for “herd immunity”.
This prompted the World Health Organisation to strip the UK of its measles-free status last month.
The downgrade follows more than 3,000 cases of the infection in 2024, Britain’s worst outbreak in more than a decade.
In 2025 there were 957 cases reported in the country, with a child in Liverpool dying after catching measles, while 16 others needed hospital treatment.
Dr Saliba said: “If your child has missed any of their MMR doses it’s important to catch up as soon as possible.”
The MMR vaccine is still available for older children and adults born before 2020 who were not vaccinated when they were younger.
The new MMRV vaccine, which also covers chickenpox, is usually offered to children when they are 12 and 18-months-old.
Dr Saliba said: “With Easter holidays fast approaching, this is a timely reminder to families travelling overseas to ensure all family members, especially children, are vaccinated.
“Measles is widespread in some countries with close links to the UK and there are ongoing outbreaks in parts of Europe.”