'Reddit saved my life': User discovered he had testicular cancer after another account's graphic post prompted him to go to doctor

It's a website that discusses everything from pets to President Obama - but for one college student, it saved his life.

Reddit user Taylor Tyree was browsing the social media site when he came across a post that showed a man who had a testicle removed after he was diagnosed with testicular cancer.

After seeing the graphic photo and reading about the poster's symptoms, he realised he 'had something similar'.

Taylor Tyree was just browsing the social media site Reddit when he spotted a post about testicular cancer - and realised he had similar symptoms

Tyalor got an ultrasound, CAT scan and X-ray, and was told he had a large cancerous mass in his left testicle

He had an exam and doctors discovered a huge cancerous mass on his left testicle - which would need to be removed immediately.

The 21-year-old told Fox News about the moment he realised he had worryingly similar symptoms with user 'uniballer'.

He said: 'I went to the comments and was reading through and he was talking about symptoms and what not... it was like, wait, I have something similar to this.'

The Colorado School of Mines student had an ultrasound, CAT scan and X-ray, and was told he needed to be operated on urgently before the cancer spread, Fox News reported.

The college student urged others to make sure they get checked out and do an exam

It was a thread about testicular cancer that caught Taylor's eye and led him to discover he suffered form the same condition

After going through the operation, he posted a picture of himself post-surgery and has been giving advice to others about the importance of being aware of the disease and regularly checking for symptoms.

He has been using Reddit and Imgur to raise awareness and answer questions.



He said: 'I met a lot of uniballers.



'I do have a message; I would say I don't do sports, so never had to have a physical, make sure you get checked out and do an exam, because you never know what will happen.'

HOW TO SPOT TESTICULAR CANCER

Testicular cancer, is one of the less common cancers. It usually affects younger men between the ages of 15 and 44.

The most common symptom is a painless lump or swelling in the testicles.

Other symptoms can include a dull ache in the scrotum and a feeling of heaviness in the scrotum.

Testicular cancer is one of the most treatable types of cancer.

Over 95 per cent of men with early stage testicular cancer will be completely cured.

Even cases of more advanced testicular cancer, where the cancer has spread outside the testicles to nearby tissue, have an 80 per cent chance of being cured. Source: NHS



The student says he has hundreds of comments and questions to respond to from other users, but hopes to help as many people as possible.

This is not the first time the social news site Reddit has helped someone catch testicular cancer at an early stage.

A male patient, who has not been identified, took a pregnancy test left in his apartment by an ex-girlfriend as a joke, but was shocked to discover two pink lines indicating pregnancy.



The incident was turned into a crudely drawn black-and-white comic strip by a friend, who put it up on Reddit where it attracted more than 1,300 comments from concerned users.



If this is true, you should check yourself for testicular cancer. Seriously. Google it,' one commenter wrote.



The Reddit user who put up the cartoon passed on the concerned comments to his friend, the man made an appointment with a doctor who diagnosed him with cancer after detecting a small lump in his right testicle.



Home pregnancy tests detect a hormone called beta human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) found in the blood and the urine which is produced by the developing placenta. Experts say beta hCG can also signal testicular cancer.

'It turns out a fair number of testicular cancers make the same exact hormone,' Dr Mark Pomerantz, a genitourinary oncologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, told ABC News. 'There are very few things in the body that produce beta hCG, and testicular cancer is one of them.'

