Should you Worry about Mesothelioma?
Mesothelioma is a serious disease, and 99% of all cases are attributable to exposure to asbestos. It’s a disease that can remain dormant for as long as 20 to 50 years before it starts taking its devastating toll on a person’s health and life. Although the cancer may show up in less than 20 years in some cases, most people don’t develop any symptoms until somewhere around 35 years after exposure. Early symptoms may not ring any bells, either, because they may be as basic as general pain in the chest or back. Therefore, anyone who ever worked in an environment where there were asbestos fibers needs to be on guard for the rest of their lives.
Mesothelioma causes cancer to develop in the lining that surrounds the lungs as well as inside the ribcage and around abdominal organs. The longer a person was exposed to asbestos, the better the chance that he or she will develop Mesothelioma somewhere down the line. However, there have also been cases diagnosed that were caused by limited asbestos exposure and even household exposure. It may be that you had a summer job in construction years ago. You could have been exposed then. A lot of people who were in the Navy prior to the ’70s have come down with Mesothelioma, too.
There are a number of materials you could have been exposed to that contained asbestos, because asbestos was widely-used prior to the middle of the 1970s when the first reports of the damages it could cause were released. Before that time almost every kind of insulation contained asbestos, including insulation used in homes, around pipes, for fire-proofing, and in boilers. Powdered forms of plaster, cement, and joint compounds that were used to insulate contained asbestos, too, and since using them caused employees to breathe in a lot of their dust, they have proved to be a major source of asbestos exposure.
People who worked in the following occupations prior to the mid 1970s need to be alert for the symptoms of Mesothelioma: * Paper mills * Brake and clutch shoe manufacture * Boilermakers * Electrical and carpentry workers or bricklayers * Insulation - manufacture or installation * Steel refineries and other steel industries * Shipyard workers * Maintenance workers
Even if you did work in any of these occupations, that’s not a sure sign you’re going to come down with Mesothelioma. However, it does put you at a higher risk, and you should let your physician know that you were exposed. He may recommend that you take some tests in order to determine if the asbestos is having any effect on you. He may want to do a complete physical, have x-rays taken of your chest and abdomen, and ask you to take pulmonary function tests. In some cases CT scans or MRIs are advisable. All of this testing may well find no evidence of Mesothelioma, but at least you’ll know for sure which can be a relief.
If the time comes when you’re diagnosed with Mesothelioma, one of the first things you’ll want to do is to hire a lawyer who specializes in cases involving the disease. He will be able to evaluate your claim and file a suit against your employer seeking damages if it can be proven that there was any negligence on the part of your employer in withholding information or not providing the safety equipment you needed.
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