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'It's attached to something': Disturbing find behind viral TikTok

While tracking her weight loss, a woman was petrified to find a huge mass in her abdomen, which turned out to be an ovarian cyst the size of a melon.

Elizabeth Carter, 30, was inspecting her stomach after sticking to a healthier diet when the excitement turned to dread as she noticed the huge internal mass back in March this year.

"I’d lost quite a bit of weight from eating better and I was feeling my stomach while I was lying in bed one night when I felt a huge mass in my abdomen," Ms Carter recalled.

“I could push it around and see it moving so I took a video to show my family the next day."

Ms Carter spotted the mass while checking her weight loss progress one day.
Ms Carter spotted the mass while checking her weight loss progress one day. Source: Caters

“I could feel that it was attached to something because it would pull at my insides when I pushed it so far.

“I had no idea what it could be but I was scared by how big and hard it was and thought it couldn’t be a good thing because it was attached to something inside me.

“I didn’t sleep well that night at all."

Growth missed in exam just weeks earlier

The restaurant worker from West Chester, in the US state of Pennsylvania, went to the hospital the following day to have a CAT scan and trans-vaginal ultrasound which revealed that the mass was a huge cyst encasing her right ovary.

Surprisingly, a pelvic exam only weeks prior had failed to identify the large cyst.

Doctors were unable to take a biopsy to confirm if the cyst was cancerous or life-threatening as scans revealed it was filled with fluid which they couldn’t risk spilling inside her abdomen in case it contained malignant cells.

Ms Carter took to social media TikTok to educate other women about the danger.
Ms Carter took to social media to educate other women about the danger. Source: Caters

Elizabeth went under the knife to investigate the following month in April, where doctors were able to safely confirm the cyst wasn’t cancerous and remove it through four small incisions into her abdomen.

Going into surgery, doctors weren’t sure whether they would need to remove the affected ovary or even perform a complete hysterectomy, but thankfully they were able to save the ovary.

"It was scary going into surgery not knowing whether I had cancer or not so I was really relieved when I woke up and they told me it wasn’t," Ms Carter said.

Warning video gains traction on TikTok

“The cyst measured 7.2 centimetres in diameter, which the doctors told me is the same size as a melon – they believe it had been growing slowly for years."

Elizabeth recently returned to work after spending a month recovering from the episode.

She posted the video she took of the mass on TikTok to encourage other women to get checked for ovarian cysts, which has since gone viral.

Caters

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