Has anyone here ever gotten one of those home DNA tests?


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pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

German populations with infrequent CHEK2*1100delC and minor associations with early-onset and familial breast cancer - PubMed

CHEK2*1100delC is associated with a twofold increased breast cancer risk. This was shown in a collaborative analysis of European populations, but not in other populations from Europe and the US. Accordingly, there is a need to clarify the role of CHEK2*1100delC in breast cancer. We established...
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

This article is the top hit for "CHEK2 Germany" and mentions Northrhine-Westphalia for some reason. I've seen that region in my mom's ancestry. It doesn't exactly say that Northrhine-Westphalia has a lot of CHEK2 1100delC though, just that they studied it there.
 
Man, I have to find something to do until the 19th other than googling CHEK2. I should note, one of the pages I looked at was a study of how night shift work increases cancer risk. This was from before widespread internet use, but I imagine the effect is roughly the same from staying up all night browsing the internet. They mentioned part of it was light affecting melatonin production, meaning the sleep people who stay up at night get isn't as good as regular night sleep. You can take supplemental melatonin though, but the thing is, I already do, and it doesn't really help me much.

I was just reminded too, my twin sister, not the one with the CHEK2 mutation, works night shift. I mean, she hasn't been tested, so she could still have it, but working night shift has a lot of bad health effects regardless.
 
I was thinking about seeking treatment for hypochondriasis, but I'm already on anxiety medication, so the only other option is targeted psychotherapy. Honestly, I don't put much stock in that stuff. Especially DBT. I know they have studies backing DBT, but everything about it sounds like new age hippie bullshit. Studies have been less reliable in the past two decades anyway. See, people used to be able to get the same results by repeating the same study, and that would confirm the study's findings. People getting the same results hasn't happened as much in the past two decades though. It's sort of a scientific crisis.
 
I thought I'd make a fun post after that last downer. Just how German was my Irish mom? Not only is her mom's side of the family all German, her Irish dad's mom's side of the family is also all German. And to top it off, the furthest back person I can find with my mom's Irish surname, my fourth great grandfather, was also married to a German. My mom's supposed to be a gentle leprechaun, darnit. This is why we can't trust names.
 
I ended my Ancestry trial early. I wanna try and forget about all that stuff until the 19th. It doesn't really matter what runs in my family if I can just get tested for CHEK2 directly.
 
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Bah, I’m still googling CHEK2. There’s really nothing I should do before the 19th though. It sucks that I couldn’t schedule the appointment for sooner. They ask us to schedule all appointments at least two weeks in advance here, so they can set us up with Medicaid-funded transportation to them. CHEK2 isn’t an emergency, so it wouldn’t be an exception to that.

This kind of reminds me of the time I won a PS4 in a contest, and had to wait around three months to get it.
 
You know, I just found out that there's a gene mutation that causes both autism and cancer, PTEN. My sister definitely would've been tested for that though, since she got both a hereditary cancer screening for herself and a developmental delay gene screening for her and her son. I should stick to trying not to worry about CHEK2, instead of trying not to worry about all the genes.
 
My sister told me the other day I should worry more about my weight than CHEK2. I was just thinking about how humans are bad at choosing which things to worry about. Novelty plays a key role in it. Everyone's overweight, so no-one cares about it. CHEK2 mutations only happen to less than 1% of Americans, but my chance of having it is 50%. That's the type of thing that grabs attention, even though my weight is still even more likely to kill me even if I have CHEK2. I mean seriously, heart disease kills more people than cancer, but we focus on cancer, because we already know how to prevent heart disease. That said, even though we already know how to prevent heart disease, we're still really bad at preventing heart disease, so maybe more research should be put into fixing people's brains so that they actually work on preventing heart disease.
 
I'm thinking about politics too. Liberals used to say that falling furniture kills more Americans than terrorism. Now they say that white terrorism is a huge threat. They've gotten better at playing the game. I'm still thinking about the furniture.
 
Yeah, um, sorry about those last few posts. I'm just stressed. Something is telling me there could be more than just CHEK2 in play. Specifically, my mom and her sister were both younger than they should have been when they got cancer, even with CHEK2. I can't do anything but get tested on the 19th though.

I didn't ask whether they were going to just test for CHEK2, or do a full hereditary cancer panel, which would include like 20 genes, but I think the multi-gene panel is standard practice now. Certainly, if you're sampling all of the DNA, why not test multiple things?
 
To follow that up, I did mention my mom had cancer before I was even born, right? That's a bit scary in itself. I'm not sure what treatment she had, other than mastectomy on one side. If my mom had radiation before I was born, that could certainly mess with my DNA in new and exciting ways. It's pretty amazing that she held on until I was 14.
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One more thing. @Null I heard people who grew up with a sick parent are more likely to get hypochondriasis. It's sort of a learned behavior. My mom got all the medical attention, why not me?
 
I just learned that people are often given fentanyl during colonoscopies. Not sure if I want more colonoscopies or less now. Well, it's not like I really have a say anyway.
 
JDTAY said:
I'm actually waffling on the ancestry test now. I wanna get the hereditary cancer screening out of the way first, and then maybe try to identify relatives on my mom's side. It wouldn't be quite worth it to warn them about CHEK2, but if I had another mutation too, I guess it would.
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I was almost going to ask for the $99 for the ancestry test this morning, but then I remembered this post. I mean, maybe it would be worth it to warn them about CHEK2, but I don't really wanna get involved unless I have it myself.
 
So I caved and subscribed to Ancestry. Not sure what difference it will make though. It's gonna be hard to identify the source of my sister's CHEK2 mutation, because it's in 1.5% of Northern European populations, and my ancestry is nothing but Northern European from what I can tell. The furthest south I've seen so far is a couple from France, and they're pretty far back.

I probably will end up ordering Ancestry's DNA test if I do have CHEK2. If I don't have CHEK2 though, I'll probably lose all interest in this.
 
I've been thinking that I have worse problems than possible inherited cancer risk. It's hard to gauge which one is worst though. I mean, if you have a problem that's in your head, that doesn't mean it isn't a problem, it means it's in your head. Head problems suck. The amount of cures they have for head problems is close to zero, although they have lots of treatments for the symptoms, but I'm already on most of those.
 
Been reading more CHEK2 stuff. Apparently, a study found that 16 out of 106 people with essential thrombocythemia had a CHEK2 mutation. Pretty sure that beats the population at large.

They can just measure my platelets if they need to though. Not sure if they ever have.
 
If I remember the results of previous blood tests I've had, the comprehensive ones at least count platelets in a certain volume of blood.

Edit: But I'm not sure if a simple count is what you want. Do you want them to measure the genotype of the platelets or something?
 
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