Fitness coach mistook her colon cancer symptoms for IBS

Danni Duncan, 40, a fitness and nutrition coach in Australia’s Gold Coast, said she spent decades misreading symptoms of colon cancer as IBS. Diagnosed with IBS around age 11 after years of elimination diets, she later improved by eating whole foods and cutting alcohol. In her late 30s, constipation and months of bloating returned, and she used Metamucil. After giving birth to her fourth child in September 2024, anemia worsened; in early 2025 she training for a marathon felt unusually winded and performance collapsed. April 2025 hemoglobin was 70 g/L, leading to iron infusions and a May colonoscopy that found stage 2 colon cancer. Surgery removed a tumor via right hemicolectomy.