How a viral beauty massage hack helped me discover cancer

When a woman purchased a beauty product that had gone viral on TikTok, she never imagined it would lead to a devastating cancer diagnosis.

Helen Bender, 26, was using a gua sha massage tool on her face in April 2022 when she noticed a lump on her jawline, which later lead to a stage 4 cancer diagnosis.

Gua sha is an ancient Chinese technique that consists of using a massage tool with smooth edges on the face to stimulate circulation and reduce inflammation, according to Healthline.

TikTokers swear by it for creating a slimmer-looking jawline and soothing the neck muscles, which prompted Bender to purchase one.

“I’d started to use it to try and make my face skinnier when I noticed this bump, I wasn’t sure what it was,” the estate agent told South West News Service.

Bender, from Mobile, Alabama, wasn’t too fazed when she found the lump, as she was five years in remission from a cancerous mole on her back and it didn’t hurt.

“I get sick a lot with colds and stuff, so I thought at first it was just a swollen lymph node,” she explained. “I didn’t think much of it [the neck lump] because it didn’t hurt, but it just kept getting bigger, so I went to the dermatologist.”

The dermatologist urged her to re-book an oncologist appointment she had missed a few months prior.

Bender rebooked her appointment and then had a lung X-ray taken, scheduling a follow-up scan, to take place a few weeks later, before going on vacation to Italy with her family.

However, on the trip, she realized something wasn’t right and began to worry.

“I noticed another lump right on my clavicle on my shoulder. That made me think something was spreading,” Bender said.

When home, she went for a full body scan, leading to the devastating news that she had stage four cancer.

“The day I got back I had the full body CT scan and within an hour they called me,” she said. “I was running errands and they told me to come in immediately, that it was urgent. I went by myself and called my fiancé to stay by his phone.”

A PET scan revealed she had tumors throughout her body, including on her pancreas and both lungs, and a cluster of them in her intestines.

“I remember having a blank stare on my face, it was such a blur,” Bender recalled. “There were around 20 lumps, it had spread throughout my body to multiple areas. It actually says on my records it’s possibly stage five.”

Bender said telling her family members the awful news was the hardest part. She called her fiancé first and he met her at the doctor’s office before she figured out how to tell the rest of her family.

“I couldn’t tell my dad, it’s so hard to tell that kind of news to family members. So the doctor told my dad, and my dad told my mom and sister,” she said

Although her doctor revealed the somber news that some patients only lived for six weeks past their diagnosis, Bender immediately started a course of immunotherapy in June 2022 and feels positive about how her body has responded so far. There’s a 50/50 chance it could work and so far it’s been effective.

However, she said some side effects from the medication have caused body parts to swell — some growing to the size of her fist. She said strangers on the street have stopped to say they’d pray for her.

“It was hard seeing myself in the mirror as the lump on my jaw would remind me I could die, it made it hard to forget,” she said.

Bender has been in treatment for seven months, and has another year-and-a-half left, with doctors predicting she’ll go into remission in under two years.

“It’s working really well. It doesn’t have the same effects that chemotherapy does, so I have a pretty good quality of life,” the optimistic woman said, urging everyone to regularly see their doctors.

“The one thing now that I always want to tell people is to go to your appointments,” she said.