PHOTO: Helen Bender with her gua shua massage tool. Credit: Kennedy News and Media
A real estate agent has claimed a viral TikTok beauty massage hack saved her life – after she found a lump on her neck that turned out to be cancer.
Helen Bender was using the latest-craze gua shua massage tool on her face in a bid to sculpt a ‘skinnier’ jawline and soothe her neck muscles in April 2022, when she first felt the bump under her skin.
@helenbender TW: Large tumor and very unflattering photos of me 🙂 #cancer #immunotherapy #dermatologist #doctorsoftiktok #skincare #sunscreen
WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Woman says TikTok beauty hack helped her find cancer – and save her life.
Unfazed, the 26-year-old, from the US state of Alabama, believed it to be a swollen lymph node caused by her being run down with a cold.
But when the lump continued to grow, and her weight plummeted, Bender – who had been in remission for five years from a previous melanoma diagnosis – booked an oncologist appointment.
The beauty lover was stunned when doctors diagnosed her with stage IV melanoma.
She began a two-year course of immunotherapy to tackle the cancer cells.
Eight months into her treatment, Bender is sharing her ordeal to urge others to get anything unusual checked by a doctor.
She said using the gua shua saved her life.
“If I hadn’t used it so early on, I’d probably have skipped the appointment and not managed to get it looked at. I could have died,” she said.
“I’d seen girls on TikTok use a gua shua on their face and one night I was using it doing a lymphatic massage.
“I’d started to use it to try and make my face skinnier when I noticed this bump.
“I get sick a lot with colds and stuff, so I thought at first it was just a swollen lymph node.
“Then I noticed I’d lost a lot of weight. I was loving it, thinking ‘I’m so skinny’ – not realising it was cancer.”
Because the lump didn’t hurt, Bender, who was five years in remission from a cancerous mole on her back, was unconcerned.
But when it started to grow, she went to a dermatologist who urged her to re-book a missed oncologist appointment.
“I have a history of cancer. When I was 18, I had a mole come up on my back,” Bender said.
“They did a biopsy and it came back as melanoma, which was crazy as I’d never used a tanning bed.
“The spot was removed and I’d been in remission for over five years.”
Bender didn’t think much of the neck lump because it was not painful.
“But it just kept getting bigger, so I went to the dermatologist,” she said.
“I’m meant to have an annual appointment with the oncologist to get a chest x-ray and blood work, but I missed it by a couple of weeks.”
Having rebooked her appointment for April 26, Bender had a lung x-ray and booked in for a follow-up scan on May 11 – where it was discovered she had stage four cancer.
A PET scan then revealed she had tumours throughout her body – including on her pancreas, both lungs and a cluster in her intestines.
“I booked in for a full body CT scan and I went to Italy for 10 days with my family,” she said.
“On the trip, I felt something was going wrong but I didn’t want to tell my family. I just wanted to have a nice time.”
She then noticed another lump right on her clavicle.
“That made me think something was spreading,” she said.
“The day I got back, I had the full body CT scan and within an hour they called me.”
Bender put aside the errands she was running and went straight to her doctor’s office, calling her fiancé to ask him to stay by his phone.
@helenbender Thankfully, my immunotherapy treatment is doing WONDERS and all of my tumors are shrinking!! BUT GO TO THE DERMATOLOGIST!!
“The doctor sat down and said, ‘This is stage four cancer’. I remember having a blank stare on my face, it was such a blur,” she said.
“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.
“I had my fiancé come and meet me at the doctors office, we were both crying.
“I asked my doctor how long he thought I would have, and he said someone had come to him at a similar stage and they died in six weeks.”
Bender started a course of immunotherapy in early June.
The treatment initially caused the tumours to balloon so much that strangers stopped her and said they would pray for her.
“It was pretty painful. On my jaw, the lump was pressing on a nerve and it got difficult to swallow,” Bender said.
“I had a really big tumour in my left thigh, about the size of my fist, it grew so huge that my muscles would ache so badly.
“I couldn’t go to the rest room for so long as some were in my intestines and it was causing internal problems.
“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.
“People would even stop me at the grocery store and pray for me.“
She says the swelling has now gone down and the tumours are no longer painful.
“I still have a lot of tumours, but you’d probably have no idea looking at me,” she said.
“I’ve been having the treatment for about seven months and so far it’s working.
“Immunotherapy takes about two (months) and builds up your immune system so your body can fight the cancer itself.
“When I go for treatment, it’ll wipe me out for the day, but the rest of the week I’m able to work and hang out with my friends.”
Bender has another year-and-a-half of treatment, and doctors suggest she will go into remission in under two years.
“It’s working really well,” she said.
“It doesn’t have the same effects that chemotherapy does, so I have a pretty good quality of life.
“The one thing now that I always want to tell people is – go to your appointments.”
Bender feels positive for her future.
“We knew immunotherapy was the only option,” she said.
“There’s a 50/50 chance if it works for you or not, and if it doesn’t then it’s basically a death sentence.
“I said (if that’s the case), ‘Just let me know when I need to go enjoy my life on a beach’, you know?”
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