In the past year, Old Li felt pain and discomfort in his right shoulder repeatedly, at first he did not pay attention to it, but he knew that the symptoms had a tendency to gradually worsen, especially at night, he always felt a vague soreness in his shoulder, which made him feel very uncomfortable, and sometimes he would wake up in the middle of the night with pain, but the symptoms improved after activities. Old Li suspected that it was frozen shoulder, and although it improved after massage, the symptoms always recurred. In the past month, the symptoms became more serious, accompanied by abdominal distension, poor nausea, and sometimes nausea and vomiting. After a comprehensive examination at the hospital, the doctor actually diagnosed that Lao Li was suffering from liver cancer, which was already at an advanced stage. Old Li was very shocked, why would the shoulder pain be liver cancer? But the facts were in front of him, and he had to believe them. Right shoulder pain may be related to liver cancer When it comes to liver cancer, people often think of liver pain, jaundice, abdominal distension and wasting. In fact, otherwise, due to the powerful metabolic function of liver, liver cancer has various manifestations and often lacks typical clinical symptoms in early stage, which can be easily ignored. Why can shoulder pain be caused by liver cancer? However, the pain caused by internal lesions is not as accurately localized as the skin on the body surface, and often appears as reflex pain or involvement pain, and the pain is not the site of lesion. The pain in the right shoulder caused by liver cancer is referred to as referred pain, which may be caused by liver cancer compressing the diaphragm or the muscles and nerves below the lungs. As liver is located in the upper abdomen, there are no signs and symptoms in the early stage of liver cancer, so it is difficult for general people to detect it, and even when the tumor proliferates to more than 10 cm, some people still lack typical symptoms. When the liver tumor grows gradually, it may compress the nearby diaphragm and the muscles and nerves below the lungs. These pressed nerves happen to be the nerves connected to the right shoulder, which will cause right shoulder pain. Therefore, when recurrent right shoulder pain occurs and the symptoms do not improve with appropriate treatment, it is important to have the liver examined promptly to rule out the presence of lesions. Patients with a history of hepatitis should be reminded that if they have recurrent right shoulder pain, they should not take it lightly and “self-diagnose” it as frozen shoulder, but should promptly undergo a fetoprotein and ultrasound examination and, if necessary, an enhanced CT or MR examination. Don’t wait until you are “out of options” before seeking help from TCM. It is actually a misconception to consider TCM as the last resort for cancer treatment. Take liver cancer treatment as an example, the recurrence rate of early stage patients is as high as 50% 5 years after surgery. Post-operative treatment with TCM to strengthen the spleen and protect the liver can improve the immunity of patients, promote the recovery of internal organs and reduce the recurrence rate; while for liver cancer patients in radiotherapy stage, treatment with TCM can reduce the side effects of drugs and improve the quality of life and survival. Of course, one should not use one medicine or one formula from the beginning to the end, otherwise the medicine will not be the right one, but will harm the body. Patients should use drugs produced by regular pharmaceutical companies, and should not easily believe in small street advertisements, because the production quality of drugs is not strict, and some impurities are often harmful to liver function.