Cancer and TCM

My sister in law has been dignosed with melanoma on the liver. The tumor is about the size of a grapefruit and seems tob static at this time.

It is interesting to note that her personality is marked by angry outbursts and getting very worked up. The anger is associated with "liver fire" and
also of interest is that she lost her eye to melanoma 7 years ago.

Some cancer specialists have said that cancer moves up and not down.

Is it possible the cancer in fact originated in the liver and remained undetected and manifested itself in the eyes?
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Norman Carr

There are people here more qualified than I, but I'll give my opinion.

[quote:c1723db484]Is it possible the cancer in fact originated in the liver and remained undetected and manifested itself in the eyes?[/quote:c1723db484]

That hypothesis makes sense to me.

Of course, 7 years is a long time to go undetected. So I propose another hypothesis.

I would say that, evidently, your sister-in-law's chronic anger originated a stagnation of Qi in the Liver, which in turn also produced a stagnation of blood (thus creating the possibility of developing liver cancer).

This excess Liver activity caused it to rebel against the Lung, demonstrated by a propensity towards skin cancer which was then triggered by some external factor (exposure to sun, chemicals, etc.). Thus the melanoma appeared.

Since the eyes are directly conected to the liver through the liver channel, the possibility of damage to the eyes was high. And once the melanoma appeared, on her face near her eye, I suppose, that was the trigger that caused the eye to be lost.

Finally, due to metastases of the melanoma to the liver, the liver itself was next in line.

[list:c1723db484][u:c1723db484]In short[/u:c1723db484]:
-The liver developed the cancer potential.
-External factors triggered the (skin) melanoma.
-The (skin) melanoma triggered the loss of the eye and the liver melanoma.
[/list:u:c1723db484]
Thus completing a kind of [i:c1723db484]cancer-trigger circle[/i:c1723db484].

So, if there really was no liver cancer to speak of before the skin cancer, then liver [u:c1723db484]did[/u:c1723db484] start the cancer process, but possibly didn't develop cancer until [u:c1723db484]after[/u:c1723db484] the melanoma had spread on her skin.

The western medicine suggestion that cancer moves up and not down works well from the western medicine point of view, but not from the TCM point of view (as far as I know). Maybe this supports my [i:c1723db484]cancer-trigger circle[/i:c1723db484] idea for your sister-in-law's case.

Terrible thing to happen to someone. Best wishes.

All of this sounds good to me, but I submit this for peer review!

After publication of excellent “cancer-trigger circle” hypothesis proposed by Serpent, I started look through case histories of my patients suffered from different forms of cancer. And I paid attention to another factor. Nearly in each case after first lesion focus appearance patient was undergo a course of medical (chemotherapeutical) treatment, directed to destroying cancer cells, but suppressing certain system too.
My question is: is it possible that medical treatment in case of eye melanoma was an additional reason for liver melanoma appearance? When melanoma of eye appears, patient was obviously undergone chemotherapy course. May be it was additional trigger which results in extra restriction of metal. So if wood still be in excess (chronic anger) and metal now can not exercise normal restriction on it, then the excessive wood can be reason for metastases of the melanoma to the liver.
And second question ensuing from first one is: may be it is important simultaneously with chemotherapy restrain excessive element (in our case the wood). For this, I thing, methods of TCM are irreplaceable.
Only one example from my practice as an illustration of “cancer-trigger circle”: carcinoma of large intestine – operation and chemotherapy – myeloma of tibia, fibula and femur (multiple myeloma) - operation and chemotherapy – tumor of lung (biopsy was not done) – chemotherapy – tumor of brain. In this case provocative and permanent factor was death of son (a grief influences on metal).
Chemotherapy not only undoubtedly weakened immune system (multiple myeloma), but to all appearance also played a role in “cancer-trigger circle”: metal – water – metal. Note different tumor cells appearance, which can be explained not by dissemination of tumor, but by extra restriction of elements.
Of course, it is not simple to draw a definitive conclusion, since in many cases difficult to trace chronological consecution (for instance, detection of tumor cells in large intestine and in liver at the same time). However it can be traced in light of the theory of five elements and taking into account the correlation between man and his natural surrounding.

Sophia's findings are very interesting, as are the questions she asks. I think what she proposes makes sense, and to me it is a clear example of the value of TCM, even in western medicine treatments.