Liver cancer originates when cancerous cells grow out of control in your liver, which alters the DNA of your liver cells. For the average human, the liver is about the size of a football. It’s found on the abdominal area between your diaphragm and stomach. This type of cancer is caused by liver cell mutation. Your cell’s DNA provides instruction for chemical processes and when a cell is cancerous it starts to behave abnormally by growing out of control forming tumors.
One or more of the below symptoms is not a direct indication that you have liver cancer. However, it does mean you should visit the doctor for a full checkup. Unfortunately signs and symptoms of liver cancer often show in the late stage of the disease, but they may show sooner. Here are the most common symptoms of liver cancer:

1. Weight loss and poor appetite
The liver plays a big part in the digestive system and when the liver has cancerous cells you end up losing appetite that will eventually lead to losing weight without trying. When the human body is malnourished it loses the ability to fight diseases. Sooner or later a liver cancer patient is exposed to other health complications. To avoid this ask your family or friends to cook for you as you eat throughout the day in small portions.

2. Nausea and vomiting
More than often the two occur together but it is best to view them separately. Nausea can be best described as an irritating feeling of the need to vomit. It is commonly accompanied by cold sweat, diarrhea, tachycardia, and pallor. Vomiting results in unintended weight loss because your stomach is not getting the time to digest any food. leaving you exposed to nutritional deficiency conditions

3. Jaundice
You can identify this condition when you notice the yellowing of the skin and white of the eye. Jaundice is better known as hyperbilirubinemia which loosely translates to too much bilirubin, a yellow pigment in the blood. Bilirubin is formed after red blood cells break down. One of the liver’s works is to keep the level of bilirubin in the blood low but when the liver is damaged by cancer the level increases hence you start to pass pale stool dark yellow urine and itching of the skin.

4. General fatigue
Most people with liver cancer experience general fatigue regardless of the cancer stage. An interesting point to note is that there is no relationship between the level of cancer and fatigue level. You might be in the late stages but having mild fatigue or in the early stage but having constant fatigue. Fatigue can be a result of unwilling weight loss.

5. Upper abdominal pain and swelling
Patients suffering from liver cancer experience upper abdominal pain and swelling when a lump forms on this area. At times the pains can be felt in the back just below your right shoulder blade

6. White or chalky stools
Bile from the liver is responsible for the brown coloring in your stool. When you are having white or chalky stool this often an indicator that there is not enough bile aching the stool and may be caused by liver cancer in some instances.