The Budwig FOCC

thenewme

"I don,t give a hoot if IT'S "PROVEN" to prevent cancer or not, i just know it,s good for me "

Believe it or not, that's exactly the kind of honest response we need here!  Some people present the Budwig diet/FOCC as a legitimate cancer treatment/cure, and I'm personally interested in reading more if anyone has any sources to support that.  

Otherwise, for anyone who just wants to follow that diet for whatever reason whatsoever, I sincerely have no problem with their choice!  I don't happen to agree that it's a healthy choice, cancer or not, but if you do then, really, truly, that's great and I wish you the best!  

Lets not make this personal - I'm just asking for honest sharing of information, not justification for personal choices.

chillipadi

I followed the full Budwig protocol (not just the cottage cheese and flax oil mix) faithfully for 14 months in 2008. I even made sauerkraut regularly. During that time, the cancer in my breast grew and spread rapidly, until tumors the size of oranges covered my whole breast, oozed foul-smelling fluids and bled profusely. The Budwig protocol (BP) disallows allopathic treatment like chemotherapy, so I did not have any conventional medical treatment during that time. After the cancer progressed so horribly, I gave up BP and sought medical help. My oncologist managed to reduce the tumors dramatically after just a few months. Unfortunately, the cancer has become resistant to most hormonal drugs and several chemo drugs so the tumors have grown again.

I was a member of that Yahoo Budwig group during that time, where the members have a kind of religious fanaticism. Anyone who questions the BP is shot down. Some of my posts warning others against BP strangely vanished. The moderator of that forum is extremely biased.

It's natural to want to belive that diet / lifestyle changes alone can eradicate cancer or keep it at bay, without the help of allopathic medicine. Be careful about rejecting all conventional treatment for alternative therapies like the BP. There's no documented proof that any of these alternative therapies actually work, so you may be playing with your life.

Leia

Apple, you said:

"Diets are great for many things.. improving a body's health and ability to withstand the ravages of disease and discomfort of cancer treatments. "

Full stop; You are totally missing the point.

I am sorry for being so trite, but what we eat IS what we are. You say diets are for "withstanding the ravages of disease and discomfort of cancer treatments."

This is totally WRONG.  

A healthful diet, ingesting whole foods and not processed foods is what makes us well. What important nutrients are restricted on the Budwig protocol? Can you clarify?

Melissa, I'm sorry that your cancer continued to grow with the Budwig protocol. What is your cancer?

I just know, for my part, on the FOCC, the subset of the Budwig, I have never felt better in my life. And I have NO cancer. After my 2cm breast cancer diagnosis, six years ago. And my Leio cancer has not come back, either. 7 years ago. With no other "treatments."

The goal in my life is feeling great.  And I am. With the FOCC and the D3.

Anonymous

Chillipadi, i will not replicate what you say in your post which i find shocking, and i,ve read many of your similar posts, i just don,t know how anyone could let it go that far without consulting.

apple

Full stop Leia..?.

you have no idea about my food choices or 'food beliefs'.  I am a food expert.. that's all I am going to say for you...I have been a 'foodie' forever, a chef and am an avid collector of nutrition and food books. .... people consult with me.. or used to...

 If we are what we eat - how come I have cancer?

The Budwig Protocol ignores many nutrients that we need.  Go ahead and believe it will cure you..  a 2 cm cancerous tumor is NOTHING.... except for those in whom it will grow.  I would naturally embrace many parts of her 'diet' but find it rather Germanic.  I actually, could totally follow her diet if it were not so restrictive in the protein department.  "avoid meats,  poultry, seafood, eggs & butter."  The body needs a lot of protein when fighting illness.. I imagine that one could get enough protein from the oil.. but I think over a 1/2 cup of flaxseed is rather extreme and one definitely should buy organic cottage cheese (or whatever substitute).. which they claim to have in the states... but I'd be more comfortable in a more pesticide, gentle. and isolated rural setting. 

She claimed that her protocol has healed 90% of those she has studied but she removes those who have succumbed to their disease from her 'research' y saying they 'quit' her diet and the cancer came back.... not to discredit her research but her methods are not the same as scientific methods, and therefore do not merit comparison. 

apples to apples....

Your attitude is typical of a forum I would be so interested in, if it were not populated with modern medicine trashers.   If one does not trash doctors and nurses and chemo... they are trashed, denounced and made fun of.     Nutrition and diet are indeed vitally important and some of you are so unnecessarily zealous you drive off those you could help with your argumentative ways.

Please give credit to the hour walk to your bus stop.   Your enthusiasm is wonderful, but please don't say that what I write is 'totally wrong',..

thanks

peace and love, apple / Mary
Diagnosis: 4/10/2008, IDC, 5cm, Stage IV, Grade 3, 4/9 nodes, mets, ER+, HER2+

chillipadi

I didi see an oncologist during the period I was doing the BP. However, Joanna Budwig made it clear that the protocol was not to be done with allopathic treatment like chemo. If it was to work, it had to be followed to the letter. So I didi just that. When the cancer seemed to grow worse, BP evangelists dismissed it it as a healing crisis and encouraged me to carry on. Stupidly, I listened to them.

Sadly, I was also influenced by my church which maintained that I was already healed. I was told that if I believed this I would see my healing manifest. That church was totally against self-effort. I was advised to ignore the cancer and just carry on normally, and eventually it would lessen and disappear. Well, all the anointing oil that was sprinkled on me certainly didn't make it go away. I'm no longer attending that church.They've done a lot of harm to many trusting souls, many of whom have passed away from cancer and other illnesses.

Anonymous

Apple, u might be surprised to learn that people living in rural areas were found to develop more cancers than the city dwellers. I don,t have back up, as it was a tv documentary, but it could certainly be found. They compared 3 large cities in 3 different regions of the US with agricultural areas. Because of the environmental pollution, pesticides and co., men,s sperm counts were decreased by almost 50% compared to men,s in the urban areas. The same doc found that male frogs had developed testes which contained female eggs.

Anonymous

Well, i will have to verify Dr Budwig,s protocol which i have not done yet. To forego conventional treatment past a certain progression of the disease (orange size tumours on breast oozing blood and pus) ........

apple

pesticides are killers..no doubt.  as is sun on the skin, old age, bad habits, and likker... certain regions like their alchohol.  Rural Missouri... oh my.

Anonymous

Apple, what is your point ?

apple

i was agreeing with you.  is that a sin or something?   

so no.. i am not surprised that rural populations can exhibit higher cancer rates.

Anonymous

It is certainly unusual, am not accustomed to it

Member_of_the_Club

I also wish diet alone was the answer as I have been a vegetarian my entire adult life.  I remember when I was younger thinking I would never get cancer because I was so virtuous with my meat-free diet.   Ha ha ha.

apple

that said  - member of the club - meats in America (at least) are so laden with artificial growth hormones, pesticides, etc... it is wise to choose most of our proteins from vegetable sources.

That said - one of the healthiest, fittest people I know.. my sons' taekwondo teacher - eats almost nothing but meat and vegetable. . .. few fruits and little carbs.  at 80 he still competes and can from a squat, leep up and straddle jump, touching his feet before coming down.. and that is hard.   He spars and leads about 6 classes a day.  Exercise must be very important.. he also looks like he is about 55... a very fit 55.  He is Korean. 

here are some past pics of him and a little movie (which seems to be about 10 or 20 years old down at the bottom...

http://www.akta.com

peace and love, apple / Mary
Diagnosis: 4/10/2008, IDC, 5cm, Stage IV, Grade 3, 4/9 nodes, mets, ER+, HER2+

sweetbean

chillipadi,

i hope that you are doing well now.  what a story!  when i was diagnosed, I researched a bunch of alternative treatments, but all I could find were stories like yours.  Even on the alternative boards, there were tons of women who had foregone conventional treatment, become metastatic, and were STILL trying to cure their cancer with stuff like oleander.  that being said, if I thought the Budwig FOCC were beneficial, I might add it in.  But she is so strict that you can't just do the FOCC and you have to follow the protocol - so what's the point?   I would just be adding dairy back into my diet and that seems like a no-no.   

sweetbean

chillipadi, i just went and read a bit of your background.  i feel that your story is real proof that diet and exercise can definitely make a difference (because the cancer has not metastasized), but they are not enough to cure cancer.  thanks for speaking out here.  i think a lot of newly diagnosed women need to know what they are potentially getting into when they choose a purely alternative approach.

Melizzard

Leia sez:

"Melissa, I'm sorry that your cancer continued to grow with the Budwig protocol. What is your cancer?"

It is breast cancer that had metastacized to the peritoneum.  VERY poor prognosis ... I would've been lucky to get a year.  But that was 4.5 years ago.  Perhaps the protocol kept it from moving any faster than it did, but it certainly didn't stop it. 

That being said, I did feel great on the diet.  But boy, was it a pain when traveling (which we do frequently) and family gatherings which somehow always center around food.  Would be impossible, now, with all the extra charges for baggage on the airlines.  We actually used to pack a cooler with dry ice, salad stuff, flax oil, cottage cheese so we would have it when we got to the other end, until we could find more.  It's a crazy lifestyle, for sure ... but doable if one sets one's mind to it.  I would make my CCFO in one batch for the day, instead of two separate batches.  I would juice in the morning to use for the full day too.  And, for blood sugar reasons, I didn't drink the juice with flaxseed.  I ate the fruit, then had the flaxseed ground up in water instead.  The whole fruit has less of a sugar spike than juice does.  

In fact, I was dx with Graves Disease in '03 but didn't let them fry my thyroid.  I had been taking medication to keep my thyroid hormones to a dull roar.  While I was on Budwig, my thyroid righted itself, FOUR YEARS after diagnosis.  According to every endocrinologist I saw, if I had been going to go into remission with the meds, it would've happened within the first year-and-a-half.  

I wouldn't stake my life on this protocol, alone, for a stage IV cancer.  Maybe an earlier stage.  For those who want documentation, I would highly recommend getting some of Johanna Budwig's books.  She's not just some fictitous character with nothing to say.  Though she's no longer with us, she did share what she had learned.  The flax oil is very important and it DOES oxygenate the blood.  If one tries this diet for any length of time, you figure that out very quickly due to how good and energized, and ALIVE, it makes you feel.  So doubt all you want ... you'd be missing out on a great lifestyle ... but perhaps not quite enough to take on a stage IV cancer, despite what CancerTutor says.  Just my opinion.

And yup, the FlaxSeedOil2 Yahoo group is totally biased.  Sandra Olson is the moderator and she will absolutely yank your posts, or edit them, if they say anything contrary to what Budwig said.  It's pretty Nazi-ish over there.  It's why I left that group.  BUT, it's GREAT for a lurker cuz it's chock FULL of all things Budwig to include testimonials from living, breathing survivors using the protocol.  If there is data to be found, they would either have it in their Files section or they would know where to send you.  If you really wanna know, check there.

xxoo

Melissa

PS - I treated this cancer, for the first four years, totally alternatively.  Should've been gone a year in, and I wasn't.  Given that, I would say that alternative can be very successful.  The problem lies in that alternatives take time to work and, once we are stage IV, time isn't on our side.  So going totally alternative, IMO, is a GOOD thing.  Chemo will always be there, waiting in the wings.  IMO, start naturally, then if you still need chemo, or you have a tumor that is somewhere that if it grows at all, it's gonna cause trouble (brain/colon, come to mind), then use the chemo to buy you time to do alternatives.  If you're not Her2+, then there's really nothing new under the sun for us, so it's the same old chemo drugs.  Why rush unless there's a need to?  Save your immune system!    Chemo has been around forever.  It ain't goin' anywhere. 

Melizzard

Apple sez:

"She claimed that her protocol has healed 90% of those she has studied but she removes those who have succumbed to their disease from her 'research' y saying they 'quit' her diet and the cancer came back.... not to discredit her research but her methods are not the same as scientific methods, and therefore do not merit comparison. "

Apple, she WAS a researcher ... a real one.  She was the leading lipids researcher in Eastern Germany which, at the time, was HUGE for a woman.  She was nominated for the Nobel Prize (but never won ... wonder why?) more than once.  So she was no slouch ... don't know why you think she was.  She was not some quack who just touted her "cure" to just gain fame and notoriety.  Why don't you try researching Johanna Budwig and see if you can at least find HER, if not her protocol, credible?

xxoo

Melissa

Melizzard

Apple sez:

"that said  - member of the club - meats in America (at least) are so laden with artificial growth hormones, pesticides, etc... it is wise to choose most of our proteins from vegetable sources."

Where do you live?  Have you not heard of organic and/or grassfed meat?  I would highly recommend grass-fed.  It's not laden with hormones ... and our meats are not laden with pesticides ever.  Not sure where you're getting your information.  Anyway, grass-fed meat is high in Omega 3s like CLA, unlike even the organic meat, that is fed grain and is high in Omega 6.  Meat is not the enemy ... you just have to go out of your way a bit to find meat that's really good for you.

xxoo

Melissa

Melizzard

Sweetbean sez;

"Even on the alternative boards, there were tons of women who had foregone conventional treatment, become metastatic, and were STILL trying to cure their cancer with stuff like oleander."

Just so you know, there are Phase II trials currently underway on oleander and cancer.  Oleander is not some urban legend.

xxoo

Melissa

Melizzard

Oh, and Sweetbean, I eat that FOCC these days even though I'm doing chemo.  They try to make you feel like it's some heavy-duty medication or something, not to be used alongside anything else.  But if you think about it, it's just food.  Food that has a lot of power, but I feel such a sense of well-being all day long when I eat the FOCC for breakfast.  ANd oh, I can make that stuff taste SOOOOO good .... like a parfait for breakfast. 

xxoo

Melissa

apple

I'm wondering if vaporizing weed helps one think better... I know it makes food taste great.

Anonymous

Well Melissa, i have to agree with you about the meat, aside from the excellent Korean diet, which certainly appears to be benefitting Apple,s kung fu teacher lol lol

Member_of_the_Club

OMG, Apple, you are hysterical.

 Your TKD instructor most likely has his genes on his side as well.  Longevity is as much about that as anything.  I do think exercise is very important, for both body and mind.  But I was physically fit when I was diagnosed and still got bc, so go figure.

 I think we would all like to believe we can control this, that if we do all the right things we won't get cancer.  But take it from someone who led an extremely healthy lifestyle, cancer is generally out of our hands.  I think we flirt with blaming people for their illness when we claim too much control over it.

That being said, a healthy lifestyle is better than an unhealthy lifestyle and I continue to do my best.  I am still a vegetarian, still run, still do what I can.

Melizzard

Let us not forget that the Budwig protocol is not just about FOCC.  It's also about de-stressing your life.  It's also about getting unprotected sunlight each day on as much of your skin as you can legally expose (LOL).  Not burning, mind you ... just working up to 30-45 minutes a day to get ample Vitamin D3.  And for those who are worried about taking Vitamin D, as Nike sez, JUST DO IT!  We need our levels, as cancer patients, between 50 and 100, so if you don't know what your level is, it's a simple blood test.  And the sun does some interesting things with that omega 3 oil in you.  Believe it or not, Budwig was the one who touted that the sun's photons are attracted by  sun-like photons resonating in our bodies from the flax oil. 

Her books aren't expensive, so I would encourage those of you who think it's bunk to read her work for yourselves.  Flax oil IS expensive, so if you do decide to embark on this lifestyle, Barleans offers cancer patients a discount on any flax products.  All you have to do is order over the phone and tell them you're a cancer patient.  I think it's a 10% discount, which is well worth it.

Sorry to have posted so many posts this morning ... it's just that I lived this lifestyle for a year and a half, and I did the full-meal deal, so it's something near and dear to my heart. 

xxoo

Melissa

Anonymous

Melissa, we so much appreciate each and everyone of your posts, hugzzz sister )

sweetbean

Oh, I know that there is work being done with oleander.  It's just that it was sad to see this woman so unwilling to do radiation or hormonals, when it very likely might have helped.  Her bone mets sounded very painful and the oleander clearly wasn't up to the job.  

  

Leia

Wow, what a "RAVE" apple. Where should I begin?

I don't know why you have cancer.

I pretty much know why I did have cancer. My soul mate died, umexpectedly.Literally, one day. The week after I was laid off from a company that went out of business. It was stress. And a criminally low D3 level. 10, or something. Rickets level.

Our bodies need D3 to fight illness. a lack of D3 is why we are all sick.

Think about it; since the birth of mankind, we've lived in the sun. Now, nobody does. We're all "taught" to avoid the sun. When we just need to embrace the sun. Truly, the source of all life. 

And natural foods.

What is it that you don't understand? 

elmcity69

Come on, Leia. I mean, really? you know for sure how you got cancer?

It's great to be one's own best advocate. I wish there was more education for all patients about that idea.

But to say one knows something that isn't clearly known, still, by an entire community with medical training and experience, seems disengenuous or egotistical.

You need to read "Emperor of All Maladies". Brilliant book about how nuanced is this damned disease and, more importantly, its treatment.

Every person denouncing the so called "medical industrial complex" should read it.

And @ Melizzard: yes, most people today know about grass fed beef/organic etc.Read Apple's posts and you'll see she's a smart gal who does the research, too.She makes a great point about hormones in our food - actually a major point of the book "Anti -Cancer".

 Most folks cannot afford to consistently buy the stuff to feed a family. I buy only organic meat (yeah, it isn't grass fed), but I'm feeding a family of 4, so red meat is once a week in this house.

suzieq60

We're lucky here, one major supermarket chain now sell only hormone free meat and it's no more expensive. I also buy organic or free range chicken.

Sue