Alternative Treatments- My great experience

exbrnxgrl

Abigail,

I would venture to guess that very few of us know what "brought on" our cancer. If that were actually known, not speculation, we could do a much better job of prevention.

jojo68

What bothers me the most is discussing treatment outcomes when one of us pass...I find it disrespectful to say things like..."Such a shame when she has little ones"...I am willing to bet that if any of you pass (God forbid) and I made a comment like..."if only she would have not gone the chemo route, she would have had a better chance of surviving"...would not go over too well!

We all make the best choices for ourselves...she felt she was making the best choice for her little ones.  Do I think she should have gone the Herceptin route?  yes, I do.  Do I think she should have done chemo...no, I feel she made the right choice.  These are all choices.  Let's just mourn those who have passed instead of passing judgement.

digger

Jojo,

You're totally projecting about the little ones comment. There's nothing wrong or disrespectful with anyone saying that. It's a harmless comment that is simply saying what's true, with no judgment beyond what you're negatively projecting onto it. It's a shame, and truly heartbreaking, when any mother dies with young children, regardless of whichever treatment she chose.

jojo68

"I think that Wornoutmom's passing shows how important conventional treatment is - she might still be with her precious children if she hadn't been fooled by alternative quackery."...THIS comment by Suzie is what I am referring to as being disrespectful!  If one of u passed and I called your judgement in protocol "quackery" u would find it inappropriate as well.

suzieq60

It's a true statement

abigail48

perhaps worn out brought it on. I heard, years ago before I had access to the net, that a son for a man reduced his life expectancy how much more a bunch of children for a woman. (& note barbara's premature death). we are a think tank & I think what we need to ponder is how to stop the circulatory system from feeding the cancer. green tea helps they say but we cant do that continually, infusions shrink it & kill all cells so presuma bly the vein cells too, but not totally & not selectively. we need to figure out how to kill them totally & selectively w/out killing other cells.

Momine

Abigail, you are now blaming the patient for the disease? Please stop it.

pupmom

Abigail, that is just so offensive.

abigail48

I'll bet wornoutmom didn't get 10 hours of sleep the way I do. barbara either. & I do blame myself for my trouble: I shouldn't have believed the hype for birth control pills 50 years ago, though to be fair the people who were talking about it apparen tly also didn't know at that early time that those hormomes could cause cancer

pupmom

You do not have cancer. How DARE you compare yourself to our dear members, whether they followed conventional or alternative treatments, who have suffered and died from this disease.

Momine

Abigail, you go ahead and blame yourself all you want for having a cyst. To blame wornout's disease and untimely death on lack of sleep or her kids, I mean, really?, is just offensive.

NancyHB

Abigail, it is a challenge to feel encouraged to consider or explore alternative treatments when you say these things. We all (that would be those of us with dx BC) make choices we think are going to save us, and when one of us (that would be those of us with dx BC) passes it is a tragic loss. I'm sorry, I just don't have the words to express how utterly ugly and horrible your comments are; please stop trying to explain yourself because the more you do, the worse it gets.

DiveCat

abigail....please quit while you are behind. The biggest risk factors for any breast cancer are being a woman, and aging. Pray tell how you propose women manage those risks? Blaming a woman for not getting "enough" sleep (and I do not know many people prefer or are able to sleep half their day away) or for having kids is just such a low thing to do, especially in the wake of her death. My own family members did all the things they were "supposed to do" to reduce risk and still got breast cancer (actual breast cancer, diagnosed and everything. Not cysts that they think were there for decades). Even if they didn't, and drank like fish, smoked like chimney's, were overweight, took HRT, ate nothing but Cheetos and Diet Coke, worked night shifts (none of which was the case)....I would be horrified to see anyone blame them for their illness either after dx or after death. What a low thing to do.

JennaJMU

I've been following this silently but I have to chime in now. Abigail doesn't have cancer??? Why is she here then? I would so love to not obsessively check these boards every day. To not have a reason to.

BrooksideVT

I clicked on the NIH link Suzieq posted.  On the right, supporting studies are listed.  I clicked on the box that shows all.  There is a study of women who have had early breast cancer, half of whom significantly increased veggies and fruits and decreased fat in their diet, and were monitored and supported through the study.  This diet change is exactly what I'm doing.  Guess what--There was no proven advantage in fending off recurrence.  Ughhhh! 

I'll bet, however, that this diet would be helpful before the nasty little cancer starts.  It's just so upsetting that it doesn't seem able to help us now.  Weight loss (naturally, with this diet), yes.  Exercise, yes.  Diet change makes us feel we're doing something, and that's important too.  To tell the truth, I'm healthier and slimmer than I've been for years, and feeling very, very proud of myself.  This focus on exercise and healthy eating as made a tremendous difference to me as a whole person.  I wish there were some scientific study somewhere that indicated that it starved cancer cells.  Frankly, I'm just hoping it doesn't feed them! 

One of the other studies was about vitamin use.  I'll read that next--if I dare!

Momine

Jenna, nobody understands why Abigail posts here, but I guess she enjoys the company.

Momine

Brookside, fair warning: vitamins and supplements? Don't bother

I do think, however, that it does count on some level to feel well and be healthier overall. Even if the stupid cancer comes back, at least we will be in fighting form to withstand treatment, for example. I have noticed that people who die from treatment usually have health conditions other than just the cancer.

pupmom

As they say, even negative attention is better than no attention. Sad really.

naiviv

Hi

I am allowed fresh fruit and veggies. At home only. I have to soak/ wash in a 10% ANTIBACTERIAL. Dishwashing soap. I have been doing for spinach, baby greens and berries very carefully and other fruits veggies also. I also freeze berries after cleaning them for smoothies.

I know doctors differ in opinion, but you could ask if this might be allowed for you.

I have heard of cucurmin and tumeric. I believe both are spices. I am on chemo, could I just add these spices to food ? Is there a specific amount ? Or do you have to buy the root? curious to know, don't think it can hurt if a spice.

Good Luck

Vivian

rozem

i have been following some of the alt threads, i did conventional treatment but like to keep up on supplements, diet etc in order to live a more healthy lifestyle.

i wondered what had happened to wornoutmom, i know it got ugly for a while and she stopped posting here. Totally understandable. I think we all can agree that we wish that the treatments had worked, first and foremost to save her life and be here with her family. Secondly - it would be great if we did have something more in our arsenal to help prevent bc in the first place, stop or slow down a reccurance etc. Science based evidence that these alt treatments work on cancer (i know they are good for overall health) - this is what i would like to see

Abigail - please stop...you are on the board with women who have been diagnosed with a life threating illness, your comments are completely offensive and show you do not understand the disease at all

jojo68

I don't know wornoutmom's whole story...I think maybe she had a botched surgery that made it spread terribly?

I DO agree that vitamins and supps are NOT enough!  I think surgery is very important and some form of hormonal balancing regimen of choice.  Vitamins and supps will help to strengthen immune system to help fight off any roaming cancer cells.  I also believe Metformin can be helpful, supposedly kills stem cells and I am about to start LDN....many things in a survival arsenal and we all have the freedom of choice to choose...unfortunately, we judge each other's choices alive and when we die.  sad.  We are all on the same journey and should be supportive instead of ridiculing each other and fighting.

Why is Abigail allowed on here if she doesn't have breast cancer?

abigail48

no one knows if I have cancer or not. it certainly looks & feels like it.............just now I juiced a pomegranet. tastes great & supposed to be very beneficial

exbrnxgrl

Abigail,

How utterly mean spirited and disrespectful of you to blame anyone here, who actually have bc, for their disease. I don't even have words for how awful it is to further blame someone who has just passed on their children or lack of sleep as a cause for bc. Please go somewhere else to express your unfounded and vicious views.

abigail48

I understand you have the option to block my posts, I wouldn't do that to anyone no matter what because it stops some life to stop speech. you & others need to use me a s scapegoat, I need to share the knowledge I've learned over 77 years of reading & living

Momine

Abigail, scapegoat? For what? It is really not that. It is simply that your comments are extremely offensive at times, as well as often being unrelated to the matter at hand. Have you never considered starting a blog, instead of "sharing" in a forum where you have nothing in common with all the other people.

kayfh

Perhaps Abigail is right, maybe we do need to have a scape goat. We certainly wouldn't pile on a woman who we knew had breast cancer. Would we? However, if we could get past the ad hominem arguments we might just be able to parse out what alternative therapies have to offer to a certain segment of society and maybe even us. After all alternative therapies are treatments that have not been validated by Evidence based medicine. Maybe, just maybe, a germ of a new good idea will be found, that will eventually become EBM, if we try to have open minds. That is why I bother to read here. I understand that most of the posters here want to ensure that credulous newbies don't attach themselves to ideas without credence that are often posted here. But this is starting to feel like mean girls piling on. Just sayin'.

MmeJ

abigail48, I fail to understand why the moderators allow you (and your defenders) to continue to participate. I don't think the Alternative and Complimentary areas of this forum are less valuable than any of the rest of the place, but somehow you and a few others are allowed to continue to participate, when others in different parts of this forum have been banned for far less offensiveness than what is permitted here. That sends a message to everyone on this forum who is interested in alternative and complimentary treatments.

You don't have breast cancer. You have no (moral) right to be here.

It is especially galling to me that, not only do you not have breast cancer, you have also lived a longer life than many of us will because, you know, we do have breast cancer.

jojo68

Kay...You make some valid points!

Momine

Kay, I think I have been both tolerant and mild to Abigail for the most part. This last salvo of comments, however, was beyond the pale IMHO. Also, I see nothing "mean" about pointing out the fact that Abigail does not have a confirmed case of breast cancer or any other cancer.

Alternative treatments are called "alternative" because they are not part of standard of care used by oncs, usually for lack of scientific evidence, but sometimes because the same result can be obtained more reliably and surely with a drug from dreaded "big pharma."

However, even with alternatives we can apply some judgments about what is credible and what is not.

For some alternatives there is at least evidence to suggest usefulness or sometimes evidence to elucidate possible mechanism of action. For example, Jojo just posted an article about iodine, which looked at how iodine may interfere with estrogen pathways in breast cancer. It is not enough evidence for Sloane-Kettering to start giving cancer patients iodine, but it is enough that taking iodine would not be completely off the wall.

Then you get stuff like the seemingly everlasting "gallstone cure" of oil and apple juice. It is a hoax. There are videos and articles by credible doctors and other medicos all over the internet explaining why this is complete nonsense, yet people continue to believe it is real. Another remedy like that would be coffee enemas for "liver detox." Again, there is evidence galore to contradict any such use for coffee, but that doesn't seem to stop some people.

jojo68

I agree with some of your post Momine...except, of course, the coffee enema.  have I tired it yet?  No...will I in future?  Hopefully, when I get past my fear.  There is actually evidence of its efficacy and has been in the MERCK manual.  Agree to disagree.  Dr. Wong HIGHLY recommends them to me.