Issels Alternative Treatment

strengthformymom

Hello

Thank you for taking your time to read my posting!

My mom has been recently diagnosed with breast Cancer grade III. She had a lumpectomy to remove two tumors on her left breast and one axillary lymph node two weeks ago.

After the biopsy on the tissue, the node turned out to be cancerous as well. Her surgeon recommended that she goes through Chemo, a second surgery to remove more lymph nodes and finally radiation.

My mom is a health freak and all this is a shock to her. She does not to go through chemo and she has been looking into this non-toxic alternative treatment from a company called Issels based in California  All this sounds like a scheme to me because it has not been FDA approved and what they do is give you an injection prepared from the patient's own blood.  They claim to have all these success stories but I am very suspicious about it. I do not know how to convince my mom that she should stop wasting time and start her conventional treatment ASAP. Am I wrong? Should I let her go for a consultation with one of the doctors from this facility?

Thank you so much for your support!

Moderators

strengthformymom, welcome to Breastcancer.org, although we're sorry that concern for your mother has brought you here. 

The Search feature of the discussion boards (in the blue navigation menu) shows a number of results when searching with Issels as the keyword, from other members who have mentioned the word in their posts.

The American Cancer Society comments on metabolic therapies, including Issels, in this article.

Although the main Breastcancer.org site doesn't mention Issels specifically, the article What to Know About Diets That Claim to Cure Cancer discusses other regimens found in the metabolic therapies information on the ACS site linked above. 

Of course it's your mother's decision how she wants to be treated, but you may want to read some of the information in the Chemotherapy - Before, During and After forum here on the discussion boards, or the forum for those at Stage III (if you meant Stage III rather than grade III).

Best wishes to your mother, and to you.

• The Mods

pipers_dream

Strength, I'm sorry you and your mom are having to go thru this.  It sucks.  One thing I will say is that if your mom is oriented towards alternative, there isn't much you can do or say except to support her.  It's a mindset and if she is against conventional, it won't be able to heal her anyway b/c a patient needs to believe in her treatment.  Here is a book to get both of you started:  Natural Strategies for Cancer Patients by Russell Blaylock, MD.  Excellent book.  

SelenaWolf

Pipers... respectfully, I would like to point out that cancer will not respond to whether- or not someone believes in their treatment or whether- or not they have a positive attitude.  A tumor will respond (or not) no matter what the patient's mindset is.  Having a positive attitude or "believing" in the treatment, just helps the patient's mindset and sense of quality-of-life.

Strengthformymom... unfortunately, if your mother has already decided that she's going to forego conventional treatment in favour of alternative, then there may not be too much you can do.  Many people, who've taken control of their health by eating right and exercising are, often, shocked to discover that cancer will rear its ugly head no matter what they've done to stay healthy.  Cancer sucks that way.  It's not that your mother did anything wrong; her genetics won out.

Many chemotherapy drugs - if you wish to discuss this with your mother - are, also - like many "natural" treatments - "natural" at their very base: Adriamycin is derived from soil; Taxol is derived from the Pacific Yew tree; Cytoxan is a mustard alkalyting agent.  And many chemotherapy protocols are well-tolerated with proper medical supplementation (i.e., anti-nauseants, etc.)  Ask your mother to talk with both an oncologist, as well as someone from the centre where she wants to be treated to ensure that she understands the risk she is taking if she decides to opt out of conventional treatment.

Then, depending on what she decides, you can only support her in her decision and carefully watch to ensure that she is not being financially and medically taken advantage of.

juneping

i actually agreed with piper. considering the mother has to fight cancer one way or another. but with the support, her state of mind is gonna be a lot more focused on fighter cancer instead of getting her daughter's approval.

i wouldn't put the state of mind (state of happiness and contentedness in life) as something trivial to our health. not everyone got cancer went thru something traumatic 7-10 years back but it's def not in a small portion from what i've read.

no food in this world would help you if you stay unhappy/angry all the time....dr wong told me state of mind is so important and i believe him.

SelenaWolf

I wasn't saying that it was trivial to your health; it can be very beneficial to your emotional state to have faith in what you are doing.  State-of-mind is very important to your emotional health and I agree wholeheartedly, that one's ability to cope throughout treatment can have a direct bearing on one's overall emotional health and quality of life during a very difficult time.

I was merely pointing out that whether- or not you believe in something is not going to have any effect on actual tumor response (i.e. "heal"), like Piper was suggesting.  A person who doesn't believe in conventional treatment, but still has it may not cope emotionally well during treatment based on that belief, but it won't affect pathological response whatsoever.

pipers_dream

Actually Selena, I was talking about "not heal."  What I mean is that studies have proven that your state of mind can cause you to sicken and die, even with no apparent reason.  I wish I could recall the reference to this so I could post a link, but I remember reading years ago that in many primitive societies, if the witch doctor puts a hex on someone, they are very likely to die b/c they believe so strongly in the curse and that's even if they were in perfect health before.  I do believe that if you think the treatment will harm you more than it will help you, you are very likely right and it's what I struggled with in the early weeks of my dx and still do--truth is I have never trusted modern medicine as I have been harmed by it on several occasions in my life.  Yes, QOL is very important in this, and your feelings about your body will certainly impact your health, but not with any kind of regularity where we can say that a thing definitely caused cancer.  

BTW, the book I mentioned by Dr. Blaylock can be used by those who choose alternative only or who choose conventional and want to supplement with things that will boost the conventional tx.  

SelenaWolf

I would like to see those studies if you find them.

juneping

selena, 

when i was reading the book "A new earth"...the book did mentioned mental state can cause illness like cancer. the author did mention some studies already proved that. but i didn't bother with the source.

abigail48

issles was a friend of gary null, I recall his mentioning him.  sounds like a vaccine-type therapy using your own cells not some monkey cells or such.  I read the link light sent about woormwood, can't recall the nice name right now, the link was a scientific study & gave the method for refining the herb, AMAZING process.  refined many times.  (mentioned taxol & vinca refined similarly) at one point they use fetal bovine cells, then get rid of them.