Immune support meds.

Dpm_249

Hi I'm new here. I'll cut a long story short.

My girlfriend has breast cancer. She was diagnosed 2 months ago at stage 3, it has spread to the lymph nodes but no further. Shes been prescribed 7 chemo treatments and has just had her 2nd. Her immune system is extremely weak and my intention is to help her improve her well-being and risk of infections and viruses/bugs through alternative treatment (out of hospital) medication to strengthen her immune system.

To make this short and simple to begin with I won't go into how much knowledge I have on the treatment i am giving her. Rest assured I know what I am giving her and how they work and most importantly that none of them Interact with the prescription drugs she's currently on. I'm simply here to hear other people's opinions and experiences with these specific meds and how effective they have been by actual users.

I plan on treating her with the following.

Vitamin c inj 500mg per day. (Intramuscular)

Vitamin b12 inj 500mcg per day. (I.m)

Solgar Turmeric oral 400mg 3 times daily

Solgar beta 1, 3 glucans oral 200mg 1 daily

Icietla

Welcome to BCO. We are very sorry about your friend's illness.

I think that is a terrible plan, likely dangerous to her health and her prospects for survival. It could defeat the conventional treatment plan she has chosen.

Vitamin C is an anti-oxidant substance. It can interfere with the effectiveness of your friend's Chemotherapy and her upcoming Radiation Treatment.

Breast cancers love to eat B12.

http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/76/4_Supplement/P5-05-06

Higher B12 levels are bad for persons having cancer.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26724465

http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/184898

Turmeric is an estrogenic substance. It would tend to fuel the growth of most breast cancers.

https://community.breastcancer.org/posts/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&search_builder%5Bkeyword%5D=turmeric+estrogenic&search_builder%5Bauthor%5D=&search_builder%5Bsource%5D=&search_builder%5Bdate_range%5D=&commit=Search

I think you should respect -- not interfere with and possibly defeat -- the treatment plan she has chosen for herself in HER fight for HER life. A time of being immuno-compromised goes with that treatment. It is from (conventionally manageable) Chemotherapy effects, not from vitamin deficiencies. If you want to help about reducing her risks for infectious disease/s, why not get her some protective clinical masks; protective clinical gloves; disinfectant handwashing towelettes; etc.? How about a Do Not Disturb sign for her front door? How about doing her shopping and other errands-outings to reduce her exposures to crowds and sick others?

Shenandoah

hello

Biopsy, surgery radiation x 15 stage 2, no lymphs Sept. 2017

As I understand the body looses it's immune system due to bad eating habits,,too much animal fats, Gmo etc. Etc. when the immune can no longer fight off the invasion, the cancer grows. My life has consists of bad choices for my health,,

I am 63. Also stress weakens the system

For 10 years I have raised my 3 grandchildren, ages now 13, 10 and 8

Also for 3 years I was with my mom at home 7 days a week, 8 hrs a day. Brain stem stroke.

I am also diabetic, high blood pressure, and have auto immune psoarisis.

With all this said..I am cancer free

I take Black seed ..anti inflammatory 5x TQ

Priobotic 20 billion

Insole carbinol 200 Mg

Vit e.. vitamin c 1000mg. d3 5000mg., fish oil, calcium 1000mg.

DIM bio response..this is especially important,,

Most of my health problems is hereditary..but it was choices, and not aware of family genetics

Blessings

Dpm_249

Thankyou for your reply.

I have taken into consideration everything you have said, I have read and before and heard that these meds can interfere with chemo, but I find it so hard to believe that such a natural substance like vitamins c and b12 can have such a counter effect on another form of treatment... Basically, these vitamins found in foods like fruit and meat which are vital for immune system function actually have a negative effect on chemotherapy? It doesn't make one bit of sense. Without vitamins, without minerals, without nutrients. We die.

Antioxidants interfere with chemo? Should she stop drinking green tea ? 🙈

Thankyou for your time.

Husband11

I would use medicinal mushroom extracts to strengthen her immune system and improve blood counts. I would consider either maitake D extract as a dosage of 5-6mg daily per kg of body weight, or AHCC between 3-6 grams daily. Neither have any reasonable prospect of interfering with her chemo treatment and are frequently used along with chemo to improve blood counts and improve quality of life.

HersheyKiss

Dpm, have you run the treatment plan by your girlfriend's medical oncologist?

Icietla

>>I find it so hard to believe<<

Belief is not required for something to be true.

>>Basically, these vitamins found in foods like fruit and meat which are vital for immune system function actually have a negative effect on chemotherapy? It doesn't make one bit of sense.<<

It makes sense to me. The Chemotherapy and Radiation Treatments are meant to damage certain cells. The anti-oxidant substances would tend to protect those cells from that (intended) damage, thereby defeating the very purpose of the treatments. Further, Vitamin C megadosing tends to cause diarrhea. Chemotherapy patients are advised that they must keep themselves very well hydrated.

As I indicated in my prior post, cancer apparently loves B12 and is fueled by high (and high-ish) levels of it. Because Turmeric is estrogenic, it would tend to fuel most breast cancers (most are Estrogen Receptor-positive).

>>Without vitamins, without minerals, without nutrients. We die.<<

Bottles are not the only sources of vitamins, minerals, and nutrients. Is your girlfriend able to eat food?

>>these vitamins found in foods like fruit and meat which are vital for immune system function<<

Understand, they are not a substitute for immune system function -- if they were, AIDS would be as easily treated and resolved as an ordinary headache, huh? -- and you would be a Nobel laureate, surely? Again, your girlfriend's immune system being temporarily whacked is from her Chemotherapy, not from vitamin deficiencies.

All over the World is much suffering and desperation for want (here I mean truly desperate need) of that injectable B12 you wish to waste. Even in the First World there are periodic critical shortages. Some persons cannot absorb B12 through the gut. They need the injectable B12 to keep themselves alive a little longer; to keep from becoming blind; to have babies unafflicted by Spina Bifida and Anencephaly; and to hold off other dreadful consequences of their not having it.

>>Without vitamins, without minerals, without nutrients. We die.<<

They die.

https://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images;_ylt=A0LEVzgd62Na668A13ZXNyoA;_ylu=X3oDMTEyNWNiaW4yBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDQjI5NDRfMQRzZWMDc2M-?p=anencephaly&fr=mcafee

Axolotl

I'm curious - what does your girlfriend have to say about this? Is she researching these treatments you want to give her and deciding for herself? Is she consulting with her MO? In the end, it is her body and not your choice. It's hers.

Bliss58

Dpm, the way it was told by my MO is that basically chemo is a free-radical and anti-oxidants, like Vitamin C, kill free-radicals, thereby rendering the chemo useless. So in trying to help your girlfriend, you would actually be hurting her if she chooses to continue with chemo tx. The vitamins in food are not in the concentrations of supplements and why eating vitamins and minerals doesn't affect the chemo in the same way. I had Neulasta injections the day after my chemo treatment to boost my immunity and I never had so much as a cold. Has her MO prescribed this med? I echo others who have said, "What does her MO say?" And, that it is her choice. Your heart is probably in the right place, but it kinda sounds like you are going to do this to her not for her. How about probiotics? They can help restore good gut flora that chemo destroys and my MO was okay with me taking those. How about her MO? She might save the turmeric until after chemo. I wasn't aware that it's estrogenic, but it is a blood thinner. My BS recommended I take it for inflammation and joint pain, but not to for a couple weeks before my surgery.

ChiSandy

During active adjuvant treatment (chemo & radiation), it's okay to eat reasonable (normal) amounts of fruits & vegetables that contain antioxidants, just not increase them. BUT a cancer patient in active chemo or radiation treatment MUST NOT take antioxidant supplements! The whole point of chemo is to kill rapidly-dividing cells that may be in the body--and tumor cells are the most rapidly-dividing cells in the body--and the whole point of radiation is to destroy any traces of tumor cells in the vicinity of where the tumor was removed. The process by which cells get damaged and destroyed is oxidation, and the evidence of that happening is the release of free radicals. Antioxidants interfere with that. Just as chemo drugs claim rapidly-dividing healthy cells (e.g., hair follicles, oral and gastric mucosa, bone marrow) as collateral damage because they can't differentiate between them and tumor cells, antioxidants are similarly "dumb" and can't protect only one's healthy cells. They can't tell that they need to get out of the way of chemo & rads.

Icletia, I am not aware of B12 or turmeric having estrogenic effects. I'm seeing my MO on Monday and I'll ask her. (My PCP ran a B12 level on me when I started showing mild anemia, but it was normal). Dpm, your gf can certainly eat turmeric and use it as a seasoning, but I wouldn't take any supplements without running them by her medical oncologist first. And no offense--you are not an oncologist, you are not her treating physician (and if the Dpm in your screen name means you're a podiatrist, it's questionable whether you should be treating a loved one or family member).

DATNY

I took B12 during half of my chemo. My mo knew and said nothing about it.

I didn't take turmeric supplements, but I eat daily food cooked with turmeric and pepper. In order to be absorbed well, turmeric needs pepper.

I also drank a small cup of high quality Japanese green tea daily. As far as I know same chemo regimes are used everywhere in the world, but some of the populations are heavy drinkers of green tea.

Supporting the immune system through food (preferable organic, as they tend to have more nutrients) is probably the best. Supplements, although useful when something is off and needs to be quickly corrected, just don't have the same abundance of effects as similar substances coming from foods. Of course, the multi-billion dollars supplements industry wants us to believe otherwise.

One thing you should consider is vitamin D, especially if your gf has values on the lower side (she can ask the mo to test them). Vitamin D supports the immune system big time, and has also a documented cancer growth-suppressing effect. I live in north-east and spend my time mostly indoor, so I need 5000 ui of vitamin D to maintain average levels of vitamin D.

Vitamin c supplements is a no-no according to my mo. That being said, I eat plenty of blueberries during my treatment, but they are also known to fight brrast cancer.

Finally, colds and flu are something natural to our body. Humans have evolved dealing with frequent infections, most of the time worst than colds and flu. I think our body has evolved to need them, our immune system appears to get "trained" by them. In fact, I always wondered if the increase in cancer rate in young population is due not as much to "toxins" in our food and environment, but to our obsession to erradicate all childhood infections. I looked over the vaccine records of someone born in early 50s, it had 4-5 shots in total; I see on my children records about 20 shots, many for diseases that are not life threatening in most cases, but inconvenient. Cold and flu are harmless for the bulk of population and we should be let to deal with them naturally, without any medication. If you would like to find more, search about the role the fever plays in sensitizing the immune system, or the role fever seems to play in spontaneous cancer remission. Of course all these apply to healthy people.

During chemo your gf should take every measure to prevent sickness. She should stay away from sick people, don't spend time in public (my mo highlighted this one), wash hands etc.

And, of course, she should let her mo (medical oncologist) know about all supplements or any other medicine she takes during chemo, and listen to her dr. recommendations.

Good luck with everything and may God bless her!