Tri-neg looking for B17/Juicing Alt

well, it's a free country.

I usually like to look at the numbers of people treated in studies.  For a common cancer like breast cancer I think it's most convincing when they have at least 500 participants.

If you are going to go this way then be sure that you have science on your side.To me that means studies with MANY participants.  They need a treatment group and a control group. There isn't any reason to waste your time and money on treatments that don't have solid statistical backing. In my way of thinking it'd be better to just hope the surgery got it all and not waste time/money on the vitamin thing. Don't put your hope in something that someone says, ask to see the evidence.

dear carebear, i am also triple negative, stage 1,  grade 3. tumor 1.2 cm, 1 millimeter from chest wall. dx 10/3/08. i had a double mastectomy without reconstruction (by choice, could have had lumpectomy) on 11/20/08. i struggled with the decision about chemo and radiation and did a lot of research. i have never been sick a day in my life, not even the flu, i was vegetarian, very health-conscious. i'm adopted, so i don't know my family history, and have not had the BRCA testing yet. i have two grown sons. i don't even like taking aspirin for a headache, so the idea of chemo and radiation is completely anathema to the way i approach health. but after doing all my reseach and also talking to people who took the holistic route and also the chemo/rad route, i decided to go ahead with chemo (Taxotere, Cytoxan, 4 cycles) and radiation (36 sessions) because my understanding is that even with a PET scan, there could be cancer cells in my body that don't show up on scans and that may be minuscule at this time and the chemo will hopefully stop their growth. the radiation i agreed to because the tumor was 1 millimeter from the chest wall, a place that has a high rate of recurrence.  bottom line, though, is that i am doing this because of my sons. they are 30 and 28. i want to give my body a fighting chance to live longer to be with them (we are extremely close and i live down the street from my youngest son and his wife), based on hard, cold statistics. but i have told them that if the cancer metastasizes to brain, liver, or bone, that i'm not going to live a life of chemo and radiation; i want quality of life, even if it's short, not a life of all these dr appts and infusions, etc.  i am curious to know what your decision was - you posted november 16th. it sound like you are one of those incredibly motivated and educated people who knows exactly what you want and what your body wants. ideally i would love to treat this holistically but i know i don't have the energy nor commitment to do so. i admire those who do.  please update us!

Hmm. I'm in a mix feeling after reading carebear's post. I'm a son of my 62 yr old mom, who dx her first bc in mid 06. I wasn't paying much attention to it, and after lumpectomy and 36 rad everyone in my family thought it was over. In July 08, she felt a soft lump right below her collar bone on the side where she had her first bc. She didn't tell me until September when the lump is about egg size. By that time we still thought it's some clogged lymph vessels or muscle sprain or immflamation (the most commom approach from Chinese med standpoint). However I still urged her to talk to her primary doc. After all the routine testing, it's dx to be bc, and I finally found out it's tri negative (my shame of not looking into it 2.5 yrs ago), which is same as her first bc according to the Onc's. My mom had her first TC (every 3 weeks) 2 days before Thanksgiving. We sometimes would think back and felt a little regret of not doing chemo. We chose not to do chemo at the first place because of the same concern that carebear has, but you may want to consider again due to the fact that triple negative bc is more chemo-sensitive and more prone to come back. If you believe in the holistic way to treat bc, you may also use it to recover your body from chemo. I have been digging into any research about triple negative bc in past weeks. It seems to be more secure to do chemo although there's no standard therapeutic for it yet. 

The first onc who we saw in October retired right before my mom's first tx. He prescribed AC/C at first. Then my mom's case was referred to another onc, who's about mid 30's, from Harvard med and then UCSF. He switched the AC to Taxotere because based on some recent study TC works best on my mom's cancer (I'm not sure what that means yet, but I believe he means trip neg). I also think the side effect is less significant compared to AC family chemo. 

Anyway, enjoy everyday and maintain QOL are really the main purpose of living. Keep us posted on any good diet/holistic treatment, please~

To DDlatt who wrote:

I decided to go ahead with chemo (Taxotere, Cytoxan, 4 cycles) and radiation (36 sessions) because my understanding is that even with a PET scan, there could be cancer cells in my body that don't show up on scans

I totally understand your rationale for going along with chemo. I did too, but dropped off when I realized how useless it is: indeed, there is exactly a 1% chance that chemo will catch those stray cancer cells for you. I am not saying it is fair, but, sadly, that's how far Conventional Oncology has taken us.

 Also: as of 2006, the American Board of Oncology has decided to discontinue chemo for ER+, PR+, HER-, after it became vastly obvious that in 20-years of slapping anybody that came through the door with chemo, it has make NO DIFFERENCE AT ALL for this particular group. That's when I decided to drop it. I personally suspect that it makes very little difference for other types of BC as well but here is the situation: they've got NOTHING else in their arsenal, and that's the only reason chemo treatments for BC have not been completely discontinued. Besides, chemo is HIGHLY profitable. As you know, of course, from your chemo bills.

 I wished I had better news for you, and don't we all deserve to get more bang for our tax buck, now that "they" have been raising billions supposedly for BC research (pink this, pink that). Unfortunately, we are still at Square Zero, basically. CANCER IS A HUGE, HIGHLY PROFITABLE BUSINESS. By the way, see the attached link on pinking and how the same companies that organize the yearly pinking frenzy are also the ones who manufacture cancer-causing chemicals that are then released into the environment: http://www.thinkbeforeyoupink.org/Pages/AboutTheCampaign.html (basically: Think before you pink)