Suzanne Somers has changed her diagnosis

nixiechaos, you did chemo, but now are just doing mega vitamins? Chemo done right?

Just helping with the time line.

There was another gal here who did alternative meds. Wheatgrass everyday (grew her own), did an extensive vitamin regiment.  She just had bone mets. If I remember she wasn't on chemo either..Eventually her platelets tanked on her. She is gone now. I will look her up.

Not black and white.

I did all the chemo, yes. I believe I said that in my post.  I am now on Herceptin, and have added supps to help protect my heart. I would never suggest that chemo should be avoided. Heres my consern. In GENERAL, not everyone, there seems to be a definite line between alternative and traditional. The thought of the traditional gal crossing the line and trying the alternative is taboo and vise versa. I think there should be a balance. When I told my doc what i was doing after he told me I was going to die, he sat back , smiled and told me I could eat whatever I want. I knew then that I was really on my own. So glad that I took my overall health into my own hands.

And YES fitztwins...Black and white. I think I was pretty clear in my post. Denny is black and white with regard to adding any alternative to the traditional chemo. She said YOU CAN'T. I am he shining example of "YOU CAN".  Nothing about this disease is black and white. It's all still a mistery. Causes, treatments, all of it.  

Nixie, when you do these treatments in addition to traditional medical treatments, it is usually referred to as "complementary" not "alternative."  When i hear that someone is using alternative medicine, I usually assume there are foregoing traditional medicine.  That may be where the disconnect is.  Most mainstream oncs will support complementary medicine but not alternative.  

Dawn I I agree that people get fixated on what they've done as the right path.  This is so true in the mastectomy versus lumpectomy debate, a more personal decision I can't think of.  I have also felt criticized for keeping my breasts.  But I also think SS is spreading a lot of irresponsible hooey.  

>>On a note; Ten years ago when SS did not have chemo, that was against the normal standard of care.<<

Actually, it may not have been, depending on the other factors of her cancer, chemo may have been optional or of so little additional benefit (according to the data) that it may have been presented as purely optional to her.  Somers states she had Stage I with negative lymph nodes, but uses so many BS words that don't actually mean anything and is always short on specifics, we can only make guesses about all the other details of her cancer.

BTW, in her latest 'scare', Somers had disseminated coccidioidomycosis (a fungal infection a.k.a. Valley Fever).  The thing about coccidio is that most healthy persons have only mild or even no symptoms for years, and the infection stays localized because the immune system keeps it in check.  The vast majority of those who develop the disseminated form of coccidioidomycosis are those with a weakened immune system.  You just hardly ever see anyone else get the disseminated form unless they have underlying problems that weaken the immune system.  e.g.  AIDS patients, cancer patients, patients who are on corticosteroids, et. al.

Somers is not old enough to qualify as having a weak immune system due to being 'elderly'.  So evidently, all those 'natural' supplements she takes claiming it to 'support/strengthen the immune system' weren't working too well, and could even have contributed (e.g. all the "bio-identical" hormones she takes).  Oops!

I don't think that foregoing chemo gives SS any bigger "kahunas" than anyone else fighting this beast.

Susan

Here's a link to the show

http://www.suzannesomers.com/Appearances/Default.aspx

Whenever I have a cup of green tea, I get a hot flash! is that weird?

no one mentioned anything about not drinking green tea while I was doing chemo... before this dx I drank cups and cups of it every day.....I don't think I drank it while doing chemo because everything tasted bad. I'm on arimidex and am drinking lots of green tea again (even though it didn't do anything for me in regards to prevention of bc)

I finally was able to watch this interview. Oh My!!! She really is something else!! I loved that Dr. Otis Brawley - he was very clear and level headed and I think it was great that he called out SS using "unknown" terms.

This is the first thing that came to mind after listening to SS's story: Was this an episode of "House" that I missed? (did someone else mention this? There are too many pages to review.) She made the point that she would not mention the hospital nor the doctors' names. Hmmmm . . . if I was treated so terribly I would be shouting it from the rooftops so no one else would be treated that way. Or was there some sort of non-disclosure settlement? She did say it wasn't worthwhile to sue. Hmmmmm again . . .

Actually, medical privacy laws would prevent a physician or hospital from identifying themselves as the treating physician or institution, or commenting on anything about her care/treatment/diagnosis.  She could fabricate many things about her story and they still would be forbidden from commenting.

However, if she identified the doctors or hospital, and she had stated falsehoods, they could sue her for defamation, libel, or slander (whichever was legally appropriate).  As long as she doesn't identify them, she is secure in knowing the law prevents them from coming forward or commenting.

I watched the video on line, and she is a nut. There was nothing stating that the two doctors on the show had any greater success. I agree that chemo is tough, and no one has ever said that it is THE cure. When they find something that is curing everyone, I'll be there. Also, her story really lost credibility (if it ever had any) when she said that "Dr. Infectious" said that she could have TB or Leprosy and she'd have to stay in the hospital fo r 4- 6 weeks. And that they gave her the meds for both these diseases and told her to start taking them. Does that make any sense at all? An on Larry King she said they don't know what she had - maybe she was poisoned? Where was it when she finally decided that she had valley disease?

Give me a break 

SS is a self-promoting opportunist who has no freakin' clue what she is talking about.  Do we really want to take vital medical advice from Chrissy Snow?  Oh wait, she's not a moron... she just plays one on TV.  She is a menace to all vulnerable ill informed people everywhere.  Shame on Larry King and Oprah Winfrey for highlighting her nonsense without any research to back up her ridiculous claims.

Denny123, you wrote: "There is absolutely NO black and white, but I feel that I would prefer to omit all complimentary items rather than gamble which ones will or will not work."

Another lady wrote (but I forgot where): "I believe it would not have made any difference whether I use complementary or conventional approaches: I would not have recurred anyway."

That's the mystery of cancer: some  tumors simply stop, some recur early, some recur late, and some are unstoppable.

Perhaps yours was also one of the tumors that were not going to recur not matter what treatment you went with. And that's something modern science is not yet able to explain to us.