Complementary and integrative approaches

Luan,

Yes, people seem to recycle urban legends.

Britchik,

Please cite the sources for your theories about why no metabolic evidence of Tamoxifen or AIs can be measured in the body. Please provide documentation or evidence. Your explanation of how Tamox and AIs work in an invisible biochemical  world is too woo-woo for me to understand.

Thanks so much in advance.

Those were the days Merilee!

Mollyann,

Try sprinkling the curcurim on vegetables. I use tumeric once in a while.

Luan,

Use nose plugs to make the fruit salad if smells bother you. I think fresh is better than using pills. I don't trust them to have what they say are in them.

It's going to be 95 degrees by me today....going swimming after the basic chores are done.

Macygrace, thanks for the tip, i can just picture myself .. Lol ! Usually though, taste accompanies smell ??



Have a wonderful day, hugzzz

Mollyann, I mix my curcumin and black pepper into my organic veggie juice and chug it down. Yum!

From Bernadine Healy, MD : "Blockbuster Therapy for Breast Cancer Survivors"

"The study followed 4,164 breast cancer survivors over a period from 1976 to 2006, assessing in detail their use of aspirin. The women studied initially presented with tumors ranging from small early invasive cancers confined to the breast to more advanced ones that had spread into surrounding lymph nodes. Over more than three decades of follow-up, 400 women had a cancer recurrence with distant tumor spread, which had killed 341 of them by the time the study ended.

The power to spread is the power to kill, and what aspirin seems to be doing is interfering with that process. It was by coincidence, not by design, that almost half of the medically smart women in the NHS were diligently taking aspirin. The surprise finding: Those who made aspirin a regular habit, consuming low doses two to five times a week (mostly to help their hearts), were

 71 PERCENT LESS LIKELY TO HAVE A DEADLY RECURRENCE of their breast cancer compared to those who were taking little or no aspirin."

http://health.usnews.com/health-news/bernadine-healy/articles/2010/02/18/aspirin-a-blockbuster-therapy-for-breast-cancer-survivors

Mollyann, yes, I do. Sometimes if I am in a hurry, I drink the Knudsen Organic veggie juice.

JoanDavies,

I'm also wondering if it's the blood thinning properties OR the anti-inflammatory properties of aspirin that 's effective in preventing recurrence. They also studied Advil takers and the benefit didn't seem to be there.

Is there a way you can measure Ginkgo + aspirin thinning in the blood? Would that same test that the Coumadin takers use work for aspirin +Ginkgo? How much Ginkgo do you take? Do you find it effective?

Revkat,

You mean you don't have any sources of evidence either?

Wow Britchik, you summed up my personal position BRILLIANTLY:  "Contrary to what you might assume, I am open to evidence-based data from ALL sources if it can improve breast cancer survival and quality of life."

As to the hormonal discussion, I'm triple negative so the AIs/Tamoxifen/etc don't apply to me.  However, I was in chemopause for about 2 years, both clinically and pathologically (blood hormone testing showed me to be absolutely-positively-no-doubt-about-it-menopausal).  My doctors made sure I understood that hormone testing is only a single "snapshot" of things at that moment in an extremely volatile endocrinological system that changes day to day.   Sure enough, it changed!

Britchick -- the only "proof" I can provide is in the negative -- my onc told me that testing estradiol will not show me if letrozole is doing its job.  I'm inclined to believe her!

Britchick,

I don't see anyone attacking you or trashing the medical conventional world. You were only asked to back up your theory with some evidence. You said it was my job to back up your theory. Please think about this. It doesn't make sense.

You were asked not to name-call. You persisted.

 2tzus very generously took the iniative and did the research. She refuted your position with documentation. Please read it carefully. I don't think you can accuse JAMA of having an agenda. I hope we are finished with this subject and this is a teachable moment. Thank you to Merilee for starting this thread. I hope we can honor its success by keeping it civil.

Thank you all for help sorting out the fact-finding and evidence.

It looks like the reason why some people are having their estradiol levels tested is because their oncs are concerned that they are still menopausal.If their levels increased,(ie still pre-menopausal) it would of course be a reason to stop AI therapy and use tamoxifen instead.

Not to see if their levels are ensuring that the AI is working.

Completely different.