Survivors who had chemo etc and are into Complementary medicine

I am going to go get one of those corn shaped pans for corn bread this weekend.

Omaz - so glad ou have taking out your port to look forward to!  What a milestone!!!

Lindasa - thanks for asking ALL the great quesitons - now I know what blender & where to buy it I just got a wooden outdoor chaise lounge from them - no tax, no shipping.  Lovely, easy to put together.

Tip on when oil is hot - put the stem end of a wooden spoon in the oil, and little bubbles should be "dancing" arround it - it's HOT!

TMarina, That is just how they smell when new. I remember wondering the same thing when I first started using them.

omaz

Do you  or anyone know if you can use cast iron skillets on a glass top stove? I know you can use the new enameled ones.

there is no reason not to use cast iron on a glassed top stove.   I suppose the pan could scratch the stove top if swirled around or something, but I wouldn't worry about it.

Tmarina they do smell DH has always done the orginal seasonings of pans outside on the grill.  Once he gets them the way he likes them then he brings it in the house.  He use to do alot of outdoor dutch oven cooking with cast iron I need to see what all he has outside.  He has some really nice old ones from Wagner.  They are hard to find without paying a fortune for them but he swears by them

last night I used my cast iron to sautee butternut squash.  I use coconut oil and then seased with salt, pepper, nutmeg and used orange juice to deglaze the pan and add a sauce to it.  Was yummy.  DH said it tasted like desert.

Thanks for the tips! 

MaryNY, if you have high TSH, borderline low T3 and T4, and "antibodies", you probably have immune-mediated hypothyroidism (most likely Hashimoto's thyroiditis).  It's an autoimmune disorder -- your immune system is destroying your thyroid gland.  The (conventional) treatment is "thyroid replacement hormone" -- i.e., levothyroxine, which is very inexpensive and works very well.  I say all that because I was dx'd with Hashimoto's thyroiditis 10 years ago and have been on Synthroid ever since then.

I'm waiting to see if there are answers to your question.  I can't imagine how "complementary medicine" would reverse the problem or replace the missing hormone.  (BTW, wouldn't this be an example of "alternative therapy," rather than "complementary medicine," since you would be declining conventional treatment in favor of this other approach?)

otter

Thanks Otter and TMarina: yes, I know the levothyroxine would replace the hormone I should be making myself but as my friend pointed out, it does nothing to tackle the underlying issue -- the antibodies which are attacking the thyroid. And yeah, this would really be alternative rather than complementary. My friend said after about six weeks she saw her TSH level drop and her free T3 and T4 increase. One of her antibodies (don't remember which one) was over 100 initially, and that gradually dropped too and now the two antibodies that they check are within normal range. She had seen her father go the conventional route and have problems with dosage. She was also concerned about bone loss.

I do know about the higher likelihood of developing autoimmune thyroid problems if one already has another autoimmune disease. I was diagnosed with another autoimmune disease eight months before my BC diagnosis. While going through chemo, my onc referred me to a neurooncologist who thought there might be a connection and suggested paraneoplastic syndrome. But the tests came back negative for antibodies to the antigens involved.

Painerly: that's interesting. Was taking Selenium the only change you made? Also since the onset of hypothryoidism is at the time of menopause in many women, I wonder if it would right itself naturally in some cases once the female hormone levels sort themselves out.

It takes a few months - testing every 6 weeks or do, to get the right dose.  At least that's what I was told, and was true for me. FIrst year I was tested every 3 months, then every 6, which is the schedule I still follow.

RE: TSH.  American Society of Endocrinologists in 2003 stated that TSH should be BELOW 2.5.

Many labs till use the old "normal" of it being up to 6.00.    That is VERY OLD DATA!

I didn't read all the way back, but is anyone taking CoQ10??

Lisa, I'm on Crestor and I read a few articles that suggested CoQ10 might be able to prevent some of the muscle problems statins could cause.  Nothing definitive -- no "good" evidence, by my standards -- but, CoQ10 seemed harmless, and, if it would help... why not?

I stopped taking it when I realized I needed a separate page in iCal to keep track of the schedule for taking everything.  Maybe I should start again?

otter