Here's one for ancient chinese medicine -

I don't even know if it qualifies as TCM, maybe Traditional Cannibal Medicine?

Why, exactly, did you post this orange? It does not contribute anything to community knowledge about anything that is relevant to breast cancer treatment. It only stirs the pot and that is not helpful to your cause, actually mine too. Evidence based medicine should focus on what actually works. Not a continual diatribe against what you perceive to be woo.

We can learn from the aficionados of alt medicine, even if it is only to understand the thought processes of our sisters in breast cancer who choose another way to deal with our complex disease.

Maud,

Nice way of tying in vaccines with the death of "all those little Africans" and then concluding with "They then will develop diseases worse than what they were vaccinated for, cancers of all kinds and the Big Pharm is gonna make even MORE money on their backs, a lifelong process for the victims."

Source please? Reliable source?

I am on TCM. TCM is mostly composed of herbs, in my case it contains 2 types of dried insects that are commonly used for cancer. Dried scorpion and centipede. It sounds wierd but those 2 have been used for thousands of years. There is an old saying in Chinese: Fight the poison with poison.

Last year i visited the No 1 TCM hospital in Beijing China - Guang An Men TCM Hospital. I was prescribed 12 or 13 kinds of herbs. I returned to U.S with 2 months of supply which was divided and packed in individual bags for me. Since i have the prescription, i now order bulk herbs from Chinese herbal stores in the U.S and pack my own which is a lot cheaper. Ofcourse to prepare for it is a pain. I make 2 days supply.

TCM is not a one medicine for all. It is actually a personalized treatment. The doctor would prescribe it based on your syptoms by reading your pulse, looking at your togue and ask you questions about your general health including your bowel movements. The ingredients in TCM you are prescribed can be devided into 2 fuctions- The king and the Minister. In Chinese it is called Jun Chen. The king plays a major role and the minister plays the assisting role. Best results are achieved when both combined.

I never doubt in Chinese medicine and I am Chinese myself. However it does take more time to TCM to kick in. The TCM cures you from within. It tunes your body while western medicine treats the superficial- get rid of your syptoms. In treatment of cancer, i believe chemo/surgery play the major role in the beginning as they are so powerful in treating fast growing cancer cells. Many people in China get on TMC once they are done with chemo/surgery to prevent recurrence and mets.

Unfortunately i still had a recurrence whilst on herceptin. The recurrence was confirmed in March 2012 but now i knew they were there for at least 6 months maybe in Sep 2011 right after i finished radiation. I started TCM in Nov 2011. Did it help? Honestly i don't know if it helped with preventing mets.. i would believe it did. It also gave me more energy and helped me sleep better. Would i give up TCM because i had a recurrence? No.

I am now on tykerb and xeloda and TCM. I plan to visit the doctor again this Nov.

Hello Yanyan, thanks for your informative post.  I hope the OP had been deleted when you came across this thread and that you were not offended by the shameful lack of respect some posters showed towards your traditional medicine.

I find TCM absolutely fascinating taking into consideration all aspects of a human being, especially acupuncture, a real science

Hi maud !The post was already deleted and I did not get to read it. Sweetbean a visit to the doctors office is not expensive. Most charge less than 30 bucks. I found its the medicine that are price forbidden in the us. Some tcm doctors here in California charge more than 10 bucks per day and that you still have to brew your own medicine. And shame on most of them who will not give you the prescription. Because with the prescription you can shop for better deals and it's the medicine they are making money from. Fortunately the doctors in china would not do it so I can still afford being on tcm. Hi chef I hope you will get the most benefit from tcm. It will taste bitter very likely. Like an old Chinese saying good medicine may taste bitter but good to treat your diseases; an honest advice may sound harsh but will benefit you.

The OP linked to a news article about Koreans busted for smuggling a "stamina-boosting alternative medicine," made in China, that contained human baby cremains.  I was outraged to learn about it.  I would think that persons interested in Alternative Medicine would be particularly outraged in that it casts a bad light on TCM, but don't shoot the messenger.  It was appropriately placed in the Alternative section, and it need not stir up trouble unless you wish it to. 

There are these reports all the time, as well as misdeeds and malpractices in conventional medicine.  I want to know about them.  As long as they are true, I don't care who tells me about them.  Too bad "The Community" felt the need to censor Orange1.  

 Like I said before, most TCM are just herbs and can be very effective as a complementary treatment.  I know one woman who used TCM (from Dr. Wong, as a matter of fact) as part of her alternative strategy after passing up chemo, rads, and Tamox.  Eight years later, she is still cancer free.

While I don't think I would recommend TCM as a standalone treatment, I definitely think it has value, especially as part of a larger strategy.  

I actually read about aborted fetal tissue being used in an experimental cancer treatment in China in 2004.  The article was interesting because the person getting the treatment had been staunchly anti-abortion until he got cancer.  Then he said God told him it was fine to get this treatment.  Pretty hypocritical, if you ask me.

Ugh.  That's just gross.  I wonder what Dr. Wong uses.  

Maud, since you address me by name, I will reply specifically to you:

What pot would I be stirring? 

Are you in favor or supplementing with baby cremains?  No?  Well, then I am in agreement.

Are you defending TCM?  I'm not against it.  The article was cautionary that we may not know what is in some of the alternative formulations.  Yes, as far as we know the ones we buy are herbal mixtures.  They are compounded under less stringent regulation than pharmaceuticals are.  I am not even hinting we have cremains in them.  However, the article mentioned that (because of the cremains) there was a super-bacteria found in those capsules.  While ingesting cremains seems to defy most societal taboos, ingesting a super-bacteria could be deadly. Who, in good conscience, in any country would try to perpetrate that?

Apologize to "Yanyan and all our Chinese sisters?"  Why?  Do they take these supplements?   If Yanyan or any of the Chinese BCO members have ever taken this supplement, I am aghast and disgusted by what seems cannibalistic to me.  They won't get any apology either.  If that truly is some kind of ancient tradition, it is ghoulish and nasty and maybe it's time to catch up to the 21st Century.  If Yanyan or any of the Chinese members of BCO find that article disturbing, well then, I am in agreement.  Don't rush to judgement on a comment that was not coming from bigotry, unless you had a misunderstanding of it.

I'm o.k. with receiving vaccines grown on fetal tissue.  My understanding is that two fetuses, aborted in the 1960's, have been used for this purpose over the last 40 years.  They were not "harvested."  They were not ground up and put into capsules.  In fact, no one is actually injected with the fetal cells themselves. 

Gall?  It took that and much, much more to manufacture those capsules.  You seem upset by one or both of my posts, but you don't even seem to understand them.  I will continue to post freely on BCO, and hope everyone will enjoy the same freedom.  Without you telling me, I know exactly what kind of forum this is, and would never confuse it with my supermarket (which tends to play 80's music that I used to love, but hearing it now just makes me feel old.)

Maud,  Oh, I see.  If you are one to look for trouble you almost always find it, even if you have to twist words and meanings.  No, thank you.

Since the OP link to the article is deleted, I guess you can't go back and read that the capsules were manufactured in China.  My first comment was that I did not think it qualified as TCM.  I would hate to think of cremains in capsules as being a widely accepted tradition of any culture.

I will correct you also, that I did not say "chinese medicine is NOT regulated" but if you want to make up some more things I did not say, be my guest.  Anyone reading here can read the statements as I wrote them, and figure them out as you have failed to do. 

Goodbye Maude.

I would definitely not trust anything the Chinese government has to say regarding safety issues.  They are hardly a paragon of governmental tranparency and responsibility.  The lack of environmental and worker safeguards are why so many companies are moving operations to China  - it's cheaper if you don't have to follow any pesky regulations.  Also, we certainly all remember how much lead was in Mattel's toys after they moved operations to China.  (Sidebar, there are plenty of toxins in kids' toys made in the US, however.  I was working on a bill to identify dangerous chemicals for children and our biggest opposition was the Toy Industry, specifically Lego.  Ugh.  They suck.) 

 Point is, the Chinese government is not a source for reliable information.  It's a communist government.

I didn't say that I trust the FDA.  Where did you get that? (It's basically being run by Monsanto at this point.)  I don't trust the FDA - not only that, I posted as much on the FDA thread. 

But I don't trust the Chinese government, either.  I probably trust them less.  I realize that Mattel is an American company, but the reason that they moved their operations to China was because they didn't have to adhere to any pesky environmental or labor regulations, thanks to the Chinese government.  Obviously, there are other countries without regulations, but China is definitely one of the worst offenders. 

The idea that TCM may be contaminated with baby cremains concerns me because China has zero safeguards or regulations in place to prevent this.  And it's super gross.

very cool!  It's not the doctor's visit I would have trouble paying for - it's the monthly supply of herbs.  But I will do it when I have the money, no doubt.  My BS, a well-respected NYC surgeon, had great things to say about Dr. Wong.  Lots of respect for him.

That's awesome!