Early Stage Natural Girls!

yes, true... im vegetarian for 20 years and do yoga daily, eat organic foods....

In India they say the main cause of  brest lumps and cancers  is  suppressed sexual desires and broken heart sindrom.

So that is what  i got recently, before i discovered my lupm before xmas.

That emotional  crisis  could be  the main cause for my breast problem.

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still i cant understand if i have cancer or not...biopsy say-i do have a carcinoma, but other machines and analises say i dont have any cancer, just a precancerous stage...shal i do my surgery or no?

Thank you so much, my ayurvedic doctor today say the same!

At least i will try to avoid radiation and chemo.

Mallory-

I have always been into organic, whole foods. I exercised religiously, ate right, drank water, treated my body well. I did have several stressful periods in my life as I adjusted to boyfriend breakups, job stress, etc., but honestly I was a "clean living" individual.  No smoking, no drugs, very little alcohol.   And I got BC.

I will always stand by the idea that I think mine was caused by birth control pills-- took them for over 10 years, and mine were a high estrogen dose. Followed by 5 pregnancies, 3 live births, breastfeeding, and voila-- BC. I know there are naysayers to this, but I go with my gut on this one. 

Himalaya,  if you are going to have surgery and  if you're premenopausal, you should check out this article.

Does the Timing of Breast Cancer Surgery Affect Survival?

Judith Randal

"When a breast cancer patient is premenopausal, are some phases of her menstrual cycle more propitious than others for surgery?

Biopsies, lumpectomies, and mastectomies are usually scheduled without regard for the menstrual cycle's hormonal ups and downs. Yet there is evidence that the prognosis for a premenopausal patient may depend on when in the cycle she has surgery. . . "

http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/content/89/7/473.full

Zuvart, thank you for article!

Kaara, did they recomend for you  chemo or rads?

Can you please tell me more about your diet and food supliments?

Zuvart, English is not my native language.I was reading article but i feel i cant understand the esence.Please can you tell me shortly what is about.

Thank you so much for  support...Im on my way for other doctor.And i will check what kind of foods are alkaline.

Himalaya, in Australia and America they take several nodes and leave the rest.  But if there are cancerous nodes left behind then I think they could spread if you're not having chemo or rads. Getting all the cancer out is important if you're not having the other treatments.

It sounds like a different surgeon might have a better attitude.  It's up to them to fit in with your wishes, not the other way around.  And there's no excuse for rudeness from them.

Himalaya:  I live in the USA and my BS only took the sentinel node.  He told me that even if it showed cancer, he would not remove any more, because the outcome is still the same as far as spread.  The nodes are there to protect your body and removing them creates problems with arm swelling, etc.  If cancer is discovered in the SN then the treatment is designed to eliminate any remaining cells.

If im on the operation table i cant say, stop dont take anymore any nodes out!

And actulay we cant control how many nodes dr takes out...

Has anyone used colon hydrotherapy as part of their treatment?

Himalya,

You can insist the doctor not take any nodes out. Lots of people have done that since taking out cancerous nodes doesn't effect your survival.

Look at this NY Times article on the research:

Lymph Node Study Shakes Pillar of
Breast Cancer Care

By DENISE GRADY
NY Times February 8,
2011

A new study finds that many women
with early breast cancer do not need a painful procedure that has long been
routine: removal of cancerous lymph nodes from the armpit.

Less Surgery for Breast Cancer?

The discovery turns standard medical practice
on its head. Surgeons have been removing lymph nodes from
under the
arms of breast cancer patients for 100 years, believing it would prolong women's
lives by keeping the
cancer from spreading or coming back.
Now,
researchers report that for women who meet certain criteria - about 20 percent
of patients, or 40,000
women a year in the United States - taking out
cancerous nodes has no advantage. It does not change the
treatment
plan, improve survival or make the cancer less likely to recur. And it can cause
complications like
infection and lymphedema, a chronic swelling in the
arm that ranges from mild to disabling.

Removing the cancerous lymph
nodes proved unnecessary because the women in the study had chemotherapy
and radiation, which probably wiped out any disease in the nodes, the
researchers said. Those treatments are
now standard for women with
breast cancer in the lymph nodes, based on the realization that once the disease

reaches the nodes, it has the potential to spread to vital organs and
cannot be eliminated by surgery alone.

Experts say that the new findings,
combined with similar ones from earlier studies, should change medical
practice for many patients. Some centers have already acted on the new
information. Memorial Sloan-Kettering
Cancer Center in Manhattan
changed its practice in September, because doctors knew the study results before

they were published. But more widespread change may take time, experts
say, because the belief in removing
nodes is so deeply
ingrained.

"This is such a radical change in thought that it's been hard
for many people to get their heads around it," said
Dr. Monica Morrow,
chief of the breast service at Sloan-Kettering and an author of the study, which
is being
published Wednesday in The Journal of the American Medical
Association. The National Cancer Institute paid for
the
study.

Doctors and patients alike find it easy to accept more cancer
treatment on the basis of a study, Dr. Morrow said,
but get scared when
the data favor less treatment.

The new findings are part of a trend to
move away from radical surgery for breast cancer. Rates of mastectomy,
removal of the whole breast, began declining in the 1980s after studies
found that for many patients, survival
rates after lumpectomy and
radiation were just as good as those after mastectomy.

The trend reflects
an evolving understanding of breast cancer. In decades past, there was a belief
that surgery
could "get it all" - eradicate the cancer before it could
spread to organs and bones. But research has found that
breast cancer
can begin to spread early, even when tumors are small, leaving microscopic
traces of the disease
after surgery.

The modern approach is to
cut out obvious tumors - because lumps big enough to detect may be too dense for

drugs and radiation to destroy - and to use radiation and chemotherapy
to wipe out microscopic disease in
other places.

But doctors
have continued to think that even microscopic disease in the lymph nodes should
be cut out to
improve the odds of survival. And until recently, they
counted cancerous lymph nodes to gauge the severity of the
disease and
choose chemotherapy. But now the number is not so often used to determine drug
treatment,
doctors say. What matters more is whether the disease has
reached any nodes at all. If any are positive, the
disease could become
deadly. Chemotherapy is recommended, and the drugs are the same, no matter how

many nodes are involved.

The new results do not apply to all
patients, only to women whose disease and treatment meet the criteria in the
study.

The tumors were early, at clinical stage T1 or T2, meaning
less than two inches across. Biopsies of one or two
armpit nodes had
found cancer, but the nodes were not enlarged enough to be felt during an exam,
and the
cancer had not spread anywhere else. The women had
lumpectomies, and most also had radiation to the entire
breast, and
chemotherapy or hormone-blocking drugs, or both.

The study, at 115
medical centers, included 891 patients. Their median age was in the mid-50s, and
they were
followed for a median of 6.3 years.

After the initial
node biopsy, the women were assigned at random to have 10 or more additional
nodes removed,
or to leave the nodes alone. In 27 percent of the women
who had additional nodes removed, those nodes were
cancerous. But over
time, the two groups had no difference in survival: more than 90 percent
survived at least five
years. Recurrence rates in the armpit were also
similar, less than 1 percent. If breast cancer is going to recur
under
the arm, it tends to do so early, so the follow-up period was long enough, the
researchers said.

One potential weakness in the study is that there was
not complete follow-up information on 166 women, about
equal numbers
from each group. The researchers said that did not affect the results. A
statistician who was not
part of the study said the missing information
should have been discussed further, but probably did not have an
important impact.

It is not known whether the findings also apply to
women who do not have radiation and chemotherapy, or to
those who have
only part of the breast irradiated. Nor is it known whether the findings could
be applied to other
types of cancer.

The results mean that women
like those in the study will still have to have at least one lymph node removed,
to
look for cancer and decide whether they will need more treatment.
But taking out just one or a few nodes should
be enough.

Dr.
Armando E. Giuliano, the lead author of the study and the chief of surgical
oncology at the John Wayne
Cancer Institute at St. John's Health Center
in Santa Monica, Calif., said: "It shouldn't come as a big surprise, but
it will. It's hard for us as surgeons and medical oncologists and radiation
oncologists to accept that you don't
have to remove the nodes in the
armpit."

Dr. Grant W. Carlson, a professor of surgery at the Winship
Cancer Institute at Emory University, and the author
of an editorial
accompanying the study, said that by routinely taking out many nodes, "I have a
feeling we've
been doing a lot of harm."

Indeed, women in the study
who had the nodes taken out were far more likely (70 percent versus 25 percent)
to
have complications like infections, abnormal sensations and fluid
collecting in the armpit. They were also more
likely to have
lymphedema.

But Dr. Carlson said that some of his colleagues, even after
hearing the new study results, still thought the
nodes should be
removed.

"The dogma is strong," he said. "It's a little
frustrating."

Eventually, he said, genetic testing of breast tumors might
be enough to determine the need for treatment, and
eliminate the need
for many node biopsies.

Two other breast surgeons not involved with the
study said they would take it seriously.

Dr. Elisa R. Port, the chief of
breast surgery at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Manhattan, said: "It's a big
deal in
the world of breast cancer. It's definitely
practice-changing."

Dr. Alison Estabrook, the chief of the comprehensive
breast center at St. Luke's-Roosevelt hospital in New York
said
surgeons had long been awaiting the results.

"In the past, surgeons
thought our role was to get out all the cancer," Dr. Estabrook said. "Now he's
saying we
don't really have to do that."

But both Dr. Estabrook
and Dr. Port said they would still have to make judgment calls during surgery
and remove
lymph nodes that looked or felt suspicious.

The new
research grew out of efforts in the 1990s to minimize lymph node surgery in the
armpit, called axillary
dissection. Surgeons developed a technique
called sentinel node biopsy, in which they injected a dye into the
breast and then removed just one or a few nodes that the dye reached first,
on the theory that if the tumor was
spreading, cancer cells would show
up in those nodes. If there was no cancer, no more nodes were taken. But if
there were cancer cells, the surgeon would cut out more
nodes.

Although the technique spared many women, many others with
positive nodes still had extensive cutting in the
armpit, and suffered
from side effects.

"Women really dread the axillary dissection," Dr.
Giuliano said. "They fear lymphedema. There's numbness,
shoulder pain,
and some have limitation of motion. There are a fair number of serious
complications. Women
know it."

After armpit surgery, 20 percent
to 30 percent of women develop lymphedema, Dr. Port said, and radiation may
increase the rate to 40 percent to 50 percent. Physical therapy can help,
but there is no cure.

The complications - and the fact that there was no
proof that removing the nodes prolonged survival - inspired
Dr.
Giuliano to compare women with and without axillary dissection. Some doctors
objected. They were so sure
cancerous nodes had to come out that they
said the study was unethical and would endanger women.

"Some prominent
institutions wouldn't even take part in it," Dr. Giuliano said, though he
declined to name them.
"They're very supportive now. We don't want to
hurt their feelings. They've seen the light."
         

Patty, note from the study report,

Removing the cancerous lymph nodes proved unnecessary because the women in the study had chemotherapy and radiation, which probably wiped out any disease in the nodes, the researchers said. 

I had all the signs of lymphedema in the chest and breast before I was diagnosed as my nodes were blocked, in fact that was my only warning as the mammo and ultrasound showed nothing and the "thickening" was soft and hard to find. An area next to my armpit is still affected due to the delay in diagnosis and surgery.  Those bad nodes needed to come out a lot sooner but at least my arms are unaffected so far.  So leaving affected nodes will also cause lymphedema.

THanks Joy. Hopefully this vacation will help me reclaim the sweet before I lose it altogether. Have a good weekend.