How can we make this truly safe, supportive, judgement-free?

No matter who you are, if you want to do anything or nothing, I would support you.

I don't feel I'm morally obligated to enforce the status quo treatments on you or anybody else.

We have a number of enforcers who come over here who feel insulted that we're not doing what they're doing. That's a real insecurity on their part. I assume they have their own problems. We never know what peoples' home lives are like.

Ok...nastiness prevails once again. I'm not on drugs and I don't believe the mods are conspiring against alties. However, I do believe it's a mistake to promote some black goop as being some sort of tumor expeller when there is no evidence of that....none. If Chilli wants to try alternatives, that's great for her. If you want to support her, great. But claiming its doing something without proof is dangerous. The uninformed may believe it.

Ok, so I take mind altering drugs.

Rosemary, I really don't know what mind altering drugs have to do with this topic.  I guess if you're on any kind of drug your opinion doesn't count?  Logic doesn't exist?

Really intelligent/educated women probably wouldn't be fooled by the wild promises some alternative treatments make.

It must be all of the supplements I take if I sound like I'm on drugs

Supplements Susie?  You're a novice.  I think Zuvart was referring to me.  I guess you can call L-Dopa a mind altering drug.  heheheheehe!  IT just helps me move!  I take no offense.

Kat,

Your apology is much appreciated. It takes a real "mensch" to do that in a public forum. I also wonder why people who are opposed to alt therapies come to the alt threads. I have been interested in complimentary tx more than complete alt but I am always interested in learning new things. And yes, I do take quite a few conventional meds as well as supplements. I'm doing very well, am very happy and hope to remain that way!

Caryn

My question and I think the question that many have (if I may be so presumptuous), is why those who are so vehemently opposed to alt therapies come to these threads. Caryn

I agree with Maud's comments to the moderators.  Make this a closed group for those that truly are using alternative therapies whether alone or in combination with conventional medicine and block the Debbie Downers. 

What still confuses me is you have conventional medicine that DOESN"T WORK all the time so why does anyone have a problem with alternative medicine or ideas? And if you decided to throw conventional medicine out the window Momine and go with the sticks...I would cheer you on and respect your decision.  It is your life.  And who are we to judge how anyone here on these boards walks this journey?  We all have our fears.  And there are enough cases of people using ONLY alternative medicine to heal their cancer and it has worked. It won't work for everyone just like conventional medicine has not worked for everyone. 

The Right to Choose Your Cancer Treatment

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/13/the-right-to-choose-your-cancer-treatment/

• Print Babette Rosmond

Before there was Betty Ford, the outspoken first lady who brought breast cancer awareness to the wider public, there was Babette Rosmond, a diminutive New York City writer and editor who went public with her diagnosis of breast cancer 40 years ago, three and a half years before the first lady. If Mrs. Ford is remembered for her grace and honesty, we should remember Ms. Rosmond for her courage and persistence. What Ms. Rosmond demanded of her doctors - the right to choose her cancer treatment - is now the minimum that cancer patients deserve.

When Ms. Rosmond discovered an olive-size lump in her left breast in February 1971, she was 50, the author of six novels and an editor at Seventeen magazine.

It so happened that Ms. Rosmond had two friends with breast cancer, both of whom had experienced psychological and physical side effects from radical mastectomy, the extremely disfiguring operation routinely used by surgeons to treat the disease. The operation removed not only the cancerous breast, but the underarm lymph nodes and both chest wall muscles on the side of the cancer, leaving women with hollow chest walls and swollen arms. Moreover, the decision to perform the operation typically occurred during intraoperative biopsies, when women were under anesthesia and had no voice.

Ms. Rosmond would have none of this. She essentially bullied a surgeon into performing only the biopsy. When the tumor turned out to be cancerous, he told her she needed an urgent radical mastectomy.

Ms. Rosmond demurred, asking for three weeks to consider her options. The surgeon, who had never before encountered such resistance, called her a "very silly and stubborn woman." Then he played his trump card. "In three weeks," he said, "you may be dead."

Fortunately for Ms. Rosmond, a few surgeons had begun to rebel against the one-step radical mastectomy. One was Dr. George Crile Jr., of the Cleveland Clinic, who had concluded that the radical mastectomy made no sense for smaller cancers localized to the breast, which were becoming increasingly commonplace because of better screening and awareness. His own studies suggested that a simple mastectomy that removed only the breast was as effective for such cancers. He also offered an option of a partial mastectomy - an early version of today's lumpectomy - for women like Ms. Rosmond whose cancers were very small and localized. The point, Dr. Crile emphasized, was that no one had proved that more surgery was better.

Ms. Rosmond had a partial mastectomy and was very content with her choice. "To me, the breasts yield aesthetic pleasure," she later wrote. Keeping them had been "useful and rewarding" to her and avoided the painful experiences of her friends. Dr. Crile told Ms. Rosmond that most women making this choice also had local radiation to prevent recurrences, but she declined.

As a journalist, Ms. Rosmond knew a good story, and she soon published "The Invisible Worm," an account of her experiences, under the pen name Rosamond Campion. The book's subtitle boldly announced her message: "A Woman's Right to Choose an Alternate to Radical Surgery."

Ms. Rosmond died in 1997 at age 75. Her breast cancer never recurred

From my point of view debate and discussion are not the problem. It's when things devolve into name calling, nasty implications and disrespect that the problems arise. As far as helping to provide facts and evidence based information, this may not be a priority for those seeking alternative treatments. Furthermore, they are adults who are probably capable and intelligent enough to research these things themselves. This is the alternative forum for those who have made a conscious choice to not use standard evidence based treatment. Why would anyone who does not subscribe to those views come here to say otherwise? Caryn

Oh, thenewme,

We've told you before there is no such thing as facts, just information that changes from day to day.

This years facts are nexts year's ineffective treatment. It's really hard to enforce facts when they don't exist. Good luck anyway!

thenewme,

I really don't want to get into a dust up with anyone but I think you are the perfect person to answer my question (though I don't presume you speak for anyone other than yourself). Since this is a forum specifically for those who eschew standard, evidence based treatment, why would someone who does not agree with that path even be here? As to adults being mistaken, confused or mislead with respect to alt tx, they are adults and free to make those mistakes as well as live with the consequences just as they would with conventional tx. I don't mean to be disrespectful or argumentative, I just find this whole thing completely baffling since this is the forum one comes to if alt is your thing , not to argue against it. Caryn

Very wise suggestion, Sunflowers.

If I'd had, chemo, rads or hormonal treatment, I would feel I had invested my heart and mind in it and wouldn't want my choices invalidated by somebody who thought they knew better. I would want support that it was my choice. Live and let live.

The respect should work both ways. I don't know why some people feel morally obligated to enforce their values on others unless they have insecurities.