Alternative Treatment

Yes, Abigail, I saw the study.



Soyaandpepper, you are not alone, but such is life.

I post a lot of alt stuff on this forum and I am pretty up front about the fact that I am a fan of the integrative approach.  Listen, I don't think people should get a zillion x-rays, but certainly a few aren't going to make a difference and could likely tell you what you are dealing with.  I also think the whole X-ray business has changed a LOT since the fifties - at that time, cigarettes were being marketed as good for you.

But my point is, regardless of whether or not you have an X-ray,  until you see a doctor and get an actual diagnosis, you can't even be sure that you have cancer.  Cancer isn't diagnosed with a clinical exam.  A clinical exam gets you further testing, but until the results of that testing come in, you don't know if you have something malignant or not. 

abigail

As I am sure you know BC is not dx with an xray.

I know lots and lots of people who have had many xrays through life and do not have cancer.

I'm not your best example because with my bad lungs, I have had many xrays to the chest and voila so who knows ...  so sure, it may well be a CONTRIBUTORY factor.  In any case, simply REFUSE an xray if you want to, but really, dont you think you should go the DR ?

I went onto Garys website, and I dont see anywhere that he thinks people should avoid the DR.

Abigail,

Probably a silly question but I assume the Parkinson's disease is self diagnosed as well?

Caryn

Wow. Just wow. 

Mary 

Abigail,

May youknow no suffering or pain in your unique journey. You are one of a kind!

Caryn

YramAL,

Threads are usually locked when they become mean spirited and devolve into personal attacks or name calling. You can still read them. This is the alt forum and it is rather patronizing for anyone to assume we know what's in someone's best interests especially since we really don't "know" them. I know that Abigail's self diagnosis seems very far outside what most of us would do but she is an adult and can/will do as she wants. She is not hurting anyone. Can we let her be?

Caryn

I'm not reporting.

I agree-let her be. She can do whatever she wants. 

Does anyone know what the difference is? When my year was up, after the lumpectomy, I scheduled my own mammogram. They asked what kind I wanted. I said I didn't have any new lumps so they just did the screening mammogram.

Actually, I really don't trust them anyway. Both my cancers were missed by mammograms (which I have been getting for 36 years)

When I mentioned this to the Breast Center the tech told me mammogram misdiagnose about 15 percent of them.  That's why it is vital to check yourself on a monthly basis.

I still do the annual mammograms though - kind of scared not to.

Abigail, yes, a biopsy can distinguish between ductal, lobular and inflammatory cancers.



X-rays have come a long way since the machines in the shoe shops. It is true that you should try to limit X-rays, but one dental X-ray is not what hurt your back.



I am sorry about the Parkinson's. My grandfather had that at the end of his life and it was quite bothersome. You really ought to talk to a medical person about the seizing up business.

dogsandjogs

I am sure I could have googled the dx mammo , but no time here right now so I cant get techy with you, but I did have a DX mammo.  Always had the screenings as you had.  Then, when they saw something  suspsicious ( which btw was on the PRIOR yrs mammo too/ DOH!)  they called me in for  a diagnostic mammo.  I will tell you it seems to hurt more because they put ' cups' over the area they are more concerned with and it seemed to me the pressure is greater as well.  They focus in on the area of concern, nit just the entire brest.

 As for screening mammos,  I do hope that anyone with BC is having one at least annually and IF NOT , then maybe US or MRI or something where we are not just relying on the drs to have xray vision!

Morning - doing three bco posts before I start my work day -

first to say, Abigail has been around a long long time ( 76 years old *_* ! ) and she has been through this conversation / debate 15x over on bco alone, read the threads and understand her more.  She is a grown woman with her beliefs for what they are and why, she is going to do what she is going to do.  We cannot change her, and some of us just want to squeeze her dear self to death, she is such a fireball of a sweetie.

Abigail, I have not followed the Oregon studies but will check those out. 

Mammograms.... Ruby, I agree..... this is my experience, strength, hope.... I am a woman who chose not to have mammograms at one year intervals though I have had them. 

I did self exams and found the mass.  The mammogram showed a mass with tenacles like a crab, very alive, very much a cancer, there was little to question, two techs were crying and I was consoling them, two surgeons and the initial radiologist said they knew what they were looking at and agreed to my decision to forego the biopsy and just have excisional biopsy / lumpectomy and sentinel node biopsy (in other words, one cannot determine cancer from mammos but sometimes there is no question, some malignancies leave no doubt). My cross is that I did not know enough then, a thermogram and a PET CT were not done to check all the cancer areas.  I was multifocal, needed to be known and the nodes needed to be checked and could have been, PRIOR to surgery, I dod not believe in hitting the immune system with too many surgeries either.  Lord knows I was going through enough trying to survive the neighbor's ooutside wood boiler toxic fumes and smoke.  Point :::: We need to know more.  Where else was it, ovarian, cervix, bones?  I think we need to know this pre-surgery, but we get the mammograms and there is a lump and we become a breast  - not for all but for too many medical care professionals.  When mammograms are not even going to reveal the truth for most women?  Cancer is systemic.  Period.  Where, what, why?  Why being most important, but never answered.  And I am off on my soapbox, flying over the trees LOL.... ok......

I was burned by mammograms.  I know the six slides I had post-surgery, those being within 2 1/2 months of the four slides I had pre-surgery, the six burned me.  Cannot prove it, know it.  Was it because I was a month out of surgery?  Or too soon from the other mammos? 

The pain, buring, itching, rashes all lasted six weeks, thought I had IDC.  I did not have the skin pain at all after surgery no matter how much they had shaved behind the nipple and taken from the breast, I had nipple pain.  So I am not rushing back in for mammograms before a year is up or longer unless I absolutely have to.  Then I will take control of how many slides and walk out when I am done, not when they think I am done so the radiologist and tech better be on their toes to do it right and getthe most important first.  I also insist on the high detail digital first, not last.  And on a pad for the thyroid and neck.  This should be standard but they re not protecting us very well.  But first, I will keep having thermograms with no radiation - every six months.  This also gets my axilla where the three cancer nodes are in question still.  And the entire head and neck, breasts, to the waist.  You can get full body too.  From there I would go to  further testing but mammograms are not my first choice at any time, more women have used mammograms and not had the cancer detected for various reasons, so I do not even know why we go there first, waste of health and money and false information.

Recently, I chose a full body PET CT scan, and I know this is not the healthiest yeah!!! but we were looking for anything and everything, getting to the bottom of what was left, if any and I need to know for peace of mind too.  First and probably last one.  But I know now that what could be seen WAS seen.  Three nodes in right axilla.  Nothing anywhere else, not in bones or anything.  So I wonder why did I get a nuclear bone scan?  Why?

Now I am working on the cancer in lymph nodes same as I was before, the rist time around it was there and left, and so the journey does not end, never - but I already knew that, ther ewill never be an NED for me, that is all right, I know where it stands, this is life long and the goal is fabulous QOL for years to come.  If alt choices get rid of the cancer for some reason I will never know what one ting did it because I am doing so many choices together and I transition by the week (cancer morphs, I morph hahaha).  I am happy with my choice, peaceful even, though I have days.  And memory and LE are improved enough to work from home again though still do not drive for saafety sake.

Anyone who does not choose mammograms or 'too many' mammograms.... there is the thermography which gives details of what is infection, cancer, calcifications, etc.  They are out of pocket in US anyway, around $150 +- and often found in a chiropractors office or a naturopath, but I would go with the naturopath unless the chiro is very very holistically minded and understands cancer.  

I have spent the last 3 years involved with alt media sites...

I hope... i have the strength to live up to my conviction 

Celine, you will be amazed at the strength that is within you and will pride yourself on knowing much more about this whole BC business than most doctors, BUT, results first.....

YEAH for NED neck nodes ESSA   Try to visualize those cancer cells in your pos nodes reduced to dry dust by the core biopsy, pouf !