Any Naturalists Views On Her2+ treatment??

Chonkala - when it comes to HER2+ve breast cancer, you really cannot take the chance to not have chemo and Herceptin. Some ladies are now being offered Herceptin only - that may be something for you to pursue. Personally, I'm glad I threw everything at it.

My heart goes out to you.  I was in EXACTLY the same situation last year.  It was agonizing making the decision - and the fact that I didn't like my oncologist didn't helpl either. 

I live in Canada, and here we have to get chemo with Herceptin.  I had read on this forum about women in the States getting Herceptin without chemo and sure asked about that, but no go.  Not an option.  The stats are overwhelming and so confusing - and the advocates on both sides (conventional and alternative) are absolutely sure that they are right.  So, what to do?

In the end, I went conventional and also went to a naturopath.  So I had a single mastectomy (since I had had DCIS 15 years ago with a lumpectomy and radiation, I now needed a mastectomy), four rounds of chemo and am just about to finish up one year of Herceptin - get that every 3 weeks.  In addition, the naturopath gave me mega doses of intravenous Vitamin C, and in comparison to others, I did pretty well.  Interestingly, while I lost my hair, my husband shaved it off and while the stubble thinned out, I never got as bald as a billiard ball.  Was that the Vitamin C?  I don't know. 

If I had to do it over, I would try the "cold caps" in an effort to save my hair.  I didn't find out about them til after my first chemo and by then it's too late.  Losing my hair was rough for me.  And cold caps seem to be more available in the States, although they are pricey. 

Your decision is difficult to make because weighing your options means dealing with variables and stats that are not clear.  There IS no clear answer in your situation and that ambiguity drove me nuts. 

Keep asking questions.  You must be comfortable with your answer. 

Susan

I believe one of the questions to ask is this...if you have a recurrence will you be sorry you did not do the chemo now? I've met so many women sitting in the chemo chairs who were Stage 1, no chemo, now it is back and they regret they didn't do it when the doctors were telling them to do so.

I write a BC Blog. I hear from literally hundreds if not thousands of women. Many have regrets...it is heartwrenching to read some of the stories of regret.

One last question: You are young and potentially have a long life. You are fortunate to be going to Sloan Kettering one of the best cancer hospitals in the world. I'm curious why you chose to go to a great hospital like Sloan Kettering if you don't want to listen to what the doctors think is best for you.

I'm just wondering where the stats that chemo doesn't work 60-70% of the time?? I've never heard of that statistic.

Trish

Chonkala, if you are ER/PR negative, and HER+, chemo plus Herceptin are the only treatments that will save you.

Chonkala, I think you would be more comfortable with the responses if you moved your question to the Alternative Medicine thread.

Chonkala

That study is almost 10 years old now, many, many things have changed. I for one would not want to place my trust in someone who beat colon cancer, which is a completely different disease to the one you are facing.

Why don't you research more medical based studies to do with breast cancer and ones that are more up to date.

It does seem that your mind is made up, however, so I doubt you will do this.

I truly hope that your course of action will be the best one for you.

Trish

Chonkala - have you enquired into having Herceptin by itself - there are lots of women here who have had it alone. Herceptin is NOT chemo by any means and the side effects are very minimal - you certainly wouldn't lose your hair or be sick with it.

I'm sure there are women here who have had it by itself in the US.

If you are not sure about treatments, ask the oncs the risk of recurrence (or death) with treatment and without. This makes it much easier to decide.

I've put you diagnosis into an online risk calculator http://www.predict.nhs.uk/predict.shtml and it looks like chemo nearly halves the risk of dying of cancer - definitely worth doing.

I wasn't sure what grade your cancer is so I put unknown (stage and grade are different things) and assumed node negative.

You can get a more refined estimate by putting in more data, but the best estimate of the benefits will come from your onc who has the most information about your cancer.

I think where most people get confused about chemotherapy is its intended use.  One of the issues that people who decide upon alternative therapies use is that "... so-and-so had chemotherapy and still died of cancer ..."   And that can be true.  Chemotherapy cannot cure cancer.  Neither can radiation or hormonals such as tamoxifen.  But chemotherapy as a adjuvant treatment can decrease your chances of a cancer recurrence.  That is its primary purpose.  Not to cure, but reduce risk.

Your primary "curative" treatment will be surgery.  Removing that tumour from your body is your best option for survival.  Leaving it there will kill you.  So, if you have the tumor removed, then you've taken the single, biggest step toward recovery

Radiation therapy is used to decrease your chance of local recurrence, and chemotherapy- and hormonal therapy is used to decrease the risk of a systemic recurrence.  These are not primary treatments like the surgery; they are adjuvent treatments, i.e., treatment in addition to the surgery.  No oncologist will ever tell you that adjuvent therapies will cure you; that is not the role of adjuvent therapies.  Sure, surgery will reduce risk the most and, in some cases, prove "curative".  But adjuvent therapies can reduce risk further.

Another misconception is that adjuvent therapies will cause more cancer or destroy your immune system.  The risk of adjuvent therapies causing more cancer is very small compared to the risk of the cancer returning if adjuvent therapies are refused.  This fact has stood up to repeated testing, research, and clinical trials.  Those who do adjuvent therapy in addition to surgery have better survival outcomes.  And, as for adjuvent therapies destroying your immune system?   Some chemo drugs temporarily suppress the immune system, but don't destroy it.  Our immune systems always rebound after chemotherapy.  If they didn't, the common cold would kill us post-cancer.

Cancer doesn't recur because your immune system has been destroyed- or compromised by adjuvent therapies; cancer recurs because our primary surgical treatments and/or adjuvent threatments aren't good enough to root out and destroy every, single cancer cell.  Alternative treatments don't have that ability either, but conventional treatment has a better track record of reducing risk than alternative-only treatments.  And reducing risk is what cancer treatment is all about.

Only you can decide what is right for you and what you are comfortable with.  But, please, do not dismiss adjuvent therapy under the belief that "... it doesn't work..."  It does work.  It will increase your chances of surviving long-term.  It just won't cure you.

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From what I've read chemo gives a much greater benefit than Herceptin. Herceptin is great because it has far fewer side effects, but doesn't provide the same level of risk reduction. But it works well as an additional treatment - can almost halve whatever risk remains after all the other treatments.

The rationale against Herceptin only is that if your cancer is aggressive enough to need Herceptin, it certainly needs chemo as well.

However there have been some promising studies of using two different anti-HER2 drugs as adjuvant treatment. For some cancers this dual HER2 blockade can work as well as Herceptin and Chemo, but they don't yet know which cancer types.

Some doctors actually do look at the individual. A friend of mine did Herceptin without chemo; she was 68 years old, Stage I, and very highly ER/PR positive. Her oncologist said that Herceptin was a must, but since anti-hormonals should work very well in her case, he was comfortable skipping chemo (although if she would have been younger, chemo would have been in his recommendations).

Chonkala, you are very young. You are HER2+, which is very aggressive. You are also ER/PR negative, which means that whatever you do now is your only shot to beat this disease. I would do the standard of care and add all the complementary things to help you get through your treatments and beyond. Best wishes.

Chonkala,

Because you are young and HR-, one major item I don't think you can avoid and still survive is the loss of ovarian function through one means or another. I do understand how hard that is, and that anything like that still IS a choice, but a bleak one. I don't know how much or how little "cell kill" by chemotherapy plays into your picture as a person who is HR- versus how much the loss of ovarian function achieves for you. At the very least, chemical ovarian suppression might be a choice until you are older, as one combination with trastuzumab.

A number of people have been able to get Herceptin alone by allowing the onc to offer chemo + trastuzumab, which gets the onc off the hook, and then refusing the chemo, in which situation oncs are in the position of offering trastuzumab as at least some protection in your behalf. However, some insurance will not pay for it if it is not given with chemo (go figure -- it is a lot more expensive for the insurance company to pay for the chemo and the endless lab testing with chemo too, yet some still won't pay for trastuzumab used alone).