IS chemo effective? This FREAKED me out! Pls tell me it's NUTS!

It's bullshit. Stick to reliable sites like Pubmed or Johns Hopkins or the info here. 

That's "porcine manure" (pig poop).  It is amazing to me how anyone can read post such #&+@#%* and anyone put any thought  that it is factual.

%'s and survival length do vary with the different BC types.  There are other 'things' that come into play with long term survival also - other health issues already present/not present at time of DX, age, life 'style', etc.  Using well documented research, 87% of ALL types of BC added together are still 'here' in 5 yrs.  At the same time, with IBC, the 5yr survival is only between 25% - 45%.  with that said, It takes serveral yrs for new research to be done and DOCUMENTED but it does appear that the %'s are getting better all the time.

There certainly are some for whom chemo does not work totally but definately that very small few is not the "97% of  chemo is not effective".  However, for most it does work, as is shown by the vat majority of the women here.  

I can only state my personal experiences that without chemo, there is no way that I would not be celebrating 5 yrs since DX next month and still NED.  

Everything else that turns up later in life can not be attributed to cancer, chemo or rads.  We age and age brings on other issues - not matter what else has gone on.  It is possible that there can be - at times - an asociation, but not always.  Again, in my case, im the years since DX, I have gone from osteopenia to osteoporosis - the osteopenia had been there for years before IBC DX (I have a STRONG family history), so that was to be expected to happen eventually anyway.  My upper back arthritis, which had been there for many years pre IBC DX also, has gotten worse - but, again, that was to be expected with time.  

We should read/educate ourselves but more importantly, we need to learn how to "seperate the wheat from the chafe".  The internet has a lot of fantastic info to be found but not everything there is factual and some can even be dangerous/deadly.  Do not work yourself up over the 'stuff' that is clearly designed to scare.

Stick to reputable places like the home page information of BCO, American Cancer Society, Mayo, John Hopkins. DON'T even go to other places; anybody can say anything they want on the internet.....often promoting a 'miracle cure' for their own profit, or just plain fear mongering, for what sick purpose I don't know. 

Shellies  - IBC is Inflammatory Breast Cancer.

There are different types of  BC with different  prognosis!  The current 'stats' for IBC (which is rare - only between 1% - 5% of DXd BCs) is between 25% - 45% to make it to 5 yrs.  While all types when added together - 87% make it to 5 yrs.  Does that make it clearer?

the truth is up till now there is no cure for cancer, the is no known cause(s), there are theories but nobody knows for sure, and the best we have is chemo and rads, is it the best treatment? CERTAINLY not but we donot have anything else people who chose alternative therapies are risking everything simply because the information is not there, different people react differently to the same therapies and all cancers are not created equal, there is a huge amout of variation even within the same cancer, breast cancer is no exception. The ideal scenario is to have treatments that can kill only the cancer cells without affecting anything else, and with no side effects but we don't have that and the only way we know how to stop it is through chemo which is a thoughtless monster that just destroys anything in its path, cancer or not.