I may decide not to do chemo and radiation

Often people who have died following chemo, did chemo from the start and the cancer grew. I think there are other palliative ways to treat bone pain besides chemo. How many of us know of people personally dying shortly following chemo? For me, there are so many, I've lost count. I have no misunderstanding about that. 

Recently I read a heart broken family member's story of losing his mother to lung cancer who took the conventional route. There were no tumors in her body as they had already been removed by surgery. She clearly died of the treatment.

I have access to many people using alternative treatments for cancer and quite a few of them are living with cancer and controlling and/ or ridding their body of cancer slowly with supplements and off label pharmaceuticals. Some people go a life time like this and die much later, often of something else.

I have now read that there are 3 women on the cannabis oil protocols with triple negative breast cancers, who are NED. One who had stage III and no conventional treatment- no surgery, no chemo, no hormone tx, no nothing. She just got a report that the tumor is now gone. 

With all the sites out there now for alternative cancer treatment if you are looking for anecdotal evidence, it is certainly not hard to find. People are coming forward and helping one another....because chemo doesn't work. It doesn't make us healthier... It makes us sicker.

I am stage 1 and chemo is not on the table for me, but I have thought a lot about it if things were to change for me. Recently I read Radical Remission by Kelly Turner:

http://www.amazon.com/Radical-Remission-Surviving-Cancer-Against/dp/0062268759

She studied over a thousand cases of people with advanced cancer that went into remission and found 9 common elements between them. They were radically changing your diet; taking control of your health; following your intuition; using herbs and supplements; releasing suppressed emotions; increasing positive emotions; embracing social support; deepening your spiritual connection; and having strong reasons for living.

Some of the people she interviewed underwent chemo along with alternative approaches and some refused all conventional treatment. I found the book to be very inspiring and it gave me hope that it is possible to manage cancer without chemo.

First off, whenever a person ingests something, the body doesn't know if it is "natural" or not. Anything that is ingested has the potential to be dangerous to the body.  All the body knows is that it has to chemically break down the substance and then create energy.  The DH has a rare metabolic muscular dystrophy.  He has a defect in the fatty acid oxidation cycle.  There are numerous metabolic muscular dystrophies that affect the various energy cycles in the body.  A person who has an enzyme defect in the carbohydrate, fat or amino acid cycle can ingest any food stuff and it could potentially prove fatal.  When the body ingests say, for example, a piece of "whole wheat organic bread" and the person has a defect in the carbohydrate cycle, the body can reject breaking down that piece of bread due to the missing enzyme, ultimately causing the cells to store the chemically unbroken down pieces of matter in the cells and cause death.  Likewise, the same thing can occur from sucking a lollipop.

That said, the body is very elegant.  It knows how to create energy.  That is what keeps both man and the earth "alive."  Think of the process of photosynthesis that we learned as children.  The body creates and stores energy, just like every living thing on this planet.  Cancer refers to those cells that are fueled with energy that for whatever reason morph into new types of cells that spill forth energy at a faster pace than normal cells.  So, the question that researchers are trying to answer is what causes those cells to morph into cells that multiply more quickly than normal cells and how do we stop them from creating havoc?

Studying rare metabolic muscular dystrophies and rare breast cancers (like the one I have), one comes to an understanding that we are far from understanding how to treat and prevent these potentially catastrophic illnesses and the more "normal" variations of these diseases.

Since there is no treatment for the DH's illness, we have been open minded to any and all treatments.  Presently, for a decade now, the DH is in a clinical trial that permits him to take an oil, similar to Lorenzo's Oil.  The oil was first identified as a use to grease machines.  Really.  Who would have thought that an oil greasing material would promote fatty acid oxidation in his mitochondria???!!! How does one refer to it?  Is it "natural" or "artificial"?  Quite honestly, I don't care what one might label it because it works.  How do we know it works?  Because we can see the changes in his blood enzymes.  The body doesn't care if it is natural or artificial.  It just knows how do break it down and create energy!

Recently, I read an interesting book, The Remedy.  It describes how tuberculosis was "discovered."  Tuberculosis was around since the beginning of time.  However, it wasn't until the late 1880's that it was "discovered."  It took a few more decades before a treatment was found.  Seems today like it took a very short time between "discovery" and "treatment."  Nothing short of a miracle.

Cancer too, has been around for ages.  As many of you know, the first systemic treatment for it was born out of The Great War.  And if any one wishes to argue how "poisonous" it is to the body, then they choose to ignore how childhood leukemia is now a treatable illness, thanks to chemotherapy, whereas a half a century ago it was terminal.

And...finally, since everyone has a "story"....I may as well tell mine.  Uncle Joe was into a natural lifestyle before it became commonplace.  Our family once joked that he traveled EVERYWHERE as long as there was electricity so he could plug in his juicer.  Wintered in Mexico, fasted every few weeks, exercised, and was as lean as a string bean.  Uncle Joe, lived a very long, colorful life and died peacefully at the age of 85.  The only disappointment in his life was that his son became a neurologist!  He couldn't stand the fact that his son was a drug pusher!  Argued with his son all the time for pushing medications!  And then there was his younger brother, Uncle Jim.  Uncle Jim smoked cigarettes, drank whiskey, partied hard, was thin as a string bean and also lived a long life and died of cancer at the age of.....85 as well!

Nuf said!

posters who say I would be dead were it not for conventional therapy, & those who say I would be dead had I had conventional therapy, are both projecting the future.  neither can know if what they said would have been true.  the future is a mystery to everyone.

Yorkie, The scientific research on how chemo prompts existing cancers to proliferate is out there. 

I find it appalling that you have never undergone the horrific side effects of chemo yourself yet you insist that other women do it without even looking at ALL of the scientific evidence and taking into consideration all the anecdotal stories of women on bco recurring and dying after chemo.You don't tell them that. You just tell them they will be committing suicide if they don't take the carcinogens.

Bizarrely enough, there are those who have as yet not recurred, even early stage patients who are most unlikely to recur, who favor toxic treatment so heavily over the possibility of anything else, that they actually post stating that "their" chemo "saved" their life -- as if their own situation provided proof.

Wishing all of us a decent conversation,

A.A.

I've never said people who refuse chemo are committing suicide. Statistically, they have a better chance of surviving cancer, assuming their tumor is a type that responds well to chemo, if they get it. Mine wasn't. I do believe that if the evidence indicates one needs chemo, it is foolish, and possibly life threatening, to refuse.

trouble with anti biotics:  not that they cause resistant microbes, or destroy good intestinal flora, but that they work.  wow.  no more strep throat!!  that must mean that the drugs the doctors push are very okay.  that they do work. & how many pharms have I taken since then.  many, many but none in the last say at least 27 years

Everyone is different, and certainly everyone has the right to act according to their own beliefs and priorities, but for me, an existing, not-hypothetical cancer takes priority over the possibility of a future one. If I die of the existing one, I have zero chance of being around to develop a potential later one.

Possibly a good answer to that would be to consistently clearly indicate that one's own comments about suicide as a result of failure to do chemo  are limited to advanced cases, then.

I apologise to the original poster for the responses you are getting by those pushing chemo. Many understandably are invested in their conventional choices. We understand.

The legions of those doing alternatives rarely post here because BCO is very clear that they oppose alternative therapies (whatever "alternative" means). Thank you mods, for that disclosure.

Anyway, chemo was recommended to me many years ago and I refused it. There was not enough evidence of overall survival. I did surgery so I don't know what category that puts me in. Alternative? Semi-alternative?

Many of those who were diagnosed at the same time as I was passed away. You can read of our many conventional angels on BCO. Having breast cancer is a kind of crap shoot. The poor doctors don't really know what to do so they push standard of care--that's what my oncologist said.

Good luck to you!

does anyone ever hear a successful conventional treatment story referred to as "anecdotal"? I have only heard it referencing alternative 'stories'.  Intersting.

Hi neighbor (Wrenn). You won't get any argument from me.

Yorkie, you may want to research the overall (all cause survival) statistics for radiation thearpy which show no difference in survival. Rads is really only for those who want a 10% improvement (absolute risk figure) in local recurrence. Fortunately, nobody dies of local recurrence. Anyway, I'm so glad you are happy with your choice and anecdote.

BCO even had a recent study on the radiation stats that proved no difference in overall survival. Tho stats haven't changed in 25 years.

Cheers to all. Out to enjoy the holiday with the family! See you next month

Based on the logic of choosing chemo because the odds of it causing cancer are so extremely low, would dosing everyone on the planet result in fewer cases of cancers? If so, why isn't it being done? If not, why not?