Plz Post your SUCCESS STORIES for holistic ILC treatment

Just re-reading your post and want to clarify I am not recommending against mainstream treatment. I see you are a survivor so you know how the whole cancer business plays out. I was just reacting to the suggestion of bilateral mastectomy being necessary. Your friend can certainly choose that if she wants, but it may not be her only conventional choice.

I am much younger than your friend, had lumpectomy etc etc and like you, take Letrozole. I am fine five years later (thank God).

Wishing your friend peace with her decisions.

really, Sue? I can't imagine my surgeon, at same hospital, recommending that. And things have progressed a lot in the last 5 years. He was saying to me recently that nowadays, with preadjuvant antihormonal, surgery may become obsolete!

I second dtad in regards to BMX. I think it's the most 'holistic' from the three main options most of us face: surgery, chemo and radiation. I have a great aunt who was treated with UMX over 30 years ago and didn't have any other treatment since. She is 92. She has no idea about the details of her original diagnosis and I am not even sure they did much testing if any at all where she had it done.

Another recent example is my mother-in-law who felt a lump when she was about 89 or 90, didn't want to do anything and her PCP told her to do nothing not even testing because in his words, at such age BC progresses slowly. She died a very painful terrible death from BC mets to bones and lungs and her decline lasted for about eight months. I think this could have been avoided by simple lumpectomy and an AI pill, she was a very healthy woman for someone who is 91.

Hi Linda, I think your friend could ask her MO how long she would go without symptoms if she left it untreated. And what her decline and death would be like if she were to progress to metastatic cancer. An experiened MO would probably say that nobody can tell for sure but there are some averages. Of course that depends on the specifics of her particular cancer. I suppose with a slow growing tumor one may be doing nothing and be free from symptoms for 2 -3 years, however the question is what would come next.

I gave you an example where the decision to do nothing at very advanced age did not result in a good outcome, in my opionion. I have been thinkng about these issues quite a lot lately, and to me how death happens is a big consideration. People often say we will all die anyway but that 'anyway' can be quite different in terms of suffering for the patient and family.

In your friend's case, she got cancer despite being active and in good health. I assume she eats healthy diet. I personally do not believe in diet as a treatment for active cancer and would be very curious to see research that proves otherwise. Please note we are not talking about diet as a method to reduce risk but diet as a way to treat already existing condition.

I don't have ILC but my Grade 1 pathology and low Oncotype score (13) suggest a slow-growing less aggressive cancer. I had 10 weeks of waiting between diagnosis and surgery, and rather than sitting around watching my cancer grow during that time, I went all out on the natural treatments and lifestyle changes - ketogenic diet, high dose IV vitamin C treatments 3x/week, numerous supplements that all have at least some science behind them suggesting a benefit - but my tumor was larger when it came out than at diagnosis. It wasn't by enough to know for sure that it continued to grow, since sizing in ultrasounds is not completely accurate, but the natural way certainly didn't shrink it. I had also been taking cancer-preventive supplements for over a decade before the diagnosis that didn't prevent it.

My goal was to slow it down and prevent it from spreading until we could get it out of there, and without any proof I have a good feeling that we probably accomplished that much. I plan to continue with complimentary treatments to help keep it from coming back. But after my personal experience I have no reason to believe any of those things could have conquered my cancer on their own.

I didn't need chemo or radiation, but because I do lean toward natural remedies over medical/pharmaceutical intervention in most instances, it was a real struggle for me to talk myself into even taking the tamoxifen. Then after a week of staring at the bottle of pills, I reminded myself of the above and the decision got easier. I'm not exactly thrilled about taking it, but I am at peace with my choice because I believe it gives me the best chance at a long life free of recurrence. I don't care how old I am. After reading about what some of the Stage IV ladies go through, I don't want that to be my life for even one day. I want to check out the way my grandmothers did - at a ripe old age, otherwise healthy and independent, and peacefully in my sleep. With no regrets.

BTW, not everyone feels "maimed" by a BMX. I personally feel relieved and don't miss my breasts one single bit. I'm not even sure I'll do reconstruction.

Well I was diagnosed with DCIS stage 0 grade 3 ER-/PR- with comedonecrotic features in two sites on OCT 21. A month ago. My breast was trashed from the stereotactic biopsy done on OCT 16 and is still recovering. At some point, probably January, I will have a lumpectomy. Until then I am eating a raw diet twice per day, a vegetarian hot dinner, exercising daily and taking turmeric caps 2 gms per day, Vit C 6 grams per day, Vit D3 10000 iu per day, Co-Q-10 500 mg twice per day, Green Tea Extract twice per day and will then add some protocols to kill the cancer. I also have reduced the stress in my life and am meditating and/or praying a lot. I will keep you ladies informed of what happens. I read an article in CANCER (I am in medicine myself) that discusses the theory that "Surgery causes latent recurrence of breast cancer: An inconvenient truth?"....and it made me less enthusiastic about running out and getting a lumpectomy. The theory in that article was that DCIS is dormant, until awoke with surgery. Once active, it can invade and wreck havoc. I am hoping that all the stuff I am doing will drive it back to dormancy. Either way, I will probably still have a lumpectomy, unless the 3-D MRI shows complete regression....in which case, I will follow it. I am already 60 and just want 25 more years of life. And quality life as well. But I do have 4 kids and a husband and I want to be around for them. I am not so convinced that mainstream medicine really has a handle on what to do about DCIS, high grade or otherwise. Breast CA is a huge, billion dollar business and one that I am wary of. I want to make decisions based on reasoned, sound judgement, and not on fear. And right now, I am in the gearing up phase. I have decided I do not want either radiation or chem, though might be talked into rads intraoperatively as a one time deal. Thank you all for listening and for posting on this forum! For those of you seriously considering non-conventional treatment, have a look at DCIS411 and the FB group: Alternative DCIS.

Namaste.

Penzance, your LCIS, which is just a high-risk marker for possibly developing cancer in the future is not really relevant to the original post about invasive HER+ lobular cancer. Niether is the DCIS post. The woman referred to has an agressive invasive cancer and HER+ women had dismal survival rates before the introduction of herceptin as a therapy

Penzance, the hypothesis that secondary cancers remain dormant while the primary is still there does not seem logical. The fact that there are secondary cancers means they were not dormant. Also, many of the stage 4 ladies have not had surgery on the primary tumour but secondaries continue to spread, unfortunately.

I realise you said 'in some cases' but I don't think the statement has a lot of credibility. I am a layperson but that's my understanding.

Sorry to go off topic. And LCIS is a different matter to DCIs.

Linda, is your friend deciding independently or are you advising her?

With respect, I think she should also listen to her doctors and make fully informed decisions.

Best to your friend.

Linda, I'll chime in though it's way too soon for me to claim success yet as I just passed my 2 year mark past dx and still have my tumor. I have ILC, which the mammogram and U/S did not pick up. They scheduled me for surgery and didn't seem to be in an all-fired hurry, which I am ever grateful for. Just before surgery I went to see a holistic MD to see if I could at least get out of chemo and rads and he said that if I were willing to postpone surgery he thought he might even be able to save me from that. I did postpone the surgery so I still have my boobs and it was scary but I just went with it and yes, it was a huge leap of faith but I don't regret it. I started with a ketogenic diet and lost 40 lbs and got on many supplements, including iodine, holy basil, curcumin, olive leaf extract, and Brevail. I cycle in and out of many others like Myomin and co-Q-10. My dr. found that I had an overload of mercury and lead in my body, which I found easy to believe b/c I had a mouth full of "silver" fillings and had played with a thermometer as a child, after which I became quite ill, but not in an obvious go-to-the-Dr. kind of way. I had all the symptoms of mercury toxicity. He did many things with me to strengthen my biome and I just kept getting more and more healthy. I bought a mini-trampoline and jump on that about 30 min/day to keep lymph fluids moving. I've done some juicing but I've found that I begin to gain weight when I do that.

This summer I did a 21 day fast and I think that really turned things around. I had uterine fibroids, caused by too much estrogen and with a highly ER/PR+ tumor that's not good. At 56 I still had not started perimenopause, but after the fast--BOOM! I haven't had a period since, though I was quite regular before. I bought a biomat during that time and I love it--I use it every day and I think my tumor is shrinking! I realize that the palpating with fingers method is highly suspect but it is truly shrinking slowly.

After all that. . . pshew! . . . what is really helping is getting control of my stress. The biomat helps considerably as it helps me to really slow down and take deep breaths. It's like an infrared sauna and gets up to 158 deg so I sweat and the negative ions make me feel really good. I do EFT when I need it and probably should do it more. I picked up a book called The Healing Code, and it looks like BS on the surface but my dr. ran some tests with it and recommends the book so I'm trying that next.

For your friend I would say that she needs to do what she feels in her heart. If she goes into conventional therapy fighting against it in her mind and feeling that it's not the best way for her to heal, it probably won't help her. The placebo effect is very powerful, more powerful than any drug, but there's a thing called the noceebo effect also--if you believe a treatment will hurt you, it probably will. For this reason I never tell someone with cancer that they should choose what I'm doing--the fact is that most people just don't think this way and can't quite relate and they would have no confidence in it. People need to be able to make their own decisions about their healthcare so they can heal without stress. It sounds like doing conventional would stress your friend out and thus impede her healing so I would encourage her to learn as much about holistic healing as she can--sounds like she is doing that and she's intuited what parts of her life were imbalanced. Yes I've had to work on the sleep issues also and losing the sugar was big.

Thanks solfeo, I'll look into that.

seems this fora has been hijacked

Abigail, I don't see any signs of thread hijacking. Not one person came on here and shouted me down and I'm probably the most extreme one on this thread. I'd say that very few people are ready for 100% holistic but many are looking to incorporate some of these ideas into their healing journey. I belong to a meetup group in St. Louis that is dedicated to holistic healing for cancer and most of the people there have done some conventional, but the leader of the group has been 100% holistic, only having been dx'ed by conventional means, and she is 6 years out from dx and she's bursting with radiant energy and looks 20 years younger than her age. But like me, she still has the tumor and for those who want to do holistic only, it's a thing that you need to realize--that you may never get rid of the tumor. Our leader's doc told her that she'll probably die with the tumor but not of cancer, which is an important distinction but it's good to realize that the cancer can only kill you if it goes to mets. I'm telling you this b/c many people simply can't live with the idea that there is a tumor in their body and want it cut out asap but you'll find that if you delay surgery a little and stop the growth, your thinking may change. The way I looked at it is that I'd been living with it for several years so what's a few more, lol.

Another important thing to realize and I can't stress this enough--take control of stress! Sometimes you're stressed and don't even realize it. If you don't do this you will seriously impede your healing. One thing that I realized quickly is that I have a whole layer of stress in my life that will always be there and it's ADHD. The reason this is a problem is b/c those with ADHD are always struggling with issues in life that other people may take for granted, like being on time for appointments and paying bills on time, among other things. I struggle with the extreme amount of paperwork on my job as a special ed teacher and I also struggle with issues of feeling like I just can't quite keep up with life. I have a high IQ but I've never been able to do what other people can do and it's mightily frustrating and I've never felt like I could measure up to others. Then there were issues of growing up as an extremely emotional person in a very emotionally cold family and all that on top of current stresses made for a big muddy mess when I got my dx. I began to see a counselor early on after the dx and that has been a huge help but I more recently came to the conclusion that focusing on early childhood "traumas" was only making things worse. I'm still glad I went back and visited that but now it's time to move on. The best thing for me to realize is that my folks did the best they could with what they had and I did everything different with my kids and both of my girls agree that I did a good job raising them, so there is that lol. It's also good to realize that those early experiences have made me what I am so I am looking at them with a new eye of gratitude for the good things I had as well.

Also my doc places a lot of emphasis on how I feel. If I feel good I'm healing and if I don't feel good I'm not healing or I'm getting worse. At first I thought I'd need to go off my ADHD meds and asked my holistic MD about it and he asked if they make me feel better or worse and I said better. He told me to take them then. When I went off them I started falling further behind and it made me very depressed, so the best course is to take them.

Anyway, this is my personal journey and other's experiences may vary, which is why there's no one size fits all answer for all of this so I'd say the best thing is to follow this intuitively and know where your personal "hot spots" are. If you know you don't sleep enough, work on that. If you have a terrible sweet tooth, for God's sake stop eating that stuff! Read everything you can get your hands on and know that whatever holistic thing you do, the quality of your life will improve. I've even gotten to the point where I am grateful that this happened to me. Even if I die from this next year the journey has been worth it. Linda, you and your friend are welcome to PM me if you want to know more.