Am I crazy for trying an alternative treatment?

turkey tail or Coriolis. If you search the board here, there are already several threads. That's how I found it and then my Naturopath wanted me on it too. I think they use it in Japan with chemo as standard care.

I had a bad reaction to anti-nausea meds so had to do dose dense A/C chemo without it which was brutal but going to acupuncture twice a week helped me getting through it. Nurses said to me, keep doing what your are doing!

Wishing you the best!

Whirlaway

I ordered the Turkey tails and got it the other day, I'm hopeful and will definitely find out it's effectiveness on my next lab draw but I'm quite happy that I think it helped me sleep for 7 hours straight for the first time without taking Benadryl and I don't know if it's just me being too optimistic but I think it's also alleviating my joint pains!.

I appreciate this idea greatly.

Whirlaway...may I ask what kind of CBD oil and where did you get it? Does it have any THC in it?

Thanks so much!

Hi... Your post was so positive, thorough and reassuring, thank you. Would love to know how you went in China.

I was diagnosed DCIS 3 months ago and have been trying just about all alternatives (proactive and reactive) simultaneously. I have cancelled surgery 3 times, as I have a lot of confidence I can beat this responsibly and naturally. I too am health nut and vegetarian all my life (I've never even had a McDonald's meal). So the Western medicine way seems barbaric and totally against everything I believe in.

I'm really keen to hear the long story of how you are going in your quest to stay healthy and avoid chemicals etc..

Hello everyone,

Enerva,

Our stories are similar in several ways, but I will attempt to keep this somewhat short. I too was diagnosed with ILC about 4 years ago, and after complaining to my gynecologist for months and arguing that I wanted a hysterectomy (she didn't think there was a need when all I complained about was heavy bleeding and the ultrasounds only showed a fibroid and cyst), I went to another gynecologist who is also an oncologist. Turns out I was right (always trust your gut), my cancer was back. The pathology from the hysterectomy showed the ILC was there, everything they took out had cancer. Prior to the surgery, I had internal ultrasounds, and a biopsy, all came back negative, even the sample they tested during surgery was negative, but it was all wrong/missed. I had told the first gynocologist during our months of tests and discussions, unless you can do a test, that can guarantee me there is no cancer there, I want the hysterectomy. She believed that a hysterectomy could be too difficult to handle (effects of surgical menopause). I told her, nothing is more difficult than telling your kids you have cancer and I don't want to do that again, so I want the hysterectomy. I knew something was wrong. I struggle each day with what lies ahead, but I am determined to do everything I can to see my youngest graduate high school in three years, and then I will change my goal to seeing him graduate college. Now I struggle with treatment option, natural vs. medical. I believe I am going with both. I have completely changed my diet, turns out that saying I couldn't stick to a diet if my life depended on it, is not true, it is easy to stick to it when you believe it might give you just one more month, or year. Anyway, I want to thank everyone for sharing their stories, and supporting each other. I love that a group of complete strangers can support each other in such a difficult time. Since my first diagnosis, this has been and remains an amazing resource.

shockedat29:

I don't really separate western medicine from eastern medicine to be honest. I divide things based upon the evidence of effectiveness. I take thyroid hormone for hypothyroidism. Eastern medicine figured out how to treat hypothyroidism. I'm doing conventional therapies for the cancer, western medicine figured those ones out. I don't care where the idea comes from, I only care if it's effectiveness is evidence based and personally would not forgo a treatment that has a demonstrated high success rate for one that does not.

That does not mean I only limit myself to those treatments though, or would not try something that has not been subjected to rigorous testing if more promising options weren't available.

As for spontaneous remission of identified established cancer, these cases are rare and poorly understood and cases without recurrance are even rarer. In a lot of these supposed cases, the person actually did receive some form of conventional treatment and it's impossible to claim that the remission was not due to it.

I think there are cases of truely spontaneous remission of identified established cancer but I think it's a blessing of extreme rarity.

Kirat, good news.

That’s true hapa but the one person I always think of who did and suffered the consequences with an untimely death was Steve Jobs. When he realized it wasn’t working he went the conventional route but it was too late. He even had a press conference advising people not to go the alternate route.

Diane

Those of us who went the conventional route have no guarantees either but we do have history and stats on our side for what those are worth. Thing is it’s all we have to go on and personally I’m was not comfortable with or willing to gamble.

Just make sure you don’t make a decision and second guess yourself. There is enough anxiety as it is.

Diane

I don't understand why women find it so easy to blindly trust modern medicine but won't do anything to help themselves.

As soon as I hear great news from someone who benefited from non conventional medicine, 10 more people jump in to saying it is a fluke. I would be happy to be a fluke. Friend of mine is still NED after flying to Germany to get immunotherapy. Her doctor here in Seattle gave her 1 year to live if she didn't do chemo and 18 months if she did do chemo. So she went to Germany, paid for all treatment out of pocket, she is still NED that was 2011.

Immunotherapy for breast cancer may not be part of first-line standard treatment yet but it is definitely not an "alternative" treatment as discussed on this thread.

Immunotherapy is not considered alt medicine. Some cancers have it as first line of defense like small cell lung cancer. You see ads for this like you do stage 4 bc meds. At some point it will be available for bc. Just a matter of time.

Alt therapy here means using eastern meds, supps and such in lieu of chemo and rads to try and become ned as long as possible.