I've been wondering if I should examine my resistance to conventional treatment, and with that is a question for everyone -- Why are you choosing alternative treatments instead? Are you doing them until better treatment comes along? HOw long do you plan to wait? Or is anyone doing them along with to help w/side effects? I know Quasar is doing them after to help heal from treatment.
I'm h oping, not to strengthen the us vs. them divide, but to discuss the pro's and c ons of each and to figure out for myself, when is it time to try another approach? Originally I figured I'd do treatment when the drugs got better. But even w/Riba, the outcomes weren't great, and I've become so entrenched in a natural lifestyle (and sometimes I think being closeminded to other options) that when the triple therapy came out, I didn't wan t to do it. When my cat had cancer, my holistic vet recommended chemo over homeopathy, and I was really surprised. She said, "Holistic means being open to everything. whatever would work best in a given situation." The chemo didn;t help at all, but her comment got me thinking. Also, a dear friend of mine, late 30's just got diagnosed with breast cancer. She lives a natural lifestyel, all wood toys, etc. But she chose mastectomy and said "I'll do chemo if they think it's necessary. I'll do anything to live." (She's also doing Iscador and other alternative therapies, too)That seems so clear. So I wondered why I'm being so resistant. Anyway, I'm starting to ramble, but I hope others will join me in a nonpolarized discussion.
I'm h oping, not to strengthen the us vs. them divide, but to discuss the pro's and c ons of each and to figure out for myself, when is it time to try another approach? Originally I figured I'd do treatment when the drugs got better. But even w/Riba, the outcomes weren't great, and I've become so entrenched in a natural lifestyle (and sometimes I think being closeminded to other options) that when the triple therapy came out, I didn't wan t to do it. When my cat had cancer, my holistic vet recommended chemo over homeopathy, and I was really surprised. She said, "Holistic means being open to everything. whatever would work best in a given situation." The chemo didn;t help at all, but her comment got me thinking. Also, a dear friend of mine, late 30's just got diagnosed with breast cancer. She lives a natural lifestyel, all wood toys, etc. But she chose mastectomy and said "I'll do chemo if they think it's necessary. I'll do anything to live." (She's also doing Iscador and other alternative therapies, too)That seems so clear. So I wondered why I'm being so resistant. Anyway, I'm starting to ramble, but I hope others will join me in a nonpolarized discussion.
That's not what wiki says it means.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holistic_health
I stand by the definition in this wiki.
You might want to watch Healing Cancer from Inside Out. It might change your mind about chemo. It only works about 2.2% of the time.
I went thru the exact same delimma a couple years
or so ago. it's a tough question only you can answer.
My intensive reasearch made my decision pretty clear,
after several hepatologists made their case to me I decided
I had no interest in becoming a lab rat. There was no
conclusive evidence that the cocktail would clear the
virus. None of them could convince me 18-24 months
of hell would make my quality of life better.
What does is the choice I made and am quite comfortable
with. I take lots of sups, drink no alcohol, eat right, and
excersise regularly. Above all that I think differently
now, positively ! That's my recipe, but like you I
am diligently on top of emerging treatments if the
golden pill comes to the market, I would consider it.
For now I am perfectly happy and content with
where I'm at.
And here is something to consider: Doctors make money treating diseases. It's only logical that they would want to get you into the system, then not let you out, so they treat one disease and in the process, give you another. How else will they pay for..... you know the rest of the story.
Brigid, I apologize. I misread the information in the book. This was a comprehensive study, one of the best large-scale studies on the effectiveness of cancer treatments, which was published in 2004. It was not conducted by some crazy angry scientists or anti-medical people, no. It was conducted by 2 well respected Australian Oncologists. They simply looked at the results of every randomized, controlled, clinical trial performed in the US between 1990 and 2004, which reported a statistically significant increase in 5-year survival rates due to the use of chemotherapy. (they didn't look at the failures) They looked at the number of cancer patients who survived more that 5 years following diagnosis, and getting into a study and taking the chemo in the study. What they found was an overall 5 year survival rate of 2.1%.
No one with Bladder, kidney, Melanoma, multiple myeloma, pancreas, prostate, soft tissue sarcoma, uterus or unknown primary site survived 5 years following being in a chemo study.
The best chances were with Hodgkin's simply because it is not a tumorous cancer and non-tumor cancers respond better to chemo, according to the book.
This is why I will not submit to a study for HCV drugs! Someone in this group did, I think, the Incivek, or something....it was less than a year ago, Triple therapy....sorry, brain fog and honest to god lack of interest in drugs makes me forget the details. Anyway, they weren't on the drugs for long, maybe a month to 6 weeks, and they failed to get a good viral load reduction and were taken off the study. Within a few months, they had full blown cirrhosis. This is someone whose liver was perfectly fine before the study and is very active- an athletic person who jogs every day or maybe every other day, again, I don't remember all the details. It's in the discussions if anyone wants to go checking back.
Cancer is the only disease where, if you survive 5 years after treatment, you are "cured" even if you die the following month, they count you as cured for statistical purposes: to make them look good. They also avoid the use of absolute numbers when reporting results, instead they use rubber numbers or relative numbers.
For instance, they came out with 3 drugs: Tamoxifen, Serofineb, and Herceptin.
Herceptin was claimed to show a 46% decrease in breast cancer recurrence when the drug was prescribed to late-stage breast cancer patients. The absolute number was 0.6%, so why bother taking the drug?
Tamoxifen reported a 49% decrease in the incidence of breast cancer in women who took the drug for 5 years. The absolute number was 1.5%, which could be easily a variance, remember, they expected a certain number to get cancer and 1.5% less actually did, yet all the women who took the drug suffered from the side effects of the drug, whether they would ever get cancer or not.
In 2007, Sorafenib prolonged survival time for liver cancer patients, they claimed, by a whopping 44%. What did that really mean? That those who took the drug lived 3 extra months of living hell.
from Healing Cancer from Inside Out, pages 9-13.
HCV is like HIV, it's a virus that can cause a disease. With HIV, the disease is called AIDS. HCV doesn't have a name for the disease it causes. HCV is hepatitis C virus. The disease is simply hepatitis, and can be caused by many things, the HCV is only one of the causes.
So when we talk about cures it's tricky. See, you can cure hepatitis and still have the virus. Or you can do chemo and try to eliminate the virus, and then hopefully the hepatitis will heal and your liver will get back to normal, but chemo doesn't cure hepatitis! It's sole function is to destroy the virus, and it's not very good at doing that. In the process of trying, it destroys the natural immune system and can cause many long term side effects.
FM is one of the extra hepatic symptoms, it's something that a person who is fighting the HCV can get. There is a list of many of the extra-hepatic symptoms in a fact sheet at hcvadvocate.org, link is top of this page, on the right. "HCV Advocate has good fact sheets"
Now, that said, I had severe hepatitis and many extra hepatic symptoms that got worse in the years 2005-2006, at which time I was diagnosed with HCV. My liver enzymes were about 6 times the normal, my bilirubin was high, platelets were low, cholesterol also low. I chose alternative treatments for the hepatitis rather than attacking the body with drugs in the hopes they would destroy the virus. It took 18 months for me to regain my health. I didn't get rid of the virus, but I was able to do my daily routine, have a huge garden, work as a massage therapist, go hiking once or twice a week for 4-5 hours and keep the house clean. So I would say I was cured of hepatitis. I was not cured of the hepatitis C virus: I had learned to live my life so that having it did not affect my health.
My friends who did treatment, some cleared, some got the virus back, but they have all had to recover from the drugs, from the chemotherapy, and it's taken time. Some are still suffering from long term side effects, memory loss, Hashimoto's, FM, depression, arthritis, etc. Some will never recover. Others will, I hope they will. I wrote an article about how to recover from chemo through diet and nutritional therapy, it's in the News.
On my mirror, it says: We are going to heal ourselves! Disease is what we use to punish ourselves for our sins. Forgiveness and love are the cures.
Did you see the News Article I wrote on recovering from chemotherapy?
http://www.dailystrength.org/groups/alternative-treatments-for-hep-c/news/view/1713412
That is sad to hear. I am sending hope and wishes for your recovery from it.
I've read specialists say that if it stays gone for 6 months, it can't come back and that people are getting reinfected. Strange...
Funny, I posed this same question on the main board. Some people had similar experiences to yours. OThers said they feel 20 years younger, full of life and energy.
When I was debating chemo for my cat, the oncologist said something really smart. "It could double her life expectancy; it could kill her. If you do it and she gets worse and you'll regret it, then don't start. If you think that if she got worse, you'd feel "well,a t least I tried," then go ahead.
One reason I haven't done treatment is because I think I would feel angry and resentful if I got worse instead of better.
I might not hav e done it for the cat, either, but my husband loved her as much as I did and he has faith in that type of medicine. I felt like I had to give him the chance to help her in the way he thought best. I still miss her.
I had only one logg drop so I quit.
I went to a healing pray meeting with Paul Costa, a former NFL wide receiver for the Buffalo Bills. He layed hands on me and then he claimed that the gift of healing was imparted to me!
I had my blood tested and my viral load was actually down. My MD was shocked and asked what was going on? I just told her I was trying something new...a positive attitude and a natural diet but did not mention the healing I received. She stated that the positive mental attitude...she is also a shrink as well as an Internal MD...has the capability to keep the virus at bay.
I am sorry about the loss of your Cat, I would miss my Frosti Pearl Feather if she got ill and passed to kitty heaven.