Thursday, August 16, 2012

Eighteen, Part 2


OK, OK, I said I would finish my tale, started w-a-a-a-y too long ago, in a few days, but time has slipped by and here I am, feeling a bit guilty.

In my last post I talked at length about why I chose not to have the usual cancer treatments, opting instead for no surgery, low dose chemotherapy given in a special way to go more directly to the tumor, and no radiation. But I’ve known all along that chemo is only a stopgap measure when it comes to treating cancer. On the whole it has a track record of helping about three percent of people live five years. So I saw it as buying time while I continued looking for a better alternative.


Photo credit: free-news.org

Oleander looked like the alternative I needed, but side effects kept me from being able to get up to a therapeutic dose. So the search continued. One source for good information is a website called www.beating-cancer-gently.com. The kind and gentle soul behind this website is Bill Henderson, who watched his wife go through four years of misery-by-cancer-treatment before finally succumbing.

Bill began researching alternative cancer treatments long before there was an internet, and he hasn’t stopped. He developed a protocol that has helped many people, and he wrote a book called Cancer Free, which he sells on his website. It is jam-packed with good information about both alternative and complimentary cancer treatments. A couple of months ago his free monthly newsletter included a review of a book he said he had learned a lot from. I know he reads everything on the subject of cancer alternatives, so if there was something new to be learned, I figured I needed to read it, too. I’m glad I did!

Bill Henderson was referring to a newly published book, Cancer’s Cause, Cancer’s Cure by Morton Walker.  Through the marvels of electronics, I immediately purchased the book and was reading it on my Nook within minutes.

The story of Mirko Beljanski makes up the greatest part of the book, and it is a fascinating tale of a research genius who made amazing discoveries about the very earliest steps of misbehaving DNA, leading to the growth of a cancer. He then went on to develop a test for carcinogens that is accurate, inexpensive, and easy to use. Using this test, he was able to then examine hundreds of herbal extracts until he found several crucial ones:

  • ·         that would return the errant DNA to working properly
  • ·         that killed cancer cells without harming healthy cells
  • ·         that helped prevent the devastating toxic effects of radiation and chemotherapy
  • ·         and he developed a product not made from herbs, but from fragmented RNA, which even more strongly prevents toxic effects of cancer treatments, stopping the destruction of the patient’s immune system

The book also describes how Dr Beljanski, a respected scientist at the Pasteur Institute, was persecuted by the French equivalent of our Food and Drug Administration, which appears to be even more entangled with Big Pharma than our FDA, if that is possible. Beljanski was a researcher working with rats and test tubes, not a medical doctor. But word got out that his herbal supplements healed cancer. People began hearing about them and begging their doctors for them. As a result, some French doctors began using these products with great success, even healing patients who had been given up and told they would not live much longer. Even severely ill AIDS patients were healed using these unique herbal extracts as early as the late 1980s. Word spread, and some doctors have now been using them in Europe for over 30 years. But they are still little known in this country.

Eventually Beljanski’s daughter moved to New York and, and, using the well-researched herbs and methods of her father, she has made these products easily available in this country.

Right away, I ordered all four and began taking them. Within three or four days the newly forming blood vessels on my breast began to fade and became less prominent. Only two weeks later I had a PET/CT scan. This scan shows wherever in the body cancer is active. My scan came back showing no cancer activity and a just slight bit of inflammation in one lymph node. Wow!

At one time I told my doctor that in some ways it is much easier for cancer patients to not know much about the disease. If they think cancer is just a tumor, they can relax after the tumor is removed, at least for a time, until it comes back or begins growing somewhere else. But I‘ve known for years that cancer is systemic and a tumor is just a symptom. Removing a tumor doesn’t end the disease, unless the cancer is very small and hasn’t yet gotten into the lymph system or begun circulating cells through the bloodstream. 

What I realized was that, after that PET scan showed no cancer activity, though the tumor had clearly been active quite recently, I was able to finally relax and see myself as well. I stopped waiting for the other shoe to drop. What a burden lifted! Thank you, Mirko Beljanski. I’ll take your miraculous supplements for the rest of my life!

Below are brief descriptions of what these miracle-working herbs consist of and what they do. I have to tell you, they have unusual names, and you aren't likely to find them in a health food store. As a nutritional therapist I have a professional account with the maker and distributor, Natural-Source.com. I’m happy to supply cancer patients and those who want to prevent cancer, passing along my discount. Please contact me for details, since I’m not set up to take credit cards.

  • ·         Rovol V starts with the bark and roots of the rain forest shrub, Rauwolfia vomitoria. In testing, Beljanski discovered that one fraction of this root is toxic and part actually stimulated cancer growth, so those are removed and only the purest fraction of the original, effective extract goes into making the cancer-fighting supplement. 
    When all is well in your body, the little rungs on the DNA ladder open and close during replication. But the scene is set for the beginnings of cancer and when the rungs of the ladder don’t go back together, and instead, replication continues rampantly. This is the earliest beginning of cancer, even before any mutations have occurred.
     These herbals help normalize the DNA so endless reproduction of cells stops.


  • ·         Pao V, derived from a South American tree, Pao pereira, aids the body’s immune system, helping to restore order to disordered DNA. It works similarly to Rovol V in some ways. It has one advantage, however, in that it crosses the blood-brain barrier and therefore aids the fight against brain tumors. Pao V contributes greatly to the body’s ability to detoxify cancer-causing chemicals that are so prevalent today.


  • ·         Ginkgo V, made from the golden leaves of ginkgo trees, which came to Beljanski’s attention after the atomic bombings in Japan. Ginkgo trees were not affected by the radiation, pollution, viruses or fungi. Beljanski set out to see if they had a protective factor that would help prevent damage from radiation therapy. He found this factor in the golden, mature leaves. Unlike other ginkgo products, which are made from the green leaves, this ginkgo supports the body through tests like X-rays, PET scans, and, most importantly, through radiation therapy and beyond. It prevents fibrosis, or scar tissue, something that usually develops up to a year following the end of a course of radiation. It allows patients to have radiation therapy without the damaging side effects so often encountered.
    X-rays and other diagnostic medical tests are both a blessing and a curse, because the damage they do causes many cancers, and that damage accumulates over a lifetime. We should all use Golden Leaf Ginkgo for such exams, even for dental X-rays.


  • ·         Finally, Beljanski discovered another way to prevent damage from radiation when he developed ReaLBuild. Unlike the other products, which are herbal, ReaLBuild is made from the RNA of a bacterial extract. It enables the body to maintain white blood cells and platelets during chemotherapy. This is unique and amazing. Doctors have drugs to help rebuild white cells, though they cause many side effects. But pharmacy has nothing to build and maintain platelets. Yet patients taking RealBuild never have to stop a course of chemotherapy because their counts are too low. They get through the ordeal without the damage normally inflicted by the toxic treatments.

For any of you who wish to explore the origins of Beljanski’s work, you’ll find 99 of his papers have been translated into English and are on www.Pubmed.com, the US Government website of scientific publications. Many, many of these papers mention cancer in their titles.

So, thanks to Dr Mirko Beljanski and his years of dedicated work, despite terribly trying circumstances; thanks to his wife’s and daughter’s persistence in making that work available to everyone who wishes to prevent cancer, and to those who are dealing with cancer and other serious diseases, whether using alternative therapies or conventional therapies, or both. I am so appreciative of them all. I owe them my current good health, my peace of mind, and I give them my highest praise.

Thursday, June 28, 2012

Eighteen: Part 1

Faithful readers of my blog know it started when I traveled to Arizona for an alternative cancer treatment, Insulin Potentiation Chemotherapy (IPT). That was two years ago. I always planned to write about why I chose to avoid surgery and use an alternative treatment, but I never really did. 

It was simply because the potential for healing an aggressive cancer with surgery, chemotherapy and radiation offered me only a 3% chance of living five years. Looking at the statistics, and thinking about how those treatments would affect my quality of life, I decided the odds weren't in favor of the things oncologists were offering. And if I were to die tomorrow, looking back would bring no regrets as to the choice I made at that time, because I've been healthy and strong every day. I didn't put my body through the trauma of surgery, or the cancer-causing assault of other harsh treatments. Instead, I opted for quality of life over the slim possibility of a longer life.

Since having a personal involvement with cancer, I've met many other cancer sufferers. Several women come to mind - women who also had aggressive cancers, and who opted for surgery, chemo and radiation, or in a couple of cases, surgery and IPT. All have had cancer return. Some have done further treatments and were doing well the last time we talked. But several, most younger than me, didn't live long after the second round of treatment. 

Research shows that some cancers - and I'm not aware of a test to learn which ones, but I tend to think it is the more aggressive ones - put out metastases right away, yet they also circulate a chemical which keeps these metastases from growing. As soon as the tumor is removed, this chemical no longer circulates and the metastases grow rampantly. 

I had been reading about alternative cancer therapies and cures for at least 15 years, since my cousin was diagnosed with breast cancer, and later my mother, so I knew that there were sometimes amazing successes, and that the therapies were never as harsh and hard on the body as those proposed by most doctors.

It is true that we all know women who have had typical treatments and are still well years later. But, did they live because of the treatments, or despite them? So much of what I've learned over the years leads me to believe they are still alive, not because of what the doctors did to them, but simply because their bodies were able to survive the treatments and eventually bring them back to health. 

Studies show that more than half of small breast cancers would never progress, and would be healed by the body's immune system, but instead women are treated, often over-treated, for something the body was designed to deal with effectively. 

You have seen stories in newspapers, magazines and on television about how the war on cancer is progressing, how early detection is helping heal more cancers. But is this really true? No, it isn't. Using breast cancer as an example, what is happening is this: women get regular mammograms, powerful X-Rays that can actually cause cancer when the body's tolerance for more and more radiation has been surpassed. A tiny lesion is found, resulting in surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, reconstruction. Then more surgery follows, so the second breast can be rebuilt to more closely resemble the one that had the cancer. All this involves tremendous amounts of pain, discomfort, and suffering. Yet, more than half of these little cancers would have been healed by the body's own immune system!

But, you say, isn't it still better to find cancer early? I guess that depends on the type of cancer and how it is followed. Cancer is a panic word for just about everybody. It is so easy to be sucked into the machinery of today's medicine. And, because the drug industry is so very powerful in this country, your doctor could actually lose the licence she needs to continue practicing simply by NOT dictating the terms of the war you're about to be drafted into, which has been spelled out mostly by the drug cartel referred to as Big Pharma. And Big Pharma has its eye on profits over healing every day of the week. Almost no doctor will even acknowledge the possibility that any alternatives exist, much less tell you about them and know that many of them are more successful than the Big 3 therapies they offer. 

And yet, we aren't winning this cancer battle, much less the so-called war. As many women die of advanced breast cancer as did back in the 1940s and 1950s. It just looks like this isn't true because those with tiny cancers that could and would heal themselves are being treated. This skews the statistics. Then, ten years down the road, another cancer crops up - one that is much more difficult to treat - and, sadly, it was caused by the very treatments used on the original cancer. 

Even though IPT worked well for me, I always saw it as only part of the picture. Chemotherapy in any form has a very poor track record for most cancers. There are a few notable exceptions to this, such as for lymphoma and a few rare cancers, but for most cancer patients, chemo really only contributes longer life to a tiny percentage of people. 

When you think about the mechanism of chemotherapy, it becomes obvious why it doesn't really work well for the vast majority of people. Chemo works by killing rapidly growing cells. While cancer cells are the main target, other rapidly growing cells are hair follicles, white blood cells and platelets, and the cells lining the mouth and throat. There are exceptions to these, but for the most part, this is how it works. 

So your hair falls out, you develop sores in your mouth and throat, and your immune system, in the form of your white cells and platelets, goes down the tubes. But we all know your hair is going to grow back, your mouth sores will heal, and even your immune system will make a comeback. And so will the cancer! It's pretty simple. If these vital body cells grow back, no wonder cancer cells grow back as well. Only there is a significant difference. The tumor cells that survive to reproduce are the ones that were resistant to chemo in the first place. So now new drugs must be tried, new poisons introduced into your poor body, to try and do what the first round of chemo didn't. And the merry-go-round of treatment continues until the poor patient can no longer take the assault of all these toxins and her body shuts down entirely.

Here is another oddity of cancer treatment. Cancer is the only disease which is considered cured if the patient lives five years following diagnosis. So, get this: you manage to drag along on toxic treatments for five years. You're healed! Whoopee! But you're actually quite sick and the next week you succumb to this battle raging inside you. Guess what? You're now considered both healed and dead of the same disease! So, what does this do to cancer statistics? I'll leave that to your imagination.

So, because of all this, while I'm grateful for this past two years of good health, I've never stopped looking for other alternatives, and learning what more I could do to prevent the return of cancer. I wrote a few months ago about using oleander. It does have a much better track record than the usual treatments, and I tried it for several months. But you must build the dose up slowly, as it causes diarrhea, and you cannot take a higher dose until that stops. As it turned out, I could never get my dosage up to an effective level because of continual diarrhea with each attempt at a higher dose. 

This was frustrating, because I could see changes in my breast that indicated new tumor growth. I could both see and feel differences. I could even see new blood vessels forming just under the skin, blood vessels that I knew were there to feed the tumor, which was awakening. 

Yet, something stopped this growth, and the newly forming blood vessels. I recently had a clear PET/CT scan, showing no cancer activity. At the same time, a blood test for circulating tumor cells came back negative. So, what happened? What alternative did I find that actually stopped the visible growth and changes I saw in my breast? I'm excited about the answers to those questions, and I really hope everybody will get the significance of what I want to tell you about. But this post has gotten too long already, so I'm going to make that Part Two. I'll leave you with all this background, and I'll get back to what I've been leading up to as soon as possible - maybe even tonight or tomorrow. If I don't make it by then, we'll be taking a little trip to celebrate Dave's 75th birthday (July3), so I may not get back to finishing my story until late next week. So don't hold your breath, but I definitely will get back to finish this happy tale...

To be continued




Sunday, June 3, 2012

Seventeen


This poster is so great! I want to share it with all of you who have read my blog in the past. And guess what HHFM is? That is Hirsch Holistic Family Medicine. Evan Hirsch, MD, is my doctor. I think the poster was developed by his wife. Wouldn't it be great if all doctors understood the words in this poster, and how important real food is to healing? If you would like to hang this poster in your kitchen, you can order it below. Hmmm...maybe it's time to redecorate my kitchen in new, more sophisticated colors of the poster. What do you think?

Rebecca


New at HHFM: What is Real Food?

Hot off the press and in partnership with Two the Root our new "What is Real Food?" poster. Each poster is 16x20 on 80# 100% recycled card stock and printed locally with soy-based inks. Posters sell for $20.00. Stop by the office to get your copy or pick one up the next time you have an appointment. They will also be available for purchase online in mid-June at TwotheRoot.com.


Get one for your kitchen, office or for a friend.


For every poster sold, we will also donate $1 to GRuB, a non-profit gardening and education resource serving Thurston and Mason Counties in Washington State, for their GRuB in the Schools project. This program helps students who are struggling to engage and find success in the traditional school system earn core credits while learning about and contributing to local community food solutions. It is a wonderful project that deserves national attention. Find out more at GRuB in the Schools.