Cipro can destroy life as you know it.

Have you ever had any of the symptoms from the list below? I found the list on Dr Mercola's site, and they are all reactions to Cipro, Levaquin, Avelox and Floxin, along with a few other drugs that have been taken off the market because they are SO DANGEROUS. Yet most doctors deny such terrible toxic effects could be caused by these drugs.

These potent drugs, which should only be used when all else has failed and a life is in danger, are prescribed every day for conditions like urinary tract and sinus infections, both of which should be treated with less toxic, less dangerous medications.

They should only be prescribed when the infection is proven to be bacterial, since they won't touch a virus, and their casual use has contributed to resistant strains of bacteria such as MRSA.

A urologist prescribed Cipro to Dave even though a culture showed no bacterial infection. We questioned this, especially when Dave found it caused his hips to hurt, but the doctor assured us it would be helpful anyway! Now that Dave is having other symptoms associated with Cipro, we both wonder why we acquiesced so easily. The following information comes from

Jay S. Cohen, M.D.
Associate Professor

Departments of Family and Preventive Medicine and of Psychiatry


University of California, San Diego

In Dr. Cohen’s 2001 study, the following reaction rates were documented:

• Nervous system symptoms occurred in 91 percent of patients (pain, tingling and numbness, dizziness, malaise, weakness, headaches, anxiety and panic, loss of memory, psychosis)
• Musculoskeletal symptoms in 73 percent of patients (tendon ruptures, tendonitis, weakness, joint swelling)
• Sensory symptoms in 42 percent of patients (tinnitus, altered visual, olfactory, and auditory function)
• Cardiovascular symptoms in 36 percent of patients (tachycardia, shortness of breath, chest pain, palpitations)
• Skin reactions in 29 percent of patients (rashes, hair loss, sweating, intolerance to heat or cold)
• Gastrointestinal symptoms in 18 percent of patients (nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain)

And that's not all, folks! A comprehensive list of reactions can be found at Dr. Cohen’s site Medication Sense. You can also read other articles he has written about medications for many years and sign up for his newsletter. He doesn't take money from either the government or the drug companies. That's a good sign you can trust what he tells you.

These side effects he reports are big numbers, not rare events! BIG! 91% is BIG!

When you're ready to learn more, perhaps to help yourself or a loved one, go to the following site, where you'll find both an article and a six part video about how the FDA has let us all down in allowing such toxic drugs on the market.

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/07/18/antibiotics-to-avoid-like-the-plague-due-to-fdas-oversight-failure.aspx

In the videos you'll also hear from people who were young and healthy, who had big plans for life. Then Cipro or Levaquin came into those lives and derailed them, causing disabling pain and neurologic symptoms that put them into wheelchairs or bed for weeks, months, even years.

If you're still with me, you can go to http://www.survivingcipro.com/ and learn about Nikki, who tells her own devastating Cipro story and why she started her blog to warn and hopefully help others. And others have flocked to her site, giving their own painful, crippling experiences with these drugs and talking about the things that have helped them regain lost health. None of them say they have gotten back to their former level of health, but many of them have found protocols (mostly natural) that have helped them improve. At least they talk about being able to get out of bed and out of wheelchairs. None of them were helped back to health by prescription drugs.

I know I'm always sounding some warning or other. I wouldn't even know about this had not Dr Mercola's article come to my attention. And then, when I began reading about the Cipro problems, I began to see that some of the symptoms Dave has been experiencing likely came from his use of this potently toxic drug that was prescribed when he didn't even have a bacterial infection!

The lesson here is never to take medication for granted. No doctor, no matter how sympathetic and careful, will care as much about your reaction as you will, so you have to look out for yourself. Check out Dr Cohen's site before taking a new drug. And, should you ever be admitted to a hospital, let them know NOT to give you Cipro or another drug from that family without your written permission. That will give you time to consider whether or not you want to risk taking something that could change your life drastically - forever.

Copper Depletion Therapy Keeps High-Risk Triple-Negative Breast Cancer at Bay

NEW WEILL CORNELL STUDY SHOWS ANTI-COPPER DRUG MIGHT PREVENT THE SPREAD OF CANCER TO ORGANS

Folks, this is very important news...

The last time I posted was in June, shortly after starting to take TM, the drug discussed in the press release below. I've been taking it since then. It took a long time to bring my copper levels down, but they are where they need to be now and I'm in a holding pattern, expecting this to work.

So, if you know anybody diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer (no hormone connections), please pass this along. It could prolong or save a life. And it doesn't even cause side effects...unless TM is responsible for all those new dark hairs I'm finding among the white.

NEW YORK (February 13, 2013) — An anti-copper drug compound that disables the ability of bone marrow cells from setting up a "home" in organs to receive and nurture migrating cancer tumor cells has shown surprising benefit in one of the most difficult-to-treat forms of cancer — high-risk triple-negative breast cancer.

The median survival for metastatic triple-negative breast cancer patients is historically nine months. However, results of a new phase II clinical trial conducted by researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College and reported in the Annals of Oncology shows if patients at high-risk of relapse with no current visible breast cancer are copper depleted, it results in a prolonged period of time with no cancer recurrence. In fact, only two of 11 study participants with a history of advanced triple-negative breast cancer relapsed within 10 months after using the anti-copper drug, tetrathiomolybdate (TM).

"These study findings are very promising and potentially a very exciting advance in our efforts to help women who are at the highest risk of recurrence," says the study's senior investigator, Dr. Linda Vahdat, director of the Breast Cancer Research Program, chief of the Solid Tumor Service and professor of medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College.

Dr. Vahdat says four of the study participants with a history of metastatic triple-negative breast cancer have had long-term benefit remaining disease free for between three and five and a half years.

"The anti-copper compound appears to be keeping tumors that want to spread in a dormant state," reports Dr. Vahdat, who is also medical oncologist at the Iris Cantor Women's Health Center at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. "We believe one of the important ways it works is by affecting the tumor microenvironment, specifically the bone marrow-derived cells that are critical for metastasis progression."

In addition, study participants with other forms of high-risk for relapse breast cancers — either stage 3 or stage 4 — without evidence of disease after treatment have also fared well. The progression-free survival rate among these 29 patients in the study has been 85 percent, to date.

"As good as these interim findings look to us, we cannot talk about significant benefit until we compare TM treatment to other therapies," she says. Dr. Vahdat expects to launch a phase III randomized clinical trial in the near future.

This research is a report of the first 40 patients. The clinical trial, which began in 2007, has been expanded many times and now includes 60 patients, more than half of who have triple-negative breast cancer.

DEPLETE COPPER TO PREVENT CANCER SPREAD

New discoveries in the science of metastasis and examination of the body's utilization of copper to promote cancer spread led to this clinical trial.

Investigators at Weill Cornell, including some of this study's co-authors, have contributed to the recent understanding of the role bone marrow cells play in promoting metastasis. They previously found that a collection of bone marrow-derived cells, which include VEGFR1+ hematopoietic progenitor cells (HPCs), prepare a site in distant organs to accept cancer cells. HPCs also recruit endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs), among others, to activate an "angiogenic switch" that establish blood vessels at the site to feed newly migrated cancer cells.

Breast cancer research studies conducted at Weill Cornell have also found that immediately prior to cancer relapse, levels of EPCs and HPCs rise significantly further, suggesting that the EPC target of the copper depletion approach is one that makes sense.

"Breast tumors want to move to specific organs, and these EPCs and HPCs cells leave a 'popcorn trail' for cancer cells to follow, as well as provide the building blocks for blood vessels to greet them as they arrive," Dr. Vahdat says.

Copper is critical to mobilizing these cells. Copper is essential to the metastatic process. It is a key component of enzymes that help turn on angiogenesis in the tumor microenvironment, and it also appears to play a role in directing cancer cell migration and invasion, according to researchers.

TM is a copper chelation compound used to treat Wilson's disease, a hereditary copper metabolism disorder, and has been studied in phase I and phase II clinical trials for a number of disorders. Animal studies have demonstrated that depleting copper decreases proliferation of EPCs, as well as blood vessel formation and tumor growth.

Dr. Vahdat's study is the first human clinical trial to utilize a copper depletion strategy to modulate EPCs in breast cancer patients with an extraordinarily high risk of relapse from hidden residual disease. Most of the studies in other solid tumors with visible advanced disease have been disappointing, say researchers.

Despite improvements in breast cancer therapy, there is significant risk of relapse in a high-risk subset of patients. The risk of relapse in stage 3 patients is 50-75 percent over five years, and patients with stage 4 breast cancer always recur. Triple-negative breast cancer patients have a poorer prognosis even when diagnosed in early disease stages.

"These triple-negative patients represent a substantial proportion of metastatic breast cancer patients," says Dr. Vahdat. "These are the patients that need the most attention, which is why we have focused most of the resources of our Metastases Research Program on this problem."

In the study, researchers found that 75 percent of patients achieved the copper depletion target using TM after one month of therapy, and that copper depletion was most efficient (91 percent) in patients with triple-negative tumors, compared to other tumor types (41 percent). In copper-depleted patients only, there was a significant reduction in EPCs, and the 10-month relapse-free survival was 85 percent. In addition, TM was found to be safe and well-tolerated in patients.

The study shows copper depletion appears to inhibit the production, release, and mobilization of EPCs from the bone marrow, leading to a suppressed angiogenic switch and tumor dormancy.

"There are a lot of cancer experts at Weill Cornell working very hard to understand this precise mechanism, define the clinical benefit in this ongoing copper depletion drug clinical trial, and determine its future study," says Dr. Vahdat. "Keeping cancer dormant is what we all want for our patients — especially triple-negative breast cancer patients at highest risk of recurrence."

Study co-authors include Dr. Sarika Jain, Maureen M. Ward, Naomi Kornhauser, Dr. Ellen Chuang, Dr. Tessa Cigler, Dr. Anne Moore, Diana Donovan, Christina Lam, Marta V. Cobham, Sarah Schneider, Sandra M. Dr. Hurtado Rúa, Celine Mathijsen Greenwood, Dr. Richard Zelkowitz, Dr. J. David Warren, Dr. Maureen E. Lane, Dr. Vivek Mittal and Dr. Shahin Rafii from Weill Cornell; Dr. Jules Cohen from Stony Brook University Cancer Center, Stony Brook, N.Y.; and Steven Benkert from NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital.

The study was funded by the grants from the Anne Moore Breast Cancer Research Fund, Stephen and Madeline Anbinder Foundation, Rozaliya Kosmandel Research Fund, Susan G Komen for the Cure, New York Community Trust, Cancer Research and Treatment Fund, Manhasset Women's Coalition Against Breast Cancer and Berman Fund.

WEILL CORNELL MEDICAL COLLEGE

Weill Cornell Medical College, Cornell University's medical school located in New York City, is committed to excellence in research, teaching, patient care and the advancement of the art and science of medicine, locally, nationally and globally. Physicians and scientists of Weill Cornell Medical College are engaged in cutting-edge research from bench to bedside, aimed at unlocking mysteries of the human body in health and sickness and toward developing new treatments and prevention strategies. In its commitment to global health and education, Weill Cornell has a strong presence in places such as Qatar, Tanzania, Haiti, Brazil, Austria and Turkey. Through the historic Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar, the Medical College is the first in the U.S. to offer its M.D. degree overseas. Weill Cornell is the birthplace of many medical advances — including the development of the Pap test for cervical cancer, the synthesis of penicillin, the first successful embryo-biopsy pregnancy and birth in the U.S., the first clinical trial of gene therapy for Parkinson's disease, and most recently, the world's first successful use of deep brain stimulation to treat a minimally conscious brain-injured patient. Weill Cornell Medical College is affiliated with NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, where its faculty provides comprehensive patient care at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center. The Medical College is also affiliated with the Methodist Hospital in Houston. For more information, visit weill.cornell.edu.

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Nineteen

It’s been a long while since I’ve written a blog entry, in fact, almost a year. A lot has happened during that time, much of it concerning the cancer that started my fingers to blogging in the first place. I’ve learned a few lessons during the last year, and I’m still enjoying life in Oly, even on the days when it’s been far too long since seeing sunshine.

As you know, I’ve worked with a lot of alternative therapies to keep my body functioning well while undergoing treatment. And I’ve outlived the two other women I’ve known who had the same aggressive triple negative breast cancer. Despite my best efforts, the tumor continued growing and became more threatening, with indicators it had become inflammatory. This is pretty much a death sentence, so I’m lucky to still be here – and not only that, but feeling good and looking healthy.

One of the things I've learned is that PET scans, which show cancer cells that grow by feeding on sugar, aren't always accurate. I had four clear PET scans even though the tumor in my breast was continuing to grow. Apparently my tumor didn't get it's growth from glucose, but, just like normal cells, from oxygen. I only recently learned that cancer, or at least some cancers get energy just like normal cells, using oxygen. So much for the often touted "cancer can only grow in an oxygen-poor environment." 

Most alternative cancer treatments and cures rely heavily on the body’s ability to detoxify through the liver. As I described in post eleven  (http://wwwadifferentway-rebecca.blogspot.com/eleven), the genetic flaw, MTHFR, cuts down my ability to detoxify to somewhere between 10-30% of normal. So, while I really, really, really don’t like putting nasty chemo toxins into my body, adding even more to the burdens of my already struggling liver, I once more signed on for a round of chemo, to be followed by a mastectomy, starting last October.

I did find a doctor who isn’t opposed, and even encourages, the use of natural therapies to enhance the use of chemo drugs, so I was very pleased with Dr Ben Chue at Lifespring Cancer Treatment Center in Seattle. He impressed me at first because, after looking over my past paperwork for a few minutes, he seemed to remember everything he had read. Amazing! And on my first day of treatment I was quite surprised to see him talking with each patient who was being hooked up. He asked and answered questions and never seemed to be too hurried. Previous experience had shown me doctors who set the protocol up and turned it over to the nurses. To actually see the doctor and ask a question or two required an appointment. But Dr Chue was available every treatment day, and I really appreciated that.

Another reason I was happy with Dr Chue was because he had introduced metronomic chemotherapy in Seattle many years ago. Instead of giving a huge dose of the drugs every three weeks, he gave one third of the dose weekly. It meant a trip to Seattle almost every week from late October through early March, but it also meant I didn’t get as sick and weak as many cancer patients. He also used a most effective anti-nausea medication, Aloxi, as part of my weekly infusion. Aloxi works for five days, so I never had the unfortunate experience of being nauseated and unable to eat.

My hair began falling out like crazy just after Thanksgiving. Vacuuming the loose hair didn't help! So I went to Dave's barber and had him trim what was left back to half an inch. When that continued falling and getting into everything, I had Dave shave me bald! Yikes! Right in the middle of winter, it was back to wigs and caps. I really don’t like wearing a hot, itchy wig, and eventually gave it up in favor of caps and scarves tied into turban-like arrangements.

My biggest side effect was tiredness. By late December I spent a lot of days in the recliner. I’d get up feeling fine, eat breakfast and empty the dishwasher. Then I’d sit down in the recliner and wake up two hours later! I really do see the superiority of the Insulin Potentiation Chemotherapy (IPT) I had in Arizona in 2010. I actually had more infusions in the seven weeks I was there than I had this past winter, without the side effect of either nausea or tiredness, and without my immune system being compromised to the point where I couldn’t be treated. I did lose my hair, though most patients on IPT don't. But it was clear to me that much more of the drug went straight to the cancer cells and less of it went throughout my body. The tumor  responded quickly that time, but much less so this time. Of course, cancer is one tricky devil which often learns to adapt and become resistant to drugs, so perhaps that was the reason it responded less well this time.

On St Patrick’s Day I turned 70 and we had a big party for the occasion. What a delight to see so many old friends and relatives in one place, all to celebrate with me four days before the planned mastectomy. Friends gave me money for a spa day, and I’ve yet to treat myself to this pleasure, but I will soon. Scott flew in from London to help celebrate my birthday as well as to be here for surgery day. Erin, Katie and Keegan came from Enumclaw for the birthday party.

March 20 we drove to Seattle for surgery the next day. I had chosen a surgeon from the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance (SCCA) who operates at the University of Washington Hospital. A woman from Oasis had sent me several articles about how to help prevent the metastases that surgery often stimulates. I was prepared, and I requested a regional anesthetic, called a paravertebral block, which numbs the area of surgery with shots near the spinal cord. This meant I would need much less general anesthetic. As a result, I had none of the usual side effects, which are mostly caused by anesthesia and narcotic pain medication. In fact, over the next couple of weeks of recovery I had no pain to speak of, and never filled the prescription for Oxycodone.

Surgery wasn’t until 6 PM, and Dave and Scott finally saw me again about 9:30. It must have been a very long day for the surgeon, because I was originally scheduled for 5:30 AM. I was thankful for the schedule change, but amazed at how long the preparation for this type of anesthesia took. Still, it was well worth it!

The hospital was filled to 100+% capacity, so they wheeled me back to the pre-op area, where I spent the night in a tiny room, with Dave at my side in a recliner. The nurses were attentive and helpful, and I went home the next morning. Wow! Drive-by surgery. Practically. But I was feeling good and happy to be back in my own home.

So, the next big question is what to do to prevent a return of the cancer. Yes, there was still live cancer in the tumor, even after a round of chemo, and yes, it had spread to seven lymph nodes. Dr Chue wants me to continue chemo, but change the drugs. The SCCA folks want me to do radiation. The local oncologist, Dr Ye, thinks I should do both. But, I’m thinking, why put my poor body through more toxic chemicals and radiation, both of which stimulate new cancers?

As part of my research, I had an appointment with a medical oncologist at SCCA a couple of weeks ago, to see if there were any clinical trials of a specific nature that I might qualify for. The first doctor came in, read a summary of my medical report, and said, “We don’t see too many people like you.”

“No,” I replied, “I should be dead by now, right?” She agreed. Later, another oncologist came in and said they don’t really have a standard of care for someone in my situation. But, even so, they both thought I should have radiation and they made a couple of other suggestions.

Of course, in the perverse but usual way, I didn’t think of this at the time, but a couple of hours later, as we ate dinner, I told Dave, “You know, they were surprised to find me not only alive, but looking healthy. That tells me that what they are using on women with triple negative breast cancer isn’t working very well. Maybe instead of recommending the things they do, they should have been asking me what I’ve been doing to be as healthy as I am.” Dave agreed.

I’ve been working with David Lerner, an acupuncturist with a special interest and study of cancer. His recommendation was for a drug called Tetrathiomolybdate (TM), which takes excess copper out of the body. It turns out that, in order to grow, cancer cells require a lot of copper. Normal cells also need copper, but to a much lesser extent than cancer cells. So the idea is to remove excess copper and keep the levels high enough for normal function, but low enough so cancer cells, which may still be lurking, cannot grow and spread. So I’m doing that and hope to have my copper levels down sufficiently in another few weeks. It amazes me how easily we are all depleted in other minerals, but how long it takes to get rid of extra copper.

A year or so ago, as my search for cancer alternatives continued, I watched a film on my computer at the website www.phoenixtears.com. It is all about the healing power of cannabis oil, and how to make it. It sounded promising, but I didn’t have a clue where to buy the stuff, and when someone told me of a source, it was far too expensive for me to consider. However, the political climate around marijuana has changed dramatically in Washington State. I discovered I can now buy cannabis oil, with a doctor’s recommendation, at half a dozen dispensaries right here in Olympia. A syringe, which lasts about three weeks, costs $50 cash. No credit cards, no checks. So I’m now taking a dose, about the size of a grain of rice, every evening. The side effect? I’m sleeping like a baby!

Here’s the interesting thing. Marijuana comes in various types. The cancer-healing chemicals, cannabinoids (CBDs) are most prevalent in the Indica type, while Sativa carries the most THC – the stuff that makes you high. Not only that, but the CBDs actually counteract the THC to a degree. So I don’t get high. Dosing correctly has been problematic, but if I get too much I just don’t have a lot of ambition the next day. More recliner time!

Most of the research on cannabis and its’ ability to cure cancer and other diseases comes out of Israel and Spain. There is good research showing it kills cancer cells and prevents them from spreading. An excellent program to watch, originally on Wealth TV, but also found on Youtube, is Marijuana - Miracle Cure 2 www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8eybPn6cLU. So I’m counting on my two-pronged approach to keep me cancer free. I haven’t said no to further treatment, but I’m hoping to avoid putting my poor body through a chemical wringer once again. And besides, my hair is growing and I don’t have to wear caps and hats everywhere I go these days!

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.

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

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.

Sixteen: Oleander Soup!

I’ve never explained to my loyal readers why I chose an alternative cancer therapy. Many of you know. I doubt anyone in this country is unacquainted with the damaging effects of chemo and radiation. Dr. Lodi at An Oasis of Healing told me that surgery – even a biopsy -- causes cancer to spread. When I looked at statistics for the type of cancer I had, and my age, I discovered that doing full-dose chemo would give me only a three percent chance of living more than five years! Three percent! And for that slight possibility of living a few months, or maybe a couple of years, longer, I would destroy my immune system, likely be sick for months, and possibly cause permanent damage to my heart and brain, and also the nerves in my hands and feet, causing neuropathy that might not go away!

Instead, I opted for no surgery (I did have a biopsy), Insulin Potentiation Chemotherapy (IPT) in very low doses, and no radiation. I consciously chose a higher quality of life, even if it were to be shorter. Yet I know that cancer often returns, so I have continued many of the protocols, supplements, and dietary changes I began last year, and I’ve kept on studying and learning about alternative solutions. So far I’ve remained cancer free.

Today I came across something I’d somehow missed. I have no idea why it never came across my radar, especially in the last few years of reading extensively about cancer alternatives. What I learned was so stunning that I got excited and read about it for most of the day.

While many natural cancer treatments help substantially, they often fall short of a total cure, just as do surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. What I learned today is that there is a natural substance that has been curing cancer for years. Actually, it has been used medicinally for several thousand years. A Turkish doctor learned about it in the early 1960s and began experimenting with it. He began curing cancers, and the more he learned and worked with this natural remedy, the higher his success rate became, until he was curing about 90%! This figure far exceeds typical cancer treatments today.

Eventually he developed this into a medicine which he patented, and later sold to another company. The product is being made now in South Africa, and it is a total stunner. Why? Because, not only is it alleviating and even curing many cancers, very quickly shrinking tumors and helping patients feel much better, it has been used in controlled medical experiments and found to totally alleviate (dare we say cure?) AIDS! Hepatitis C also responds, with patients totally normalizing their liver function. There have been a few people who have reported good results with various autoimmune diseases as well.

I won’t go into detail, because the story is well told at http://www.tbyil.com. To get the whole story, be sure to read all the articles on the right side of the Home page about oleander. You’ll come away shaking your head and wondering how this amazing secret has been so well kept while out in the wide open spaces of the internet.

And for more good news: not only is this supplement available through the internet, the website tells you how to make your own at home for pennies! This can be a problem for many, because it is made from the oleander shrub, which grows everywhere in California and across the south, but loves hot summers and can’t tolerate temperatures lower than about 15 degrees, so it’s not a likely candidate for our Northwest gardens. 

We can be thankful we can buy it and save ourselves the trouble of boiling up a pot of oleander soup.

Those of you who have lived where oleander grows may know it is a toxic plant. But, when you follow the instructions carefully, the resultant soup, or extraction, is not toxic, and its’ only side effect seems to be diarrhea if too large a dose is taken too quickly. To overcome this problem, you simply filter the watery broth four times and start with tiny doses, working up to a full tablespoon three times a day over a couple of weeks.

Can you tell I’m excited? This herbal supplement has even helped people who had already gone through chemo and radiation, something many natural remedies don’t do too well. Some of the people using it continued with chemo, while others opted to use the natural remedy alone. There are lots of testimonials on the site.

I invite you to print this and keep it for future reference, since every one of us knows people who could use this information. Not everyone will choose this, but I think everybody facing a serious diagnosis like cancer, AIDS or HIV should at least have the option of learning about what is available, the track record for any treatments offered (something most oncologists hedge about), and should be given the option of deciding what they think will best serve them. Unfortunately, vested interests are running the medical world, and they have managed to make it illegal for oncologists to tell people about anything other than the usual cut, poison and burn. So do your friends and relatives who find themselves diagnosed with cancer or another serious disease a huge favor, and let them know they do have other options - and those options may be far better than the things their doctors are able to offer.