Long before I was personally diagnosed with breast cancer, I held the opinion that it didn't make sense to poison the entire body while attempting to destroy some cancerous cells. The most important thing the body needs to fight cancer is a strong, functioning immune system--but chemo severely weakens and compromises the immune system. Unfortunately, chemotherapy does not simply consist of sacrificial side effects touted as "temporary discomfort" for the greater good of beating cancer. It actually promotes the very disease it is supposed to be destroying.
And radiation isn't far off. It, too, attacks healthy cells as well as the cancerous cells and carries a risk of causing more cancer down the road.
It's true that significant improvements have been made in some areas of cancer treatment, but basically the options are still the same as they were 30 years ago: cut it out (surgery), burn it out (radiation), and poison it (chemotherapy). Surgery options have dramatically improved--doctors no longer automatically perform complete radical double mastectomies with removal of axillary lymph nodes every time a woman has a tumor in one breast (thank goodness!). Attempts are being made to target radiation and chemo better to avoid the widespread damage to healthy cells, but these treatments still leave a lot to be desired.
As for hormone therapy...messing with the body's endocrine system is another major intervention with a myriad of side effects. Of course, if you don't like the drugs, then you can just have major surgery to remove your ovaries. Thank you, no. Both the drugs and the surgery cause early menopause and all the loveliness that accompanies it. Maintaining a healthy body weight and diet actually help a lot in preventing overproduction of estrogen. Plus there are foods that naturally lower estrogen levels in the body. Going back to weight...a common side effect of the drugs is weight gain which increases your estrogen level, and also increases your risk of cancer. This seems a little counterproductive to me.
Call me crazy, but I have a serious problem with the standard medical treatments for cancer when they can be worse than the disease they're supposed to be fighting, and they aren't even guaranteed to work. I'm well aware that these treatments aren't horrible for every cancer patient, and I'm aware that there are many cancer patients who have undergone one or both of these treatments and lived many years afterward, sometimes with no cancer recurrences. But my bet is that there are extremely few of those individuals who can say they have zero long term side effects from the treatments.
If radiation and chemo were guaranteed to permanently cure cancer--shoot, if they even had high percentage success rates!--then it would be a no-brainer. But they're not. Not even close. It saddens me that so many people resign themselves to treatments with horrible side effects only to end up dying of the same cancer or a new, different cancer caused by the treatments five, ten, or twenty years down the road. I do not want to trade one cancer for another.
It also saddens me that there are so many doctors who think that this state of affairs is to be expected and that there are no viable alternatives. I do not think that all doctors are evil and wish ill on their patients--nothing of the sort! But doctors only teach and prescribe what they know. And what they have been taught for the most part is that any disease and illness in the body must be treated with medical intervention--drugs (every single one of which has side effects!) and surgery. There are definitely times when medical intervention is absolutely necessary. But there are also far too many times when simpler, more natural, less invasive techniques would be far more safe and effective, but doctors choose to intervene anyway because they can, and because that's what they know. (Incidentally, we have seen them turn perfectly normal human processes, which usually require no outside intervention at all, into opportunities to intervene just because they can--like childbirth. Modern western medicine has turned the most natural, beautiful phenomenon into one series of invasive, completely unnecessary medical interventions after another--from the beginning of pregnancy through delivery! But that's a subject for another time.) Just because you can doesn't mean you should.
Medical doctors are not even trained in basic nutrition, let alone any alternative treatments for cancer. Let me repeat that: medical doctors are not trained in real nutrition. Most receive 2-6 hours of class time on the subject during medical school. I have personally spent at least ten times that many hours on my own research! Mind-blowing! Nutrition is the foundation of all functions of the human body, yet there is no required training in nutrition to become a doctor. In fact, nutrition and alternative treatments are demonized by the medical establishment even when those treatments have proven to be successful. Why? It's very simple, just follow the money! Doctors, medical institutions, and medical organizations are heavily influenced by the pharmaceutical industry, and Big Pharma is only in it for the money--they could care less about the real health (or lack thereof) of real patients. Doctors and drug companies can't make money if patients aren't taking their drugs and their treatments. Can you imagine how much money the healthcare industry/Big Pharma would lose if cures for cancer were really discovered? There is no doubt in my mind that on some level the medical establishment has no intention of finding a cure--and when alternative treatments claim to have a cure that threatens the lucrative business of cancer treatment, they are summarily silenced and shut down through whatever means necessary. So we continue to see the same failed treatments administered decade after decade with, in reality, very little improvement, and millions of people still dying of cancer--or of conditions caused directly by the cancer treatments. Doesn't it make you wonder--even a little bit?
Another very important point about nutrition and alternative treatments is that they can be used in conjunction with standard treatments--which can result in the standard treatments being more effective and the nasty side effects being greatly reduced. This causes one to wonder again why medical doctors do not inform patients of these options. Not a single doctor or nurse I saw ever mentioned one word about nutrition. I find that alarming and, frankly, inexcusable.
Following are links related to how much nutrition training doctors receive:
http://healthland.time.com/2013/10/10/the-need-for-better-obesity-education-in-medical-schools/
http://www.naturalnews.com/036702_doctors_nutrition_fatalities.html#
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/16/health/16chen.html?_r=0
The following links relate to the American Medical Association's targeting of natural cancer cures:
http://www.naturalnews.com/023195_AMA_the_home.html
http://www.naturalnews.com/042622_American_Medical_Association_scientific_oppression_natural_cures.html
http://www.naturalnews.com/032998_Burzynski_cancer_cures.html#ixzz2iYLSTa76
http://www.naturalnews.com/027020_cancer_AMA_treatment.html#ixzz2iYLueYbN
http://www.naturalnews.com/027004_cancer_coffee_juice.html
http://www.naturalnews.com/042688_natural_medicine_cancer_cures_government_agencies.html
(These links are all from Natural News, but the articles have different authors, and within the articles are more links for source information. You can also research it on your own.)
Do I hate doctors? After reading previous posts, it should be obvious that this is not the case. I went to see my doctor as soon as I found the lump; I had surgery to remove it; I am following up with an oncologist. Doctors and their knowledge and expertise are invaluable. But they are not infallible, and as I said earlier, they can only recommend what they know. I just think what they know can be unduly influenced and tainted by powerful forces that make decisions based on what is best for them and not necessarily what is best for the patient. I believe it is almost always in the patient's best interest to get second and third opinions, question, investigate, and research any recommendation until satisfied that it is the best course of action.
Do I think people who do choose standard cancer treatments are "wrong"? No, not at all! As I said before, and as honest doctors have admitted, there is no one right answer for cancer treatment. People must make the decisions that are best for them--for their particular types of cancer, and for their unique situations.
I will never forget what my oncologist told me during our first consult. After I told him my views on chemo, he said, "You're right--chemo is poison. It is. And it's not fun--it sucks. And there are no guarantees. Unfortunately none of us ever knows which patients are going to survive and which ones aren't. But I don't want you to think of me as some kind of chemo salesman. It's bad stuff, and I know what it does to my patients. But you have to understand that I'm presenting to you the options that we as doctors have. These are the tools in our toolbox. I wish we had better tools, but these are the tools we have to work with right now." One of these days I will be brave enough to tell him, "You need to add some new tools to your toolbox!"
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