Defeat Cancer (16 page)

We never tell our stage four patients that they will go into remission. It would be great if that happened, but most often, it doesn’t. Fortunately, we can help them to manage their cancers like a chronic illness so that they can have longer, better lives, even if their cancers are still present to a degree. I don’t use the word remission with my patients anyway, because it’s too much of a buzz word today. Remission means different things to different people. The reason I don’t use it is because helping people to live long, quality lives is what matters, whether or not their cancers are present on a scan.

With my treatment approach, many of my cancer patients’ other conditions also often improve, so that they no longer require pharmaceutical drugs. The practical treatment outcome can be the same for the person who still has cancer as for the one who is in remission, in that both can live long, high quality lives.

Some of our patients have no detectable cancer cells left after they finish their treatments here, but there is no wishful thinking, either. If they had a stage three or four cancer, they can’t just take a few curcumin tablets and maintain a good diet and think that will be sufficient. They have to really stay on top of it for years, and address it from multiple angles, so that the cancer doesn’t manifest again.

Recently, I saw a woman who had some discomfort on the right side of her chest. We thought she might have shingles. Thirteen years ago, she had a lumpectomy for breast cancer. We ran some tests on her, and discovered that three of her breast cancer markers were once again elevated. Her scans now show that she has metastases to her lungs as a result of her initial cancer. This was proven through a biopsy. This scenario isn’t common but it can happen.

It’s important for patients to be diligent about their treatments. If you have a condition like herpes, you take 1500 mg of lysine daily for the rest of your life, because you know that the infection can
come out at any time. If you have chronic rheumatoid arthritis or multiple sclerosis, both of which can be due to Lyme disease, you have to take care of yourself, because you will have Lyme organisms in your body for the rest of your life, and by taking care of yourself, you will keep them from causing you symptoms. It’s the same thing with cancer; you have to be diligent and monitor it, as you maintain a good, healthy diet and nutritional protocol. Often, we suggest that our patients who have been successfully treated with IPT, and whose cancers are no longer detectable on a scan or via other lab indicators, return twice a year for the same low-dose therapy, for at least a few years, and stay on a rigorous oral natural medicine program in the meantime.

The extent of our maintenance program is different for everyone, depending upon the level of cancer that’s still present and detectable in the body. The woman whose ovarian cancer is in remission, for instance, probably takes half the amount of nutrients on a daily basis than the one who still has a detectable stage four lung cancer. Ovarian cancer is sensitive to various herbs, like knotweed, or devils’ claw, so I may, in addition to a core or baseline nutrient protocol, recommend these herbs as part of a maintenance program for patients with this type of cancer. Herbs, as well as immune strengthening supplements, enable the body’s surveillance system to maintain control of the cancer, as do healthy lifestyle practices, such as getting good sleep, eating healthy food, exercising regularly, and keeping the mind clear of persistent emotional conflicts.

Once they have finished an initial treatment regimen at our clinic, our patients may come back twice a year to get two IPT treatments for a period of time. We have a number of patients who have been able to manage their late stage cancers for a long time, like any chronic illness. By normalizing their biochemistry, getting them to take supplements that disrupt cancer cell pathways, and working with their diet and emotional conflicts, we end up with patients who have good treatment outcomes that last. Regardless of whether they are in remission with a cancer that can’t be detected on tests, or still
have cancer, yet are doing quite well on a maintenance regimen, they still require support and good follow-up.

Tailoring my patients’ treatment regimens to their biological characteristics and internal terrain is a challenge. But it’s probably not my greatest challenge. I feel pretty comfortable with my knowledge and expertise, and also with the team of people that I work with. So I think that my greatest challenge as a practitioner is dealing with my patients’ fears and the pressures that they face from other doctors, the media, and their families, which generally have to do with their oncologists telling them what to do. Another challenge is finding oncologists who will continue to see and evaluate our patients while they are doing our natural medicine programs and low-dose, high frequency chemotherapy. Also, some patients may require biological monoclonal antibody therapies, which involve the use of monoclonal antibodies (or mAb), that specifically bind to cancer cells and stimulate the immune system to attack those cells. These therapies can be very expensive, so getting oncologists to prescribe them can be a challenge.

Getting patients to stay the course with their treatments, and to understand the importance of actively participating in their recovery process is also a challenge, for both me and them. We live in a society that encourages passivity. If people are faced with an illness that could take their life, they have to become proactive in multiple ways so that, by the time they come out of it, and their cancers are either not detectable anymore or much improved, they are different people. They have to work on multiple levels to heal, so that they can become more aware and confident in life. They must have a good reason to live, understand the role of food in health, and strive to maintain a healthy diet. Those that do well in their recovery are transformed people by the end of their treatment course, because they have realized that they needed to change some fundamental things in their lives in order to get better, and not just in their physical bodies, but also in their souls. Their personalities, spiritual life, relationships, lifestyle, and food habits all end up changing.

Another challenge for my patients and me is what is called “the curse of the diagnosis.” I have had patients who were making good progress with their healing, but who were thrown off track by the bad advice of others. For example, one of our patients with pancreatic cancer had received two weeks of IPT and nutritional IVs, including Vitamin C and magnesium, and as a result, his tumor markers fell by 75 percent. We also gave him mistletoe and detoxification therapy. But he got somewhat anemic from the IPT treatments, which is not an uncommon side effect. So we sent him to the hospital to get a blood transfusion and he came out a totally different person. His confidence was gone and he was complaining, even though he was better. In the hospital, they had asked him a bunch of questions, like, “Why are you seeing these other doctors? You’re going to die if you continue to do that IPT therapy.” In the end, he didn’t do well with his treatments. It broke my heart. I clearly saw why this happened: his will had been weakened, and his faith in what had been for him an effective therapy, had dissipated. It’s important for people with cancer to trust their instincts, stay the course, follow their intuition, and build a good advisory team, which may include an oncologist and practitioners of natural medicine. On the other hand, it doesn’t help patients to be angry at the medical profession; in fact, staying away from negative talk is important for healing.

That’s why we’re here to advise our patients. We tell them, “This is what we offer. We feel that our treatments provide better results than the one-size-fits-all approach of conventional oncology. But do your research and put together a plan. Don’t be in a hurry to get started on a treatment unless it’s urgent.” Even saying this, though, some people aren’t going to get it, although a lot of them do. Increasingly, more people are acquiring the common-sense understanding that the one-size-fits-all approaches to healing don’t work, and that cancer treatment approaches that aren’t tailored to their specific needs may not be the best. Those are the people that we often work with. They take charge of their health, and are determined
to do whatever it takes to get better. It’s a real joy to work with them.

Increasingly, more people are concluding that much of regular oncology is ineffective and responsible for causing more harm than good.

I don’t define “good outcomes” as simply the elimination of a primary cancer, which can happen with conventional chemotherapy. It also means longer survival, a higher quality of life, and fewer incidences of metastases for the patient. From this perspective, modern oncology is, in many ways, a failure. Indeed, many chemo-therapeutic agents are approved when studies show that they only prolong life by four months or so. Our goal is to prolong our patients’ lives for years to decades, and for their quality of life to be good. For the most part, modern oncologists know how to diagnose cancer and they understand chemotherapeutic agents. But conventional treatments are largely ineffective for significantly prolonging the patient’s life, except for in a small handful of cancers, such as Hodgkin’s lymphoma and testicular cancer. They are effective for reducing tumor load, but not for helping people to survive with a good quality of life for many years without metastases and/or recurrences.

Our focus is on true science. I want to see outcomes-based studies, or evidence-based studies, and not just the double-blind studies that are held up as the “gold standard.” Even mainstream medical publications are now acknowledging that the measurements that we have used and which are considered to be the “gold standard” for determining a treatment’s success are flawed. I recommend the book
Wrong: Why Experts Keep Failing Us and How to Know When Not to Trust Them
, by David H. Freedman, to those who want to understand this concept more. People are attracted to treatment approaches in integrative oncology because they build up
the body rather than weaken it, are safe, often more effective, and people incur less pain and suffering with them.

Not all non-allopathic (alternative and complementary) approaches to cancer treatment have good evidence for their effectiveness, but many do, so we try to find and use those in our practice. Good, outcomes-based research studies have been done which demonstrate the effectiveness of botanicals, homeopathy, and different nutritional supplements for the treatment of cancer. Such research studies and evidence also exists for Recall Healing. There is ample evidence which demonstrates that resolving psychological conflicts reduces tumors and/or improves the effectiveness of current allopathic or integrative treatment programs. And again, the reason we call this type of medicine “integrative” is because at times, chemotherapy can be beneficial, especially when given by low dose, high frequency methods such as IPT. Other modern oncology approaches, such as monoclonal antibody administration, can also be helpful. We rarely recommend surgery unless: there is a risk of obstruction, a tumor needs to be de-bulked or made smaller because of the pressure that it’s exerting on adjacent body structures, or it would be beneficial to obtain a larger tumor specimen (which is required for doing live tissue testing).

The effectiveness of coffee enemas and castor oil packs hasn’t been established by double-blind, placebo-controlled studies. But I recommend them to my patients because there is good outcomes-based evidence proving their success. Similarly, hyperthermia and infrared saunas have been shown to be very effective supportive therapies for cancer, as has injectable mistletoe therapy and intravenous Vitamin C.

There are other natural therapies that I can’t speak about from experience, and I don’t know if they are as effective as people claim. My concern is that if a treatment becomes a belief system, and a patient or doctor develops a blind spot because of that belief system, it can lead to worse outcomes. Belief systems can be dangerous if there is no good evidence to support them. For the most part,
allopathic oncology is based on a one-size-fits-all approach, which often isn’t backed by good science. Good science doesn’t mean proving something in a lab. It means looking at treatment outcomes, seeing a patient’s C-reactive protein levels, tumor markers or PET scans improve, identifying the factors that caused those things to happen, asking questions with an open, inquisitive mind, and applying those conclusions to each patient. Good science means individualizing a patient’s program as much as possible. I’m aware that many oncologists are overwhelmed, and that the time required of them to do this for their patients is more than they have, but I’m also aware that there’s a mindset in oncology, a way of thinking, that blocks many oncologists from taking a more integrative approach to treatment, and that’s unfortunate.

In the future, there will be energy medicine approaches to treating cancer which go beyond infrared saunas. They will involve working with things like color, sound, and lasers. Currently, some practitioners are getting good empirical results by using energy medicine modalities, but I don’t know enough about them to comment on their effectiveness. A lot of good work is being done with photodynamic therapy and hyperthermia in other parts of the world. However, even though these are effective treatments, I have seen practitioners using them to the exclusion of other therapies, which can be a problem.

An excellent guide for laypeople with cancer is a book called
You Did What?
by Hollie and Patrick Quinn. Hollie developed breast cancer at age 22, while she was eight months pregnant. Pre-menopausal breast cancer is much more dangerous than a post-menopausal breast cancer. Yet Hollie decided not to do conventional therapy, and instead chose a different path in order to get well. It has now been eight years since her diagnosis and she has had no recurrence of her primary cancer. She hasn’t done any chemotherapy or other drugs. This is a coaching-type book that will empower people to say, “Yes, I need to put together a healing team and think my options through.” A physician who’s very knowledgeable and experienced in oncology ought to be part of this team. I try to help my patients move out of the fear state that they may be in, and get
on the right program, which always involves natural medicine, and sometimes, chemotherapy and surgery, and rarely, radiation therapy.