Recently Diagnosed or Relapsed? Stop Looking For a Miracle Cure, and Use Evidence-Based Therapies To Enhance Your Treatment and Prolong Your Remission
Multiple Myeloma an incurable disease, but I have spent the last 25 years in remission using a blend of conventional oncology and evidence-based nutrition, supplementation, and lifestyle therapies from peer-reviewed studies that your oncologist probably hasn't told you about.
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Newly Diagnosed Multiple Myeloma- What Do I Do First?
There is a growing body of scientific evidence that supports preparing newly diagnosed cancer patients for and optimizing their health before starting acute treatments…
Hi David- My sister is a newly-diagnosed multiple myeloma patient. We have not seen a Multiple Myeloma specialist yet. We have to wait 3 weeks. What can my sister do now?”
- We don’t yet know her stage of MM.
- She has not yet had any diagnostic testing- that too will come later.
Help! Linda
Hi Linda,
Thanks very much for reaching out. As it turns out, there is a great deal that your sister can do now. Actions that she can take now that could pay dividends for years to come.
First and foremost, pre-habilitation before your sister begins any therapy such as
- surgery,
- induction chemotherapy or
- an ASCT,
according to research, will help her respond better to her therapy, recover faster, in short, do better overall.
I don’t know why oncologists don’t tell ALL their newly diagnosed multiple myeloma patients to prehabilitate…
I think it is important for you and your sister both to learn about multiple myeloma. I can’t stress this enough. The vast majority of newly diagnosed MM patients know little if anything about their cancer, their treatment and may not even have thought through their own personal goals.
All we newly diagnosed patients want to do is “beat this thing…” or some sort of general thinking like that. At least that’s the way I was when I was first diagnosed…
The more you both learn now, the better your decision-making will be for you/your sister, about you, now and in the future. And believe me when I say that you will face many decisions.
Consider consulting with a MM specialist named James Berenson M.D. Dr. Berenson takes a very different approach to managing multiple myeloma. He will provide a different approach that the MM specialist that you talk to locally.
I am assuming that if you can wait several weeks before seeing a MM specialist that your sister is not bed-ridden.
According to the studies below, pre-habilitation will-
- Increase your sister’s response to treatment- for example, “partial remission” could become very good partial remission or even complete remission.
- She will recover faster- for example, less anemia, faster return to normal red, white platelet blood levels
- Reduce risk of morbidity- does she have any health issues- heart, lung, kidney, etc?
I will link three of the multiple myeloma cancer coaching guides below- the three guides that I believe apply to Pre-habilitation are nutrition, supplementation and non-conventional guides.
The general areas of pre-habilitation specific to MM would be:
- anti-angiogenic nutrition,
- anti-angiogenic supplementation and
- the key questions guide.
The questions guide will alert you to issues to discuss with the MM specialist.
Let me know if you have any other questions-
Hang in there
David Emerson
- MM Survivor
- MM Coach
- Director PeopleBeatingCancer
Recommended Reading:
- Multiple Myeloma- Reach Deeper, Longer Remissions
- Multiple Myeloma, Cancer, Genetic Markers, Risk
- Myeloma Therapy- Conventional, Complementary, Integrative –
The Role and Scope of Prehabilitation in Cancer Care
“To recognize cancer prehabilitation as a pretreatment regimen to increase functional status for patients requiring cancer treatment. This article presents current evidence addressing the efficacy and benefits of prehabilitation regimens in different cancer survivor populations…
Cancer prehabilitation may improve outcomes. Prehabilitation may include
- targeted or whole-body exercise,
- nutrition,
- education,
- psychologic counseling, and
- smoking cessation.
Opportunities exist to further improve access to and delivery of multimodal prehabilitation, and nurses play a critical role in connecting patients to these services.
Cancer prehabilitation: an opportunity to decrease treatment-related morbidity, increase cancer treatment options, and improve physical and psychological health outcomes.
“Cancer prehabilitation, a process on the continuum of care that occurs between the time of cancer diagnosis and the beginning of acute treatment, includes physical and psychological assessments that establish a baseline functional level, identifies impairments, and provides targeted interventions that improve a patient’s health to reduce the incidence and the severity of current and future impairments.
There is a growing body of scientific evidence that supports preparing newly diagnosed cancer patients for and optimizing their health before starting acute treatments…
More recent research shows that opportunities exist to use other unimodal or multimodal prehabilitation interventions to decrease morbidity, improve physical and psychological health outcomes, increase the number of potential treatment options, decrease hospital readmissions, and reduce both direct and indirect healthcare costs attributed to cancer…
New studies suggest that a multimodal approach that incorporates both physical and psychological prehabilitation interventions may be more effective than a unimodal approach that addresses just one or the other. In an impairment-driven cancer rehabilitation model…”
Cancer Prehabilitation for Patients Starting from Active Treatment to Surveillance
“Cancer prehabilitation has been defined by Sliver and Baima (2013) as “a process on the cancer continuum of care that occurs between the time of cancer diagnosis and the beginning of acute treatment.” The evidence supports the notion that prehabilitation programs can improve physical and psychological health outcomes and decrease overall health care costs. The care model for cancer prehabilitation should include timely and efficient assessment throughout the care continuum with a focus on improving outcomes in cancer at every stage.
Conclusion- Based on the above evidence, it is clear that prehabilitation programs have positive effects on improving health outcomes for cancer patients after surgery. Specific individualized intervention should be considered for specific types of cancer.”