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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Multiple Myeloma Diagnosis- ASCT, Chemo, ASCT…
More effective treatment options for MM are urgently needed. Disease relapse is inevitable and MM remains incurable. Anti-cancer drugs including novel therapies in monotherapy have debilitating side effects, and these treatments only benefit a minority of patients.
Hi David- I’m 44 years old and received a multiple myeloma diagnosis at 41, over three years ago. I had an autologous stem transplant (ASCT) and relapsed just after three years.
When the MM came back the second time, it hit me hard. It attacked my left femur to the point where I needed a titanium rod inserted in my left leg. It had attacked my cervical and lumbar disc and parts of my spinal cord.
The mobility in my neck, left shoulder and arm had deteriorated fast. Luckily, I had a excellent radiologist that help me gain my mobility back through a number of radiation shots.
Right now, my mobility is at 100 percent. Still using crutches for my left femur. I hope in a month or a little more, I can walk without the crutches.
I am back at doing Velcade, and Dexamethasone once a week for the next 3 months. Getting prepared for my second autologous stem cell transplant in the spring.
Besides doing treatment, me and my wife are all about nutrition and read what we can about foods that help slow or get rid of myeloma cells.
Before this happened to me I felt 100%. I was back in the gym and on the ice with my biddies and helped out coaching with my 12 year old kid. I was back doing everything that I normally did before myeloma.
I have two kids, 12 Year boy and a 8 year girl. I’m feeling positive about my situation and so are my doctors.
Sorry if i rambled on a bit but, it’s a summary of what I’ve been going through up to this point.
I guess what I’m asking is that if you have any info on nutrition for people while living with myeloma, I would appreciate it if you send anything to me or if there is a link to follow.
I read your story and you are a true inspiration to me and my fellow myeloma survivors. Your story will keep my motor running for a long time.
I would appreciate if you get back to me, doesn’t need to be within 24hrs lol. Take care, James
Hi James-
I sounds as though you are working hard to manage your MM. It is good to read that you are into anti-MM nutrition because your body can take only so much toxicity.
I will link the nutrition guide below. Please watch Dr. William Li’s 15 minute video (Ted Talk) about anti-angiogenic nutrition and supplementation. These two forms of MM therapy serve as the backbone of my own MM therapy.
Further, I encourage you to consider Integrative Therapies. Research has shown that specific nutrition supplementation such as curcumin, can enhance the effectiveness of chemotherapy.
And as I mentioned above, your body can only take so much toxicity, so much chemotherapy.
David Emerson
- MM Survivor
- MM Cancer Coach
- Director PeopleBeatingCancer
Recommended Reading:
- Multiple Myeloma Pre-habilitation- Enhance Efficacy, Minimize Toxicity
- Multiple Myeloma Relapse- Only One Year Post ASCT
- Feverfew as Multiple Myeloma Therapy
Curcumin in combination with bortezomib synergistically induced apoptosis in human multiple myeloma U266 cells
“Discussion
Interaction between MM cells and BMSCs triggers pro-inflammatory cytokines including IL-6, VEGF, and SDF-1α which are involved in MM cell proliferation, survival, and drug resistance (Anderson, 2001). In spite of recent therapeutic advances and development of novel drugs, MM is still an incurable disease. Therefore, recent studies have focused on developing novel anti-cancer therapeutic strategies targeting both MM cells and MM cells–BMSCs interactions (Podar et al., 2007, Hideshima and Anderson, 2002, Caers et al., 2008).
New Insights in Anti-Angiogenesis in Multiple Myeloma
“Concluding Remarks
More effective treatment options for MM are urgently needed. Disease relapse is inevitable and MM remains incurable.
Anti-cancer drugs including novel therapies in monotherapy have debilitating side effects, and these treatments only benefit a minority of patients.
The identification of subgroups of patients who will derive the most benefit from a drug with manageable drug-related toxicity is an important step towards improved response rates, safety and survival.
In addition to using anti-angiogenic agents that target more than one pro-angiogenic factor, another strategy is to use combined modalities.
The abnormalities of the tumor vasculature and the impaired blood flow they cause result in an abnormal microenvironment that is characterized by hypertension, hypoxia and acidosis.
These characteristics pose a significant barrier to cancer therapy, with leaky vessels impairing the delivery of therapeutics to the tumor and hypoxia rendering cells resistant to both radiation and many cytotoxic drugs.
Anti-angiogenic therapies have been shown to normalize tumor vasculature and can therefore improve treatment efficacy when co-administered with other therapies [81].
The median survival for patients with MM has almost doubled since the introduction of thalidomide, lenalidomide and bortezomib, along with autologous stem cell transplant [82].
Various combinations of thalidomide, lenalidomide and bortezomib, when combined with melphalan and prednisone or other drugs as first line therapies or in relapsed treatments have given higher overall response rates (ORRSs) and superior OS.
However, most MM patients will still relapse and require a change in therapy [83]. In this context, treatment option is represented by monoclonal antibodies targeting CD38 (including Daratumab, Isatuximab, MOR202) and SLAMF7 [84,85]…
Resistance to anti-angiogenic agents is a clinically significant problem. Different approaches to circumvent this problem have been established, including the use of multiple-targeted anti-angiogenic agents and/or combined-modality treatment strategies.
It would appear that the future of angiogenic inhibitors lies in the intelligent combination of multiple targeted agents with other angiogenic inhibitors to maximize therapeutic effect.
In conclusion, despite impressive performances in animal models, anti-angiogenic drugs are not performing nearly as well in humans.
Anti-angiogenic treatments lead to a limited increase in PFS, followed by a relapse in tumor angiogenesis and growth.