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.
Click the orange button to the right to learn more about what you can start doing today.
Patients often experience a kind of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) with numerous psychological, neurological and physical problems that extend and even intensify.
I’ve found PTSD (post-traumatic stress syndrome) to be a stealth long-term side effect from my conventional cancer treatments from my diagnosis in 2/94- 9/97 when my oncologist told me that “there is nothing more we can do for you.”
I was first diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 2/94, underwent a host of chemotherapy regimens and radiation over the next several years and reached end-stage MM in the summer of ’97. From 11/97-4/99 I underwent a non-toxic, non FDA approved, controversial therapy and became cancer free by the beginning of ’99.
Though I’ve been in CR from MM since 1999, I live with a number of MM side effects. PTSD is one of them.
I have been struggling with long-term and late stage side effects- both physical and mental, ever I began conventional therapies in early 1995.
I developed a blood-clot in my leg shortly after I began my induction chemotherapy. Chemotherapy-Induced Peripheral Neuropathy and Lumbo-Sacral Plexopathy have slowly robbed me of my leg strength since 1996. I developed chronic atrial-fibrillation in the fall of 2010. And don’t get me started on my Chemobrain and PTSD.
And no, the aggressive toxic therapies that led to all my side effects did NOT cure my cancer. An alternative therapy did.
The article linked and excerpted below explains that oncology does a lousy job of explaining, much less treating, possible short, long-term and late stage mental and physical side effects.
The key is for newly diagnosed cancer patients to identify probable short, long-term and late stage side effects from their therapies and learn how to either avoid developing them altogether or learn how to manage them.
Please watch the video below to learn more about the evidence-based, integrative therapies to combat treatment side effects and enhance your chemotherapy.
I am both a cancer survivor and cancer coach. For more information about how to manage side effects from cancer therapy scroll down the page to post a question or comment. I will reply asap.
“Many U.S. cancer survivors have unresolved physical and mental health issues long after being cured, a new study finds. (such as PTSD)
One expert wasn’t surprised. “Many oncologists intuit that their patients may have unmet needs, but believe that these will diminish with time — the current study challenges that notion,” said Dr. James Ferrara, chair of cancermedicine at Tisch Cancer Institute at Mount Sinai in New York City.
The new study involved more than 1,500 cancer survivors who completed an American Cancer Society survey asking about unmet needs. More than one-third pointed to physical problems related to their cancer or its treatment.
Cancer care often took a toll on financial health, too. About 20 percent of the survey respondents said they continued to have problems with paying bills, long after the end of treatment. This was especially true for black and Hispanic survivors.
Many respondents also expressed anxiety about the possible return of their cancer, regardless of the type of cancer or the number of years they had survived, according to the study published online Jan. 12 in the journal Cancer.
“Overall, we found that cancer survivors are often caught off guard by the lingering problems they experience after cancer treatment,” study author Mary Ann Burg, of the University of Central Florida in Orlando, said in a journal news release…
And, Ferrara added, “Patients often experience a kind of post-traumatic stress disorder with numerous psychologic, neurologic and physical problems that extend and even intensify beyond the critical five-year milestone.”
The new study demonstrates “that such needs persist at the same level even 10 years after treatment,” Ferrara said. “The medical system is ill-equipped to deal with such problems, and patients may be reluctant to raise them, fearing to seem ungrateful for having survived a terrible disease.”
Burg agreed, saying that doctors need to be honest with patients about the side effects of cancer and its treatment, and that health care providers need to coordinate their efforts to help survivors and their families cope with the challenges they face…
“Cancer is not only a disease of the body, but it is a disease of the mind, often affecting many aspects of the person as a whole,” Bernik said. “Patients often feel alone and are not sure where to turn for help, and it is important for physicians to be aware of a patient’s needs outside of the direct treatment of the cancer.”
She said the study findings show “how important it is to speak with a patient about all their concerns and for physicians to have a system in place that helps address psychosocial needs of the patients diagnosed with cancer. We have come a long way in treating the patient as a whole, but more work still needs to be done.””
[…] fact is that toxic therapies will cause side effects– some of these side effects will be temporary and some will be permanent. There may even be […]
[…] key for cancer survivors is to use knowledge of your therapies and try to identify short, long term and late stage side effects and then find supportive protocols to try to reduce or eliminate these side […]
Hi Tom-
There are a host of complementary, integrative and alternative therapies out there. I can narrow the list if you tell me what cancer and stage at diagnosis. What therapies are your considering so that I can include integrative therapies? For example, curcumin enhances velcade.
