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.
“This is really important for patients,” Dr Mikhael emphasized, “because transplants are exhausting, and they are costly.”
Dr. Mikhael has a point when he says “Transplants are exhausting, and they are costly.” But induction, consolidation, autoHT followed by maintenance therapy is the standard-of-care for multiple myeloma. Standard-of-care means that stem cell transplant as multiple myeloma therapy is the best that conventional oncology has to offer.
Make no mistake-the current standard-of-care is a definite improvement not only based on what MM patients from many other countries in the world today live with but based on the state of multiple myeloma therapy just 25 years ago when I was first diagnosed.
Using me as an example, a 34 year old diagnosed with early myelomatoday has a 90% plus chance of responding to his induction therapy. Its important to remember that 25 years ago a substantial number of newly diagnosed MMers didn’t respond to his/her therapy at all. I didn’t respond to my induction therapy.
Secondly, a newly diagnosed 34 year old today would enjoy an average five-year survival rate of about 50%. While that statistic might now sound like much, I have to remember that I reached end-stage status at 4 years.
And lastly, an early stage MMer diagnosed at 34 like me has a reasonable chance to enjoy a 10-15 year overall survival. Though that thinking isn’t supported by research, it is based on my general understanding of MM experiences. That OS statistic was rare when I was diagnosed in early 1994.
Those MMers who read my blog posts know that I often take issue with conventional oncology and the “standard-of-care” for MMers. The study below highlights several of the reasons for this:
“Eligible for transplant…with dose modifications for toxicities.” The average age of an MMer is 70. That means that half of all MMers are not eligible for the standard-of-care. Many MMers younger than 70 present with heart or kidney problems that disqualify them for a transplant. Further, the majority of MMers experience adverse events that require dose modifications. The standard-of-care shouldn’t be for the minority of newly diagnosed patients that brings short, long-term and late stage pain.
“A total of 39 cases of second primary malignancies were reported in 36 patients.” I think it’s a crime for the standard-of-care to be exhausting, costly therapy that can cause an often aggressive, second cancer.
“This is really important for patients,” Dr Mikhael emphasized, “because transplants are exhausting, and they are costly.“ My case is rare. I understand that. But I can’t let go of the fact that my conventional induction, consolidation, and AutoHCT did little for my PFS or OS. Nor can I let go of the fact that I would have died years ago were it not for a “quack” cancer therapy.
Once my oncologist told me that she could do nothing more for me I went to Texas and underwent a non-conventional therapy that put me into complete remission after 17 months where I have remained since.
My MM experiences and years of research into the world of MM force me to wonder if there is a better way? There is no doubt in my mind that a person may need chemotherapy to put advanced MM into remission. But conventional oncology never seems to research any other therapies beside toxic chemotherapy and/or radiation. A MMer who pursues conventional therapies exclusively guarantees an average five year OS of 49%. I draw on all forms of researcm, including in-vitro in-vivo to look beyond conventional, standard-of-care therapies.
I cannot let go of the fact is that conventional oncology cannot cure multiple myeloma. If a 34 year old is diagnosed with MM today then he may have a 10-15 year overall survival and be facing death at the age of 49. And those 10-15 years will be exhausting and costly. And that’s his best-case scenario.
I think there has to be a better way.
Please watch the video below to learn more about the evidence-based, integrative therapies to combat treatment side effects and enhance your chemotherapy.
Have you been diagnosed with multiple myeloma? What stage? What symptoms are you experiencing? Scroll down the page, post a question or comment and I will reply to you ASAP.
“In the largest trial to date of autologous hematopoietic cell transplant (autoHCT) in patients with multiple myeloma, all three approaches that were tested yielded similar results.
Maintenance therapy with lenalidomide after autoHCT has been shown to improve both progression-free and overall survival and is considered the standard of care; the new results suggest that this regimen may be all that most patients need.
Patients who received additional interventions, such as tandem autoHCT or triple therapy with bortezomib, lenalidomide, and dexamethasone (RVD) for consolidation, did not show significantly better outcomes, the new results indicate…
“In the era of thalidomide analogues and proteasome inhibitors used in initial therapy for myeloma, and the use of prolonged maintenance therapy with lenalidomide, post transplant consolidation or a second transplant do not produce incremental PFS [progression-free survial] benefit...”
“It didn’t matter that much what patients received for their induction, as long as they didn’t relapse,” he said. “It didn’t look at what happened after maintenance. From the outset, it was very well designed, with enough patients to answer a very important clinical question…”
“This is really important for patients,” Dr Mikhael emphasized, “because transplants are exhausting, and they are costly.”
A total of 39 cases of second primary malignancies were reported in 36 patients. The cumulative incidences were 6.0% for patients who received consolidation therapy, 5.9% for patients who received tandem transplants, and 4.0% for the patients who received only lenalidomide maintenance therapy…”
