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.
“… your choices change depending on where you are in your (MM) disease state and what is it that has impacted you (side-effects) along your journey with the disease.”
I know side-effects changed my thinking. I am a long-term survivor of multiple myeloma. Like the study linked below found, newly diagnosed MM patients are “go, go, go.” Yep, that was me. But once chemotherapy kicked my ass for a few months, once I developed a blood clot, once I lost all my hair, once my oncologist told me I probably would never be able to have children, my thinking changed.
The interviewers discussed below include many MM patients who had already relapsed from their first therapy. Do you think that MM patients who experience side effects AND also relapse may feel differently about their “lifesaving chemotherapy drugs.” My relapse sure changed my thinking…
After seeing the good, the bad and the ugly that multiple myeloma has to offer, I’ve concluded that conventional MM oncology has it wrong. They go for the cure when they should go for control.
Or to put it another way, the MM patients interview below have figured it out. Their decision-making has changed after they’ve begun to learn about MM. These patients put toxicity and side effects higher on their priority list than they did when they were newly diagnosed.
Yes, chemotherapy is essential in treating MM. But toxicity must be minimized, MM oncologist should adopt a “less is more” approach to therapy. At least in my opinion.
I’ve remained in complete remssion from my MM since early 1994 by living an evidence-based, non-toxic, anti-MM lifestyle through nutrition, supplementation, and lifestyle therapies.
To learn more about this anti-MM lifestyle, scroll down the page, post a question or comment and I will reply to you ASAP.
“…Researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center in Boston wanted to understand specific preferences and perceived tradeoffs patients were willing to make, and how they were different based on where they were in treatment.
Trained interviewers conducted hour-long phone interviews using guided discussion with 21 patients with multiple myeloma from April to May 2018. The mean age was 64 years old and mean time since diagnosis was nearly five years.
Eleven patients had received initial treatment for multiple myeloma and 10 had early relapse with one to two previous lines of therapy.
“We looked at newly diagnosed patients, we looked at patients who had one to two lines of treatment and we looked at it beyond that,” Dr. Noopur Raje, director of the Center for Multiple Myeloma at Mass General, said in an interview with CURE®. “To me, this was very interesting because your choices change depending on where you are in your disease state and what is it that has impacted you along your journey with the disease.”
“top-of-mind” factors that influenced treatment choices.
Regarding treatment decision-making, the trust a patient had in their health care provider played a role on treatment choice. In addition, newly diagnosed patients relied more on their health care provider to make the treatment decision while those who had received prior multiple lines of therapy included other sources of information and relied more on shared decision-making.
It was also discovered that health care providers give more general information on treatment, such as efficacy and tolerability, to new patients but go into more detail while discussing treatment with those who have received one or two prior therapies.
Effectiveness and side effects were “top-of-mind” factors that influenced patient preference, researchers concluded. Newly diagnosed patients were most concerned about side effects. And both groups of patients ranked quality of life as important.
“We looked at patients at the time of diagnosis, and what we found was that at the time of diagnosis patients were fairly dependent on their health care providers,” Raje said. “They were ‘go, go, go’ and wanted to get the treatment done. There were not a lot of options, and I think that is pretty straightforward when you think about multiple myeloma…
When it comes to second-, third-, fourth-line treatment, there was a little bit of a difference. The difference here was that there was a lot more discussion on toxicity and there were a lot more choices.”
Since there is not just one medication to treat patients with multiple myeloma, these discussions often arise, she added. However, opening up decision making to include the patient and their caregivers may help improve care for those with multiple myeloma.
“Cancer does not affect one person. It’s the entire family and friends and support system. What it does to all of them is very important,” Raje said. “The more we engage not just the patient, but the caregivers as well, I think outcomes are going to be better in patients. We are going to do much better, and it’s going to allow patients to get more empowered.”
I take many supplements- some daily, some weekly, it varies. Too many to list here. I list all of the supplements that are cytotoxic to MM on the MM CC supplementation guide. Curcumin, Resveratrol, Green Tea Extract, Omega-3, vitamin D, Magnesium, many others.
Keep in mind that I live with a host of long-term health issues.
As for my diet, same idea. I discuss my anti-MM diet in the MM CC nutrition guide in its entirety. In a nutshell, I focus on anti-angiogenic foods.
Have you or a loved one been diagnosed with multiple myeloma?
