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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Who, What, Why in Multiple Myeloma???

Multiple Myeloma Stages
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A diagnosis of the rare, incurable blood cancer elicits questions about who, what, why in multiple myeloma? Though I’m not too enthusiastic about writing blog posts filled with statistics, I understand that I need to provide basic inform about MM on occasion.

The WebMD article linked below is helpful in providing basic statistical information about MM. Unfortunately, the article provides information while not confronting an issue that is central to managing your MM. And that is:

  • The Cure versus Control Debate in MM
  • The fact that stage 1 MM patients live so much longer than stage 2,3 patients yet the FDA approved standard-of-care therapy plan provides only one basic therapy plan

The cure vs. control argument, posed by an MM specialist from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, Vincent Rajkumar, simply offers two approaches to managing MM-

  • Using “potentially curative” aka aggressive and highly toxic therapy dosing or
  • Managing aka controlling our disease the way that chronic diseases like diabetes do

If you are wondering about potentially curative therapies even though no one has ever been cured of MM with toxic therapy, you get a gold star. It’s important to note that the MM specialist who achieves the longest 3, 5, and 10 year survival rates, James Berenson M.D. practices a low-dose approach to managing his MM patients.  

In my experience, the cure vs. control issue is closely related to the stage 1 vs. stage 2,3 issue in that by applying a control or low-dose approach to MM treatment, young, healthy, early stage patients would live a longer, higher quality of life existence than they would by following the FDA standard-of-care therapy plan of “potentially curative” dosing.

 

The last issue is based on my own experience both as a long-term MM survivor and as one who has been studying and working with fellow MM survivors for years. In my experience MM patients who manage their health through:

  • Nutrition, 
  • Supplementation, 
  • Exercise, 
  • Complementary therapies, etc. 

are healthier and better able to withstand the rigors of chemotherapy year in, year out. Even low-dose chemotherapy.

If you are a mm survivor and would like to learn more about evidence-based non-conventional MM therapies email me at David.PeopleBeatingCancer@gmail.com

Thank you,

David Emerson

  • MM Survivor
  • MM Cancer Coach
  • Director PeopleBeatingCancer

Who Gets Multiple Myeloma?

Multiple myeloma is the second most commonly diagnosed type of blood cancer (after lymphoma). But it’s still relatively uncommon. Around the world, there were about 180,000 new cases in 2022. That makes up less than 1% of all cancer diagnoses.

Cases of multiple myeloma have risen in recent decades in Australia, Western Europe, the United States, and Canada.

  • In the U.S., cases of MM are up 143% since 1975.
  • An estimated 35,780 Americans were expected to be diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 2024.
  • In the U.S., multiple myeloma accounts for almost 2% of new cancer cases and more than 2% of cancer deaths. That’s more than double the proportion worldwide…

The 5-year relative survival rate is almost 58%, up from 23.7% in 1976. This means about 58 out of every 100 people with multiple myeloma will live 5 or more years after being diagnosed…

The 5-year survival rate for stage 1 patients is 79%. 

How long you survive depends on:

  • your age,
  • the stage of your cancer,
  • your general health,
  • and certain genetic and clinical findings at the time of your diagnosis…

Today, about 179,063 people in the U.S. live with or are in remission from myeloma…

Those who are most at risk include:

  • Older people: Multiple myeloma is a cancer of advanced age. The average age of diagnosis in the U.S. is 69. Fewer than 15% of people diagnosed with myeloma are younger than 55. Doctors think rates of multiple myeloma have increased in recent years because people are living longer.
  • Men: Men are 1.5 times more likely to get multiple myeloma than women. Researchers think this may be because men have higher rates of obesity and unhealthy habits like smoking and drinking alcohol. But there’s no proof of a direct link.
  • Black people: The disease occurs twice as often in Black Americans as white ones. What’s more, African-Americans often get multiple myeloma at a younger age. Doctors aren’t sure why. U.S. patients of Asian and Pacific Islander descent have the lowest rates of the disease…

Only 4% of people are diagnosed at an early stage of myeloma. 96% of NDMM patients are stage 2,3.

When you’re 65 or older, signs and symptoms of myeloma can show up in many ways, including:

  • Unexplained anemia (low red blood cell count)
  • Fatigue
  • Bone pain
  • Fractures
  • Spinal cord compression
  • Too much calcium in your blood (hypercalcemia)
  • Kidney problems
  • Repeated infections
  • Thickening of blood (hyperviscosity)

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