If you just got diagnosed with cancer, be certain you will be urged to begin chemotherapy and/or radiation immediately. You should seriously consider to hold back your answer to those conventional treatments in order to give yourself time to find out what is chemotherapy is, what it does, and what it causes.
Are you worried about not having enough time to think before you act? The first think you should probably know is that chemotherapy drugs cause cancer, accelerate it, shorten cancer relapse times, and make cancer relapses dangerously resistant to treatment. Giving yourself a few weeks to find out why and how they do all that might in fact be a good idea before you make up your mind
Cancer-fighting Chemotherapy Causes Cancer
Alkylating agents in chemotherapy drugs are known to produce second tumors in cancer patients treated for their primary cancer. These alkylating agents’ mission is to damage the DNA of cells. But they do not damage cancerous cells selectively. They cause massive DNA damage in healthy cells as well, which is the reason why they are considered carcinogenic. They will dramatically increase your risk of later being diagnosed with leukemia and other cancers.
On top of it, not only these kind of alkylating drugs are carcinogenic; The International Agency for Research on Cancer has identified 20 single agents that cause cancer in humans, and suspicion hangs on 50 more of these agents. Among those are cytotoxic tumoral antibiotics and hormone-like agents.
In one study, the incidence of leukemia in one-year survivors of ovarian cancer was 100 times more common in women who got chemotherapy than in those who received none. In fact, combining these chemotherapy agents and then adding them to a radiotherapy protocol will further increase the risk of cancer. Shouldn’t the fact that these agents cause cancer be considered when they are applied to cancer patients? Shouldn’t you know what the risks are and what the statistics say?
Cancer-fighting Chemotherapy Accelerates Cancer
Chemotherapy drugs create the conditions that allow cancer to spread ferociously. They cause reduction in both leukocytes and erythrocytes, depressing the immune system dramatically. Also, the blood count declines during treatment and less oxygen is carried around the body. Chemotherapy acidifies all tissues and organs of your body. They damage the vascular system making it more difficult to carry oxygen to cells. The liver gets damaged and weakened, impairing the capability to remove the toxic agents from the bloodstream.
Chemotherapy will be able to kill a great deal of cancerous cells. But not all them will die. A depressed immune system, lack of oxygen, high toxicity, high acidity, and scanty blood count during and after chemotherapy will cause the remaining, now drug-resistant, cancerous cells to enhance their malignancy, and increase their ability to spread. Chemotherapy doesn’t reverse the conditions that make the cancer cells grow and multiple in the first place, it just makes these conditions worse!
Victim of Statistics
The only statistic you might hear about in your oncologist office is your cancer survival rate. For the majority of people this is enough information to gamble their life into a radical preemptive treatment. It should never be your only number. For conventional oncology, cancer cure is a statistic strategy, and statistics can be spun on any direction. It only makes sense that if you get in this game you demand as many numbers as possible before making a decision.
The statistics you should push for are the success rates of chemotherapy in stopping the spread of your cancer at your stage and your age. The second most important statistics are the rate of patients with your cancer that go to a second round of chemotherapy. And then you can fill in the details:
- Rate of relapse of you cancer and stage.
- Average time from diagnosis and treatment to relapse in patients with your same cancer and stage.
- Rate of side effects.
While you are at it, look for statistics on non-conventional treatments related to your type of cancer. They might give you the hope you need against the angst of feeling you have ONLY one option.
Hopeless Damage
Don’t think you will spring back in one piece after chemotherapy. There is some long term damage that might restrict your ability not only to continue life as normal in one way or another, but to actually defeat cancer in the future. Find out exactly what this damage might be. The more you know, the closer to a realistic picture you will get, the more prepared you will be to make a decision.
To your surprise, you will not find studies on the rate of side effects or the quality of life during and after treatment. These are mundane and unimportant issues for conventional oncology. The reason these issues are important to you is because some of these side effects might remain irreversible. The damage to some organs, like your heart, liver, and brain, might be beyond repair after treatment depending of your age, health, and the intensity of the protocol. You might develop serious vitamin deficiencies that your oncologist will not cover. Your bone marrow might be affected long term and that means your blood count will be wrecked for a long period of time, if not forever. You stomach or digestive lining might get damaged, impairing your body from getting proper nutrition.
Side effects like these decrease your chances to win the disease, and increase your chances of a relapse. You want to know what chemotherapy might do to you and if it will leave you in a worse spot than you were before. Ask:
- Which chemotherapy drugs will you receive specifically? Sometimes this information is provided just after the treatment started, never before, and only if you ask for it. Do a simple online research of each of those drugs to learn more about them.
- Which organs will they specifically damage?
- How will the damage be assessed?
- What guarantee will you have the damage will not be irreversible?
If the answers you get are vague, evasive, or defensive, you have reason enough to be seriously skeptical.
How about survival?
Some people are conscious about what chemotherapy and radiation do to their bodies but still go through it because they see it as the only choice to destroy their cancers. But, is that so? You should know that tumor size or existence is not correlated with survival. This is something you should always have in mind. Read my post about it here. There is no conclusive medical evidence that tumor shrinkage or removal corresponds to increased prolongation of life span.
In fact, except a few types of cancer, there is absolutely no categorical evidence that conventional treatments extend the lives of patients, compared to no treatment at all. Vitamin C therapy, for example, has been scientifically proven to be far superior to chemotherapy and radiation in lengthening the life of cancer patients, and it’s not even in the top 100 alternative cancer treatments.
Conventional oncology uses factors like tumor size and tumor markers to rate their success, but in terms of real lifespan and quality of life, chemotherapy does either very little, nothing at all, or makes things worse. Chemotherapy could be a fruitful tool in acute lymphocytic leukemia, Hodgkin’s disease, testicular and ovarian cancer, and a handful of rare tumors, including choriocarcinoma, Wilm’s tumor, and retinoblastoma, mainly of childhood. These account for only 2% to 4% of all cancers occurring in the United States. The 96% to 98% of remaining cancers show no success when treated with chemotherapy.
You should push back any commitment to surgery, chemotherapy, or radiation until you are educated enough to make an intelligent, unbiased, objective, and independent decision. Any decision made in your oncologist office will not be independent enough and might carry some serious regrettable consequences. At best, aggressive chemotherapy diminishes the odds of benefiting from nontoxic, nutritional, or immunological treatments. At worst, it might turn your cancer incurable by any form of therapy, conventional or alternative, and permanently handicap your body’s systems leaving you worse than you were before.
People use conventional cancer treatments today not because they are effective, but because conventional oncology has fiercely eradicated any other choice.
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September 16, 2008 at 9:49 pm
Given the ill effects of chemotherapy, one should probably consider alternative techniques of healing such as naturopathy which have successfully treated a variety of diseases. Some medical practioners are combining traditional and contemporary treatment techniques to treat diseases. However, it is important to choose a certified doctor for the treatment. Dr.Gez Agolli is a well known and experienced doctor in the field of naturopathy treatment whose expertise is sure to bring about successful recovery of patients. To know more about him, visit http://www.drgezagolli.info
September 19, 2008 at 4:09 am
I’ve remembered that unexpectable time when my three years old nephew has got brain tumor that is almost a non curable disease…
Lots of medical treatment and check-ups had been done but there is no positive response by the cancer specialists and they advised us that leave him on the grace of god with regular medicines…
Now he is arround 14 years old but disabled by his left eye,hand and leg as well as he’s still alive.
I’ve seen that moment when a little baby was fighting with death for life… I don’t know this is a boon of god or curse that he’s still alive as he gotta that serious disease brain tumor just at 3 yrs………..?????????????
September 28, 2008 at 4:25 am
cancercureindia
I hope your nephew is doing well.
It just ocurred to me that a book I found very helpful is called
Anticancer by Dr David Servan-Schreiber.
He had two brain tumours and as well as conventional treatment. He decided to give a go to changes in nutrition packing his daily foods which are proven to have anticancer effects. It’s a long story but to cut it short, it’s a very comprehensive book, with extremely easy ways to adapt it to ones own daily routine.
I am aware that there’s a lot of literature, like the china study, which is a magnificent book but very dense, but this book is so easy to read that it’s in my view a very good way to start.
I hope you find this helpful.
All the best.
John