Calling all triple negative breast cancer patients in the UK
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Hello everyone,
I am popping in to say that I hope you will all be here to support Mary. We are a group of friends here and we need to reach out to one another.
Some of you have already been through what Mary is going through, so you will know how she is feeling.
Thinking of you all.
Sylvia xxxx
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Sylvia, I did see the breast surgeon and she had just pulled up the same studies that I looked at. She apologised that no one had told me that my cells were pleomorphic. It's so rare, when the first breast surgeon told me that my BC was rare and aggressive, I just took from that, that it was the triple negative element. Looking back, that was probably what he was on about. My little combo equates to 1% of breast cancers. I asked her if she was worried and she said that she wasn't as I had reacted so well to the treatment.
Further studies that I read showed that it was metaplastic pleomorphic that was the 'lethal' title, my path report didn't mention metaplastic so I take some comfort from that. Also metaplastic was given the lethal title to HER2+.
As you all know it's so hard to deal with this and constantly thinking about recurrence, Carolben I think you sound so brave. I overheard someone saying today in radiology that she wasn't brave, she was just dealing with it, nothing else you can do. She is so right. I can imagine you Carol, sitting in the garden watching and listening to the wonders that the Earth has given us and enjoying every minute you have.
Radiotherapy is easy, just feel tired as my body is trying to repair the damaged cells. I am not having proton beam radiotherapy, I don't think they have the machine yet.
Love,
Marymargaret
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Mary I am so sorry and send my love and thoughts xx
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Hello Marymargarethope,
I was glad to know that you had seen your breast cancer surgeon. I do hope you have more peace of mind.
Sometimes, I think that with breast cancer we may have gone from knowing very little to knowing too much and that we end up suffering from information overload. I also think that it is perhaps not a good idea to have our pathology reports, since we are not doctors and consultants and we may find them difficult to understand and may find them a source of worry and anxiety. This is my own personal view. Back in 2005 I was not given a pathology report and now I would not want to see it. Whatever was in it, it does not alter the fact that nearly ten years on I am still here. Whatever type of breast cancer we have, we know that the standard treatment is the same for all of us, surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy, and anti-hormonal medication for those with hormonal breast cancer. We just have to absorb the diagnosis, get on with the treatment and then get on to living life as normally as we can, knowing that there are no guarantees and that the cancer could come back. We have to hang on to the fact that more patients survive than die and that even with recurrence and spread, there is treatment and patients can survive a long time.
I know it is early days for you but slowly you will concentrate on your daily life with your family and thoughts of cancer will go into a small corner and perhaps come to the fore as you have your regular check ups.
As you said in your post, when a person is diagnosed with breast cancer, they just have to accept it and get on with the treatment. There is nothing else they can do.
I was glad to know that you are finding radiotherapy easy and I think most women find it so, especially after chemotherapy. However, it is still lethal treatment and does have side effects, especially tiredness. It is disappointing that, in this country, we do not have proton beam radiotherapy. We are always behind the times.
Is your skin keeping alright during radiotherapy? I do hope so. Are you doing any complementary therapies for relaxation, such as aromatherapy, or exercises? I do not mean alternative treatments, which is something very different.
When will you finish your radiotherapy? You will then start your regular follow up examinations at the hospital and regular mammograms. Sometimes you have scans at the end of treatment, but this seems to depend on individual hospitals.
That is all for now. Take care.
Love.
Sylvia xxxx
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Hello everyone,
I was reading in one of the newspapers yesterday about trials where they are detecting the presence of cancer through breath tests. Did anybody read this? What do you thin? If we can advance to detecting the presence of cancer in the very early stages through tests like this or simple blood tests, the sooner they become standard the better.
Thinking of you all. What are you doing for Valentine's day?
Here in Exmouth, although still cold, there is a feeling of spring approaching. The other day I did three hours of gardening in the grounds and felt so much better.
Best wishes.
Sylvia xxxx
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Hello everyone,
I was wondering whether any of you saw the programme last Wednesday entitled Can you cure my cancer? If so I would welcome your comments.
On another matter I was surprised to read on bc.org that some women on being diagnosed still do not know anything about the stage and the receptors connected to their breast cancer. I would have thought this was the minimum anyone should know, especially with all the publicity that breast cancer gets.
I hope you are all well and I hope that those of you going through treatment are coping.
The thread is quiet, but it is half term, and you could be busy with children and grandchildren.
Fond thoughts,
Sylvia.
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Hello everyone,
I was finally able today to sit down and watch the Panorama programme from last Wednesday entitled Can You Cur My Cancer? It was about clinical trials being carried out at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London. The format of the programme was Fergus Walsh, of the BBC, carrying out interviews with patients on the trials and the doctors treating them.
The patients had various types of cancer, had exhausted all their treatments, had applied and been accepted to go on some of the trials.
One patient had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer at just thirty and it had come back years later. She was doing very well on the trial.
I learned from this that 7,000 women a year in the UK are diagnosed with ovarian cancer and that the treatment still remains surgery and radiotherapy for localised cancer, and chemotherapy for cancer that has spread.
I already knew that the Royal Marsden was the place to go for clinical trials.
Oral chemotherapy was mentioned as being used for targeted cancer treatment and how it was so much more practical as patients could take the drugs at home. Targeted drugs are also a big improvement because they do not harm healthy cells.
I learned that 170 children are being treated at the Royal Marsden. There was a young patient of only ten with a rare cancer being treated on a special drug and doing very well on it. I was mazed at how openly this child could speak about this cancer.
I also learned that there are two and a half million people living under the shadow of cancer and that cancer survival has doubled in the past forty years.
The professors and consultants said that cancer was a very complicated disease.
I was most interested to learn that cancer survives through Darwinian evolution in the body. Natural selection means some cancer cells escape and survive. One of the doctors described cancer "an evil genius". Cancer shrinks through treatment and then months later can suddenly come back. It was pointed out that drugs can be successful and then suddenly stop working and drug resistance kicks in. Drug resistance is one of the biggest obstacles in cancer treatment. A drug for advanced ovarian cancer was mentioned but I could not catch the name.
There were other patients on trials. One was a man with prostate cancer who was still alive. There was a lady from Wales who had had breast cancer and then ten years later was diagnosed with lung cancer and was given an expensive drug that brought her in the clear after just two sessions.
I was very interested to learn about immunotherapy drugs that can work quickly and I think that is what the lady from Wales had. These are drugs that allow the immune system to kick in and destroy cancer cells and if I understood correctly, they work by rearranging the immune system to allow it to kill cancer cells. I got the impression that the drugs are very toxic because she had problems with her liver and had to stop the drugs.
There was also a woman with melanoma that had spread to the breast and her trial drug treatment would cost £75,000 per treatment.
This makes me wonder how the NHS could cope with such costs.
I do hope you will find this of interest.
I am wondering how all of you are getting on.
Marymargarethope, are you able to enjoy half term with your children while going through radiotherapy?
Jacqueline1963, how is your radiotherapy going?
Breastcancerhusband (Tom), how did the first Taxol treatment go? How are things going with you and your family?
Carolben, I hope you are still managing to have a good quality of life.
To all of you regular posters who have finished treatment, Jackpot (Gill), Suewirral, peterandliz in the UK, I hope all is well with you.
To chatterbox (Michael), Northern Ireland, did you manage to watch the cancer programme?
To linali (Lindsay) in Ireland, it is a while since we heard from you. I hope you and your family are well.
To Maryna8, US, how are you coping after the death of your husband?
To InspiredbyDolce, Debra, US, and to adagio in Canada, best wishes.
To YJ2012, I hope you found my response to your post some time ago and I hope your mother continues to do well.
To poohbearnorman, in your post some time ago you said you had finished treatment but a lump had come back. I hope that was not bad news and that you are fine.
Susaninicking, how is life treating you in Germany?
I cannot believe that we are just seven weeks into the New Year. I have never known such a long winter.
Best wishes to all of you.
Sylvia xxxx
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Hello everyone,
I have just started reading a book entitled The Health of the Nation – NHS in Peril by David Owen. David Owen was trained as a medical doctor and was Clinical Neurologist and Psychiatric Registrar at St Thomas' Hospital before he entered Parliament.
Any of you who value our NHS in the UK would do well to read this book. I am very concerned that in England (unlike in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland) we could well be going down the road to privatisation. This all goes back to the 2012 Health and Social Care Act, the major consequence of which was to view healthcare in England as a business rather than a service.
In my opinion we need to save the soul of the NHS and this can only come from the people. The 2012 legislation needs to be taken off the statute book.
There is a campaign to restore the NHS in England and you might like to visit the campaign website at
Now is the time to save our NHS. We cancer patients can never know when we might need it and it must remain a service free to all at the point of treatment. In my opinion it must not become a business whose motivation is to make a profit.
The establishment of the NHS in 1948 was our proudest moment.
Best wishes.
To everyone.
Sylvia
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Hi all, just a quick email before bed. I have been taking my antidepressants for nearly 2 weeks now and all going ok, no real side effects so lets see how it goes. I saw my therapist at the Maggies centre today, I do feel better for seeing her she is great helping me with my demons and I am feeling better today. The crocuses are peeping and they remind me of how I felt this time last year when going thru chemo, but equally they remind me that spring is here again with hopes of a brighter future for us all.
Thanks Sylvia for the knowledge and cheer you unstintingly give, it is always interesting to read your posts.
How is everyone else doing?
Sue x
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Hi Everyone,
Just doing a quick hello and caught Sylvia's (Hi Sylvia!) post about intermittent fasting. I used to have a link (page link no longer works) to an article that talked about TNBC survivors can benefit from 2 days a week with calorie restriction of 600 calories - very similar to fasting. I didn't see the original 5:2 post but will search for that.
Hugs to all!
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Hello Sue,
I was glad to know that you are not having any side effects from your anti-depressants. Do you feel better for taking them and in what way? Just remember that they can be very addictive.
It is good to know that you feel better for seeing your therapist at the Maggies centre. I feel it is much better to talk out your problems with someone than taking pills.
I think we all feel better for knowing that spring is on the way. It has been too cold this year. I can see bulbs shooting up in the grounds everywhere here.
During the winter I have watched a Premier Inn hotel going up on the seafront in Exmouth. The architecture looks a bit art-deco and is very smart. The grand opening is in March.
Thank you for your kind words about the thread. I do try to keep everyone strong and optimistic and keep them informed on any up to date news.
Keep well and keep feeling better.
Fond thoughts.
Sylvia xxxx
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Hello InspiredbyDolce (Debra),
It was nice to hear from you. I do think, especially for those wanting to lose weight, that this intermittent fasting is a good way to go. It is not that difficult to restrict calories on two days a week of your choice. You can cut down on portions or have a good breakfast and dinner and cut out lunch. What you must not do is over eat on the days preceding or following the restricted calorie days or eat junk instead of proper food when restricting calories. The book The Fast Diet makes interesting reading, especially the pages about cancer. I think we all know we need to maintain our ideal weight for our height in the attempt to stay healthy and keep all chronic illnesses at bay. We all know there are no guarantees but we can at least try to help ourselves with those aspects of our life over which we have some control.
Wishing you all the best.
Fond thoughts.
Sylvia xxxx
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Hello all my loyal friends,
I am just posting to say that today I have just reached 9 years and 8 months since diagnosis. I am drawing ever closer to that 10 year mark- June 20 th 2015. I must admit it seems a whole life-time ago. I post this to motivate all of you.
I saw on the TNs thread that there is news about vaccine trials to prevent TNBC coming back, Has anyone heard about anything similar in the UK? There was mention about a special folate receptor alpa protein.
Thinking of you all and wishing you a good weekend.
Sylvia.
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Hi Sylvia, I haven't managed to see that programming but will look out for it on the iPlayer. There was a Portugal on BBC NI that I have recorded but not watched so far called The Truth about Cancer. I expect it is available nationwide on the iPlayer.
I have done reading to do to catch up with the thread.
Michael
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Hello Michael,
I do hope you manage to see that programme on the iPlayer as it was very interesting. It was entitled Can You Cure my Cancer?
I shall have a look to see if I can find the one you have recorded, The Truth About Cancer.
I would be very pleased to know your opinion on both programmes, as I know you take a great interest in all of this.
How are things going with the Janette Collins Foundation?
You rarely mention how you are doing with your health and with your life in general in Northern Ireland. I do hope you are well and that life is treating you well.
I was wondering whether you like gardening? You know that I do and I am just willing everything into bloom at the moment! The weather this week here in Exmouth is not good, with lots of rain and high winds, not to mention the cold. Raymond and I went to Exeter yesterday for a change as we had not been there in a while. It was fairly quiet now that half-term is over. I bought a couple of books, one of which is an early book by Will Self. It is entitled The Quantity Theory of Insanity. It is fiction and having read a bit I think it is going to be most interesting. Do you like to read a lot?
Wishing you all the very best.
Sylvia
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Hello everyone,
I hope those of you with children enjoyed your half-term break.
It would be nice to hear from Marymargarethope and Jacqueline1963 to see how they are fairing on radiotherapy or whether they have now finished.
To Tom, I hope your wife is not having too tough a time on Taxol.
To Carolben, sending fond thoughts your way and hoping you may be feeling better off chemotherapy.
To all the others in this group, I hope life is treating you well post-treatment.
Thinking of you all.
Sylvia
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Hello everyone,
As you know, I have been taking bitter apricot kernels for nearly ten years and I was wondering if anyone else is taking them. I have just received my latest order which I get from www.CreativeNatureSuperfoods.com and I was interested in a leaflet that was in my order and I have been reading up about some of the products advertised in it. You might want to have a look at them. I saw the company does tubs of goji berries, which I already know and take. The others I know about but have not tried. They all sound very healthy.
Besides the tubs, there are bars made out of these products which are said to be good for energy. They certainly sound better than eating bars of sugar-laden stuff. Has anybody tried any of this?
Best wishes.
Sylvia
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Hi all, just a quick update re my antidepressants. I actually caught myself laughing the other day... a really good laugh and I do feel lighter in myself generally so hopefully on the up. I don't think that the anti depressant tablets are addictive in the way that anti anxiety meds such as valium can be. The effects of the anti depressants build up and there is no real 'rush' as such. I can understand why some people can think they might be addictive but my doctor assures me they are not. I felt that my mood was so low for so long that I had to try something, I felt as if I was treading through mud and getting sucked down by everything. It is getting on for 21 months since my Colin died and now I feel I can think of him without always dissolving into tears. I reread his many emails to me which we exchanged when we first met and these are my love letters which are so lovely to reread.
Hey ho we will see how it goes, I am getting up to go to work each day which is a positive altho putting on weight I fear!
I had a phone appointment with the genetics team in Liverpool today and have another in June. All very odd when I have told the nurse I originally saw that I am prepared to pay for the BRCA gene test. I also have my vit D blood test on Friday so will let you all know how that goes.
Love and best wishes to you all Tom how is your wife? Carolben hope things OK for you and you are enjoying the sun in SA. Marymargarethope how are you getting on? best wishes to you too Sylvia
Sue x
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Hello Sue.
It was nice to hear from you and to know that you are feeling so much better. It is good that you feel so much better for taking the antidepressants and I am sure you will know when you are ready to come off them. It is good news that you can laugh, because I feel that laughter is the best medicine. It is still very early days since Colin died. Twenty-one months is nothing at all for grieving over the loss of a loved one. Keep up the good work of treasuring the memories and time that you had with Colin.
I do hope that you will be able to lose any weight that you have put on and you feel is too much. Keeping to the ideal weight for one's height and build is very important. I have a friend here who lost weight by cutting out bread and potatoes and carbohydrates in general. Who knows what the ideal thing to do is? There are so many books with different ideas. I still think this 5:2 diet is probably one of the easiest to follow. Whatever the diet chosen it really has to be one for life and not one of those where you will get fed up because it is too restrictive and difficult. This kind of dieting leads to yo yo dieting.
I cannot understand why you are being kept waiting for your genetics test, especially as you have offered to pay. I do hope you will get excellent results from your vitamin D blood test.
Thinking of you and sending best wishes your way.
Love.
Sylvia XXXX
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Hello everyone,
I caught a glimpse of an article in a newspaper this past week about Carol McGriffin who was on Loose Women. She has been through breast cancer treatment and I happened to see she was told her cancer was very aggressive. I was wondering what kind of cancer she had and whether the receptors were triple negative or triple positive, both said to be aggressive.
Does anyone have any details.
Best wishes.
Sylvia
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I must admit i googled her name (Carol McGiffin)and triple neg and one of the papers did say she had triple neg
Sue x
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Hello Sue,
Thank you for that information. I did suspect that it was going to be triple negative. I do hope all will go well for this lady.
The weekend is here again and I do hope everyone will have a relaxing one, enjoy any sunshine we get and do whatever makes you happy.
Take care, Sue.
Love.
Sylvia xxxx
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Hello everyone,
I thought you might be interested in an article in the Your Health section of the Daily Express on Tuesday February 24th, entitled We Can Win War Against Cancer by Professor Justin Stebbing, who says "Immunotherapy which harnesses the body's own defences could soon become the mainstay of treatment".
The article states there is a new buzz term in cancer medicine which is taking us light years forward. It is immuno-oncology, known as IO.
Professor Stebbing goes on to say that during his career advances in cancer have been made in small steps by improvements in surgical techniques, types of radiotherapy, better drug treatment and earlier treatments. He points out that advances in immuno-oncology are the biggest development in his career. He says that he thinks that in five years time half of the medicines being prescribed will be immunotherapeutics that are designed to make a person's body fight cancer better. He says that this is the ultimate in personalised therapy, because the immune system is performing a biopsy on tumours every second of the day.
Apparently these new medicines are in hundreds of trials. He thinks we are the beginning of a new era in the fight against cancer.
He points out that it has been clear for a long time that there is a close relationship between the body's immune system and cancer.
He further states that immuno-oncology drugs can be used singly or increasingly in combination with other treatments such as chemotherapy, radiation and other targeted treatments.
I am sure you will be able to find this on the internet if you enter the keywords.
It does say at the end of the article that Justin Stebbing is professor of cancer medicine and oncology at Imperial College London and to contact him e-mail at jstebbing@theloc.com or j.stebbing@imperial.ac.uk.
I do hope you will all take the trouble to read about all this information. We all need to keep up to date.
On this thread now we seem to have a lot of viewing but very few posts. Most of the people who have finished treatment now seem not to be posting and we have no news of the few still going through treatment, which is rather disappointing. It is good news if fewer people are being diagnosed or if they now have all the information they need, which makes the thread unnecessary. I have noticed that many threads are created and vanish very quickly. This thread and the TNS have now been going nearly five years and so have done very well. The TNS is still very active and there seems to be a lot of newly diagnosed people, which is sad but there is an amazing feeling of sisterhood and support there.
Thinking of you all.
Sylvia
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Hello Michael,
I was trying to find on the internet what it was that you had listened to about Portugal and cancer treatment. I thought the easiest thing to do was to Google Portugal cancer treatment, but I do not think I found what it was you had listened to. Would you mind giving me more details.
I did discover that the Portuguese government will invest 40 million euros this year to support treatment for cancer patients. I discovered that some of this money for cancer treatment is thanks to EC funding. Do you know whether the UK gets any funding from the EC?
I was interested to read that in Portugal cancer was the main cause of premature death before the age of 70 and was the second cause of death in all age groups after cardiovascular disease.
On another matter, I have just received my latest e-mail from Chris Woollams of Cancer Active. There is so much information on it. It is entitled "Beating cancer with 'alternative' drugs". I shall be posting more tomorrow, but you might be interested in
1. Ben Williams beat his cancer – Ben Williams beat terminal cancer.
2. New drugs for old – Repurposing old drugs. I found this truly interesting.
I do not know whether you receive the e-mail but it is free and well worth signing up to. http://www.canceractive.com/
All for now.
Best wishes.
Sylvia
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Hi Sylvia, I am afraid that I have probably wasted jour day. The mention above is the smart Alec spell checker changing "program " to "Portugal" without my noticing. Sorry!
I watched the Northern Ireland programme about cancer and it made me quite depressed, it wasn't all sunny.
I am going to make a separate post about travel insurance.
Michael
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From time to time people have discussed travel insurance and the high cost of cover for pre existing conditions. I have just opened a Nationwide Flexplus account which at a cost of £10 per month gives insurance cover for mobile phones, extended warranty, European break down cover, idenity theft protection and worldwide travel insurance. My paper work came today and I phoned them to tell them of my medical conditions and the only thing they are interested in are any treatment and medication received in the past 12 months. So if you are not currently receiving any treatment or medication you are covered. I currently take medication for high blood pressure but they were happy to cover that. BT the free Nationwide flex account offers European medical cover providing you pay in £750 per month.
Best wishes to all
Michael
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Hello Michael,
I had to laugh about the Portugal thing. Never mind, all information broadens the mind and I was quite interested in what I read about Portugal. On the thread, we do not read from anyone in Europe except from Susaninicking who is an American living in Germany. The German health care system does have a good reputation as does the French system. A long time ago I lived in France for six years and I was impressed with the health care, but I have no idea what it is like now.
I was interested in what you said about insurance cover.
The other week I was reading about a couple who had gone to see their GP and were told that because they had passed 70 they were now being put on statins and blood pressure tablets automatically. They later discovered that because they were on these two medications they had to pay £200 extra for their travel insurance! I cannot remember which company they were with but it is all very discriminatory.
I do not think GPs should have the right to put patients on medication based on age. Surely it should be on state of health and up to the patients, not the doctors. Raymond and I take absolutely nothing and will stay that way. One of our neighbours has been on such a cocktail of medication through his GP that he can now hardly put one foot in front of the other. A pharmacist friend of his was horrified at all that he was taking and the neighbour has now come off everything. It seems like our GPs want the whole population to be medicated. It is probably all to do with making money.
I have just finished reading that section 2 I mentioned, New Drugs for Old. The drugs mentioned in the e-mail are Tagamet (cimetidine) which apparently may well stop the threat of any cancer spread if you are having surgery. It is an antihistamine currently used as an antacid. The other drugs mentioned are Metformin, a diabetes drug which is good at controlling blood sugar levels, and is now being mentioned as an anticancer drug. Aspirin controls inflammation and is quoted as being able to stop metastases. There is also the anti-fungal drug Itracozanole. It is said to stop tumours forming and, in trials greatly reduces prostate cancer and PSA levels.
The e-mail further says that this is called "drug repurposing" and that the drug companies are not interested because most of the sixty odd drugs being considered for cancer treatment are now off patent (of course no money to be made on them).
I learnt from this section of the e-mail there is a bill known as the Saatchi Bill, which is going through the House of Lords and the House of Commons, which is all about trying things that might help a patient when orthodox medicine has failed. If you click on Repurposing old drugs, you will find a lot more information.
I would be interested to know what information you have read that has made you feel depressed about cancer.
I have recently been reading about how chemotherapy and radiotherapy, which are used to put us in remission from cancer, actually cause cancer. Talk about being doomed if you do and doomed if you do not!
Even with all the big hopes about immunotherapy, I am wondering about the side effects of drugs being introduced for this.
The sun is shining this morning here, so I hope to get out for a walk later and perhaps go to the garden centre to get some primulas to give some colour to the grounds here.
Wishing you all the very best.
Sylvia.
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Hello Michael,
I forgot to say that I think everyone should be wary of statins. I have been reading a lot lately about how statins cause cataracts. Have you read anything about this?
Have a good Sunday.
Sylvia.
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Dear All,
I am so sorry I have been absent for so long! Radiotherapy was quite a chore but a walk in the park compared to chemo. I did everyday, apart from the days the machine broke down, for 15 days, so spread over three weeks and that combined with four children and my role as chair of govs at my local school, I have been very busy! It has taken its toll though, tired is not the word, and the achy body. Just resting lots when I can.
So, the final blast was last Thursday and that was also the day that I received news that I do have the BRAC1 mutation. I don't understand why you have to pay Sue and why they are dragging their heels. I was expecting it to be honest. The next step is to see the gaenacologist and discuss removal of ovaries, I was thinking about total haestorectomy. I really don't want to read too much about BRAC1 and whether it increases the chance of mets elsewhere, I know what I am like when I read too much so I am staying away. I will let the docs tell me anything I need to know.
Had to contact my family in Ireland, and Mum and Dad came from very big families, so this is when Facebook is very useful. Obviously there are implications for my siblings too and my children so I am on top of that. There is a trial I heard someone mention earlier on for the mutation and TN, its called Oluparib, so I am keen to get onto that.
Sylvia I understand what you said about some women knowing nothing about their cancer, I met a lovely lady at radio who didn't know what type of cancer she had but she did say she was having injections so I assumed HER2. Also, one of my neighbours was diagnosed about four months before me and she went private. She refused chemo and tamoxifen and had a lumpectomy, but its returned in the lymphs, I am so angry as this all could be behind her, I sometimes do wonder about being private as they don't have the multi professional meetings like they do in the NHS, no one to argue with over the best procedure. My friend who worked in oncology and is very knowledgable said the cancer in the lymphs are the hardest to get rid of through chemo, no wonder my doc was jumping up and down when she said the chemo had killed all traces of cancer in mine. Having chemo neo adjuvant and therefore seeing if it has worked or not is so reassuring. A lot of my family and John too, always told me not to read about my diagnosis and do research, yes it did make me depressed but I was the one who asked for docetaxol as this wasn't on my regime, I asked for both breasts to be removed, I was the one who asked for the BRAC test, I found out about apricot kernels, vitamin D and so much more. I wouldn't have this knowledge if it wasn't for me educating myself.
I am knocking back those horrible kernels! I have also got one of my friends onto it too who was diagnosed with bowel cancer just before Christmas. My brother in law is also a great advocate, he takes them but hasn't had cancer, he told his colleague about them as he had a huge cancer tumour in his stomach, his doctors told him it was inoperable. This guy took them and later on during one of his scans he was told that the tumour was no longer a solid mass but was dissolving and they were able to operate! KEEP TAKING THEM!!!!
How do I get the vitamin D levels tested? I am taking 5000iu and also giving some to kids and John. I did read about this the other day and the correlation between low levels and cancer recurrence. I am also taking a low dose aspirin.
I have quite a few things planned this year, this Friday we are taking the kids out of school (it hasn't gone down too well, but I've never done it and will never do it again) for a weeks holiday in Centre Parcs as we couldn't do anything over the half term. In May we are in Exmouth for my oldest child who will be training for the Karate England squad, it's the Haven park Sylvia! Can we meet up? And then in November we will be taking him to compete in the world championships, very proud Mum here. At the end of May I am going to Lourdes, sometime in June I am away with the girls in Spain, we have a family holiday in Menorca in July, another centre parks trips with my niece for her hen weekend in September, two weddings....wow, I am certainly catching up! Where am I going to fit in the op for the ovaries? HAHA!
Thinking and praying for you all,
Marymargaret
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Hello everyone,
As I said the other day, I have just received my latest e-mail from Chris Woollams at Cancer Active and am posting the main headlines for you to investigate. You can look on line and click on the main points in the heading or sign p for the free e-mail.
1. Ben Williams beat his cancer.
Ben Williams beat terminal cancer. This is well worth reading.
2. New drugs for old.
'Repurposing' old drugs.
3. Trying to beat cancer? Sleep and avoid stress.
Sleep well. Avoiding stress keeps you young.
4. Colorectal cancer – or gut bacteria problems?
Gut bacterial problems or colorectal cancer.
Colorectal cancer – an overview.
Curcumin.
Cimetidine.
5. A high fibre diet has been linked to a lower risk of death from any cause.
Start roughing it.
Twelve foods that fight cancer.
6. Vitamin D levels predicitive of breast cancer survival times.
Vitamin D – are you getting enough? (revised).
Vitamin D and breast cancer.
7. So many of you are interested in B-17.
Natural B-17 and anti-cancer benefits.
B-17 Separating myth from reality.
Apricot Kernels anyone?
8. New treatments for brain tumours.
Optune – complete with clinical trials.
Moira Brown and virotherapy.
Brain tumour review.
9. Time for Western Governments to wake up – flu vaccine was useless.
Junk Science – flu vaccine 2015.
10. Personal Prescriptions.
Personal prescriptions.
11. Immunotherapy – the new frontier.
Cancer Active Immunotherapy.
Immunotherapy and Dendritic Cell vaccines.
12. I'm seriously ill.
Apparently, I have a chronic eating disorder, and, if you are reading this, you probably have it too! Find out more in my blog!
Eating disorder? Moi?
Look at Junk Science February 22nd.
Junk Science? Number 83: Psychologists in America lose their brains.
"Help, I'm sick – orthorexia nervosa. I have it. Badly!"
Please read this. It will make you laugh but it is very profound.
Orthorexia nervosa is the illness of wanting to eat healthily. I hope all of us on this thread have it. I definitely join Chris Woollams in being lucky enough to be part of this group of healthy eaters!!!
The website for Cancer Active is www.canceractive.com.
To e-mail him: chris@canceractive.com
There is a lot of information here but it is all well worth knowing.
I hope you all have a good week.
Fond thoughts.
Sylvia
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