Defeat Cancer (13 page)

During the third, or metastatic, phase, the cancer not only invades local tissues, but is also able to stimulate the formation of new blood vessels which help it to migrate through the body. It also starts to put out chemicals that disrupt the immune system’s cancer detection radar, and simultaneously, puts out chemicals that stimulate the growth of new blood vessels around it.

If this continues unabated, at some point, the cancer will be able to steal so much of the body’s vital forces and nutrients that the person will develop cachexia, a condition whereby the body becomes unable to utilize its nutrients from food, because many of
those nutrients are instead feeding the cancer. At this stage, cancer becomes irreversible in most people, and leads to death.

It’s important to note here that cancer isn’t a local disease. It’s always a systemic disease. Even when a local breast cancer or melanoma is discovered and diagnosed via biopsy, there are usually cancer cells from the “mother ship” circulating through the body and making new homes elsewhere. One of the big mistakes that modern medicine makes is that it doesn’t recognize the fact that by the time a local cancer is discovered, there are already metastatic cells from that particular cancer floating around the body. This is true even before the cancer is officially considered to be metastatic. Studies on bone marrow biopsies in breast cancer patients have revealed that many breast cancer patients with localized cancers and whose lymph node biopsy results showed no cancer didn’t just have cancer in their breasts. They also had micro-metastatic breast cancer cells in their bone marrow, even when they had normal bone and PET scans, and just a small lump in their breasts. So no cancer is local, and the problem with modern medicine is that it approaches cancer as if it was a local disease, and this is one important reason why modern oncology has a lot of failures.

People who have been diagnosed with an early stage of cancer, who get a tumor removed and go into remission (according to modern standards of diagnosis), may still have cancer cells circulating or deposited in their bodies. These can later re-establish themselves and cause active cancer again in other organs. Published studies, even out of major university centers, describe how people may have an increased risk for developing metastases after they have had a breast lump or local tumor removed, if the surgeries to remove their tumors are done at an inappropriate time.

I like to hear a patient’s story. Most people with cancer initially have a lot of fear, so it’s important for me to listen to their stories; to watch their gestures, mannerisms and expressions; to observe
the lines on and the color of their faces, and the look in their eyes. Over the years, I have learned that the look in people’s eyes can give me important clues about how well they will do with their treatments. If I see that fear, depression or anxiety are predominant in their expression, for example, then I will have to work a lot harder on treating their emotions, or hidden problems in their family dynamics or psyche that could get in the way of their treatments working.

The typical cancer personality has been described and discussed in many books. It encompasses people who are excessively caring, highly conscientious, hardworking, responsible, and who have a strong tendency towards carrying others’ burdens. Such people are considered to be more prone to cancer. If I detect these characteristics in my patients, I may probe deeper into their psyches to find out more about their lives. I don’t usually do this during their first several visits with me, but perhaps during the first or second month that I work with them, and only if they are open to discussing their lives with me. I will try to discover answers to certain questions, such as: How much are they worrying for others? For instance, how much is the woman with breast cancer worrying about her children and not taking care of herself? How much is the man with prostate or colon cancer feeling or worrying about a sexual secret that will be discovered, or feeling sexual shame? I ask these questions because such worries sometimes contribute to different types of cancer. Colon cancer, for instance, has also been linked to people not being able to let go of something; anal and rectal cancer have been linked to people feeling deep disgust about certain issues in their lives. So I will look for these links, or correlations, and see if patients want to resolve the underlying emotional issues which may be contributing to their cancers’ development and survival. At our clinic, we have a well-trained therapist, as well as others that we can refer our patients to, and with whom I may work indirectly as part of our patients’ care.

In my discussions with patients, I also observe how they respond to stress. Chronic stress raises cortisol levels, which in turn weakens the immune system. For instance, if it seems they are resentful
towards their mothers, fathers, husbands, or wives, at some point, this may have been a contributing factor to their illnesses. Or if a woman loses a child, and isn’t able to resolve that conflict on a psychological level, her breast may open up or widen its ducts, as if she were reaching out for her deceased son. The body’s attempt to repair this widening may lead to the development of an intraductal breast cancer, which is the most common type of breast cancer in women. Of course, such processes happen on an unconscious level, so I try to help patients become aware of potential connections between emotional events and disease, so that they can let go of the traumatic conflicts that have been downloaded into their psyches, and be healed of their cancers.

I learned about these types of correlations, which are described in German New Medicine, from the international teacher Gilbert Renaud, PhD, who teaches a system called Recall Healing in Vancouver, Canada. According to his website, Recall Healing is a process that involves unlocking the secrets of illness by identifying and resolving the emotional trauma that causes disease. More information can be found at:
www.recallhealing.ca
. Doctors can take courses on Recall Healing and learn to identify such correlations in their patients.

Healing emotional trauma is an individual, personal process. Sometimes people aren’t ready to address their issues. I am careful not to impose my agenda on my patients. Sometimes they are so full of fear that at first, I must work with them exclusively on a biochemical and physiological level and do things like build up their energy, run tests, start IVs, do low-dose chemotherapy and other treatments; in short, put together the best biological program for them that will increase their strength and improve their sleep and overall functioning. As they start to feel better, they begin to gain confidence in our treatments, and at that point they might be ready to look at the psychological factors which contributed to their diseases in the first place. Other people are ready to do such conflict work from the “get-go.” In any case, whenever patients are ready, I
will schedule a session with them to focus solely on this aspect of their healing.

Not all cancer doctors are trained in these approaches, so I would advise the patients of such doctors to see a Hellinger practitioner or a therapist trained in Recall Healing, who understands cancer personality issues and can focus on the emotional aspects of healing with them.

In my experience, successful cancer treatment involves addressing five main areas, which are summarized in the diagram below:

1. Immune system enhancement
   
2. Detoxification
   
3. Lowering inflammation
   
4. Suppressing angiogenesis, or the capacity of cancer cells to make new blood vessels so that they can spread
   
5. Encouraging apoptosis, or the natural death of cancer cells
   

My treatment approach has evolved organically through many years of being blessed to study with other experts in the field, both nationally and internationally, as well as from my experience of treating patients. I have evolved in being able to work with patients in a way that is intelligent, and which is backed by good science and common sense. I go beyond just treating people; I encourage them to actively participate in healing their cancers and their lives.

My treatments include botanicals, homeopathy, IV solutions, and nutrient and detoxification therapies to address all of the above components of healing. (Note: while “botanicals” refers to herbs, it also includes plant parts that aren’t strictly herbs, such as bark, seeds, roots, and stems.) Because cancer is a systemic disease, and we see many patients with stage three or four cancers, chemotherapy plays an important role in helping them to heal or have a longer and better quality of life. For such situations, I prefer to use low-dose, high-frequency chemotherapy in an Insulin Potentiation Therapy (IPT) format. This is frequently effective even for metastatic cancers, though it isn’t recognized as a valid treatment in modern oncology. Sometimes, patients choose not to do IPT. Whenever that’s the case, I will work with them and their oncologists to help design an alternate program that will produce a promising outcome. These treatments and specific examples of how I use them are described in greater detail in the following sections.

Where I start people in their treatments depends upon the phase of disease that they are in. For instance, I won’t have lengthy initial conversations with patients who are really sick and come into the EuroMed Foundation clinic in a wheelchair. We will instead start them on a nutritional IV right away, to build up their strength, as we initiate low-dose chemotherapy and a program of oral botanical remedies and nutrients. The IVs that we give may consist of Vitamin C (which has been well-researched in the medical literature for its usefulness in cancer care) along with minerals and other vitamins.

Sometimes, people who have come into our clinic in wheelchairs have been able to walk within days after having received a nutritional IV and low-dose chemotherapy treatment, and this gives them hope. They are also usually feeling better, and the color has come back into their faces.

For a woman with an early stage of breast cancer, my treatment approach would be different. We would sit down and dialogue and my goal would be to present her with different treatment options. I would explain to her what cancer is and let her know that we obtain the best results by individualizing our patients’ care. This is very important, whether we have patients who aren’t in pain and have good vitality, or who come into our clinic in wheelchairs. The key thing people must understand is that one size treatments don’t fit all.

Individualizing my patients’ care involves focusing on three main areas. First, I determine how I can best strengthen their core energy and vitality. This includes developing a well-thought-out nutritional and botanical protocol for them. Second, I identify the weaknesses in their bodies’ terrain, which can be discerned through blood tests. The body’s terrain essentially refers to its biochemistry and physiology. I determine factors such as patients’ levels of acidity, their inflammation and mineral deficiencies, as well as whether they have heavy metal toxicity, lymphatic blockage, or blood that clots too easily. The objective is to get their bodies and internal terrain to self-regulate better. The third area involves looking at the specifics of their cancers and finding out where they are vulnerable. It may include doing chemo sensitivity testing on biopsy slides at nationally recognized labs. No matter how ill our patients are, we want to identify early on where their cancers are weak and then attack them from that angle, in ways that don’t weaken the body.

The more that doctors build their patients up with good botanical, nutrient, and homeopathic programs for a month (if time permits) before those patients start chemotherapy, or while they are doing chemotherapy, the better their outcomes will be. The core of a good treatment program involves looking at patients’ biochemistry, and
asking questions like, “Are they diabetic? Do they have high blood pressure? Do they have inflammation? How well do they detoxify? How strong are their immune systems?”

The treatment approach that I just described is called the Eclectic Tri-phasic Medical System (ETMS), which is taught by Donald Yance, Jr. CN, MH, RH (AHG). He teaches and collaborates with oncologists, integrative medical doctors, naturopaths, acupuncturists, nutritionists, and other health care professionals on how to restore a balanced biochemistry and physiology to the body, how to build up the immune and endocrine systems, and how to do detective work to find out where people’s cancers are weak, and where they are strong. Again, the more we individualize our patients’ therapy, the better are their outcomes.

It’s important to recognize that not all cancers, even those of the same type, are the same. For example, the past few patients that I have worked with who had pancreatic cancer required different treatments, because their cancers evolved in different ways. Gemcitabine is the number one chemotherapeutic agent used for pancreatic cancer in conventional oncology, and it’s very toxic. By doing chemo sensitivity testing, and using low dose chemotherapy in an IPT format (IPT will be explained in the following section and elsewhere throughout the book), we can give several agents to our patients which are better suited to their particular cancers.