Defeat Cancer (41 page)

Dr. Brown is an expert in immunotherapy and naturopathic therapies for cancer and other chronic diseases. His approach is integrative, and he believes that it’s important to see cancer patients as people who need to be treated in a holistic manner. His naturopathic therapies may be utilized to complement a conventional treatment protocol, or used as standalone therapies, for those who don’t want to undergo chemotherapy, surgery, or radiation.

Dr. Brown has more to offer to his patients than just knowledge and expertise in integrative oncology; he offers them his personal experience of having battled cancer. In 1998, Dr. Brown was diagnosed with stage three/four melanoma. After receiving extensive therapy in conventional medicine, he was told that his prognosis was grim, and that he only had three or four weeks to live. Through the use of naturopathic and integrative medicine, he was able to overcome that prognosis. Today, he has been in remission for over fourteen years. Dr. Joe Brown’s full cancer story can be viewed on the Internet at:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=4c8BeNpgyvs
.

Dr. Brown chose to go to a naturopathic medical school instead of conventional medical school because when he had cancer, it was naturopathic treatments that saved his life, and he believed that he would be able to effectively help more people if he had a naturopathic background rather than a conventional medical background. Conventional medicine most often utilizes only pharmaceutical drugs to treat patients, and these drugs, by themselves, are rarely adequate for treating cancer.

Although not required as part of his training, during his third and fourth years in medical school, Dr. Brown took it upon himself to work clinical rotations in hospitals, emergency rooms, and hematology, oncology and radiation clinics. Here, he worked with some of the country’s top oncologists and saw cancer patients on a daily basis, learning the best of conventional medicine. This experience, along with his education in naturopathic medicine, has equipped Dr. Brown to offer his patients knowledge of both conventional and naturopathic cancer treatments.

Additionally, because of the time that Dr. Brown spent in a conventional oncology environment, he has been able to build relationships with many oncologists and clinics. These relationships allow him to help his patients more effectively, and not only because he can refer them to a good oncologist if they need one. His work and collaboration with these clinics has provided him with a deeper understanding of conventional medicine and how to better help patients who are simultaneously undergoing oncology treatments.

Dr. Brown’s quest and passion to make a difference in others’ lives led him to open his own clinic in Tempe, Arizona in 2006, where all of his patients, even those who are simultaneously treated with chemotherapy and/or radiation, can receive a variety of naturopathic therapies. He formulates his protocols to be compatible with his patients’ oncology treatments, so they don’t have to worry about potential treatment interactions and can receive the best of both worlds.

Dr. Brown has received numerous awards for his work, including the Princeton’s Top Doctors award in 2008 and 2009, Good Morning America’s Spirit award in 2008, and the Hero Award on 104.7 FM Radio Phoenix, AZ. He was also named among the 2008 Who’s Who of Physicians. Additionally, he is a senior advisory board member for Valley of the Sun Wellness Institute (VSWI), a nonprofit organization designed to help people get free medical care.

Dr. Brown donates much of his time to the Melonhead Foundation, an organization that helps families that have children with cancer. He also donates his time and clinical services throughout the year to various people and causes, and frequently lectures around the United States on different topics, including dendritic T-cell and immune system stimulation, and lifestyle choices that lead to cancer. He also actively shares his own battle with cancer and how he overcame it. Recently, he has been asked to continue lecturing at Del E. Webb Hospital Cancer Center in Sun City, Arizona and Rio Salado College in Phoenix, Arizona, due to the overwhelmingly high
attendance at his previous lectures. Dr. Joe Brown is the only naturopath who has ever been asked to lecture at a Banner hospital (a non-profit hospital, of which there are seventeen in the United States) on cancer and other medical topics.

I was once a cancer patient who had no idea what to do after conventional medicine failed me. When I had cancer, like nearly every patient who calls my office, I was frightened. Because I have suffered the trials of cancer firsthand, I can relate to my patients’ suffering. A lot of people come to me because they know that I have already walked in their shoes.

After conventional medicine failed me, I experimented with different therapies to figure out what would heal me. I tried everything under the sun: I did acupuncture and juicing regimens, and I called clinics everywhere, trying everything that they had to offer. I spent many months researching what to do and what not to do. When I finally figured out a protocol that worked, I realized that there were no clinics in the United States that were collectively doing all of these treatments. So when I opened my clinic, I wanted to make sure that we could offer all of these same therapies to our patients under one roof. I also wanted to have connections with oncologists so that I would be able to tell my patients which specialist to see if they needed radiation or chemotherapy, because even though conventional medicine failed me, there are times when it’s appropriate. I wanted to have everything figured out for my patients, so that when they came to my clinic, I could simply say, “Here, call this number. I have personally worked with this oncologist for years. He’s my friend and colleague, and his treatments, along with mine, are the best choice for you.” I have found that being able to do these things makes such a difference for my patients. Hundreds of them have said things like, “Thanks so much for creating a ten-page protocol for me. You told me exactly what supplements to take. You have relationships with oncologists that other doctors don’t have. You have hotels and shuttles arranged for my visit. You
have the whole picture laid out for me, and it has made such a difference.”

My personal experience with cancer has made me passionate about helping others. I spend more time than the average doctor with my patients. When they come in for an initial consultation, I try to arrange for them to spend two minutes in the waiting room and then two to four hours with me in the visit, instead of spending two hours waiting for me and then two minutes in the visit. Most doctors are too busy for this long of a consultation, because they are dealing with insurance companies and seeing fifty patients a day. It’s not that doctors don’t care about their patients—they are just too busy to spend much time with them due to the way the medical system is set up in the United States. Fortunately, I have found a way to run my practice so that my patients can spend ample time with me and get the proper care that they deserve and need.

It’s important for me to fully listen to my patients and connect with them, not only on a professional level, but also on a personal, mental, and emotional level. I want to be available to them. My main office line is actually my cell phone (we have back office land lines as well) because I always want my patients to be able to get in touch with me if they need anything. When I was going through my own cancer treatments, I had seizures and convulsions, and my family and I couldn’t get in touch with doctors or nurses in moments when I desperately needed them. So in my own practice, I decided to make myself available to my patients, so that they would be able to reach me anytime during the day or night, seven days a week, including holidays. When people go through cancer, it’s serious, and they feel more at ease if they know that their doctors are available. If my patients have a problem and they call me, I am often able to meet them at my office, sometimes saving them a trip to the emergency room where they would have spent hours waiting to see an on-call physician. My patients come first!

I help my patients in other ways, too. Because many of our patients (30-40 percent) fly in from other states and countries, I have
established contracts with many hotels and casinos in town. When people call my office, we can offer them information on the best places to stay, as well as set them up at hotels with suites that cost less than a full-priced standard hotel room. We also have a contract with a shuttle company that picks people up from the airport and takes them to and from their appointments free of charge. My patients tell me that these things make all the difference for them and their families. Because in reality, it’s not just the patients that are suffering; it’s their families, too. The whole family is crying, stressed, and concerned, and I have discovered that the more “little things” I can do for my patients and their families, to support them and help plan their treatments, the better the experience for everyone involved.

Additionally, my staff and I often work weekends, because we have patients who are only able to do therapies on the weekend, and we also have many out-of-state or out-of-country patients who fly in to see us. We accommodate their travel itineraries, which don’t always allow for them to get treatment during the week.

At any given time, we may have 50 percent of our patients doing both conventional and naturopathic therapies, and another 50 percent doing just naturopathic therapies. Not all choose to receive conventional treatments from an oncologist. A large percentage of them have already done conventional treatments including surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation, and have come to our clinic because conventional medicine failed them, and they are looking for a last-ditch effort to save their lives. Fortunately, over the past several years, more people have been choosing to do natural cancer therapies first. Increasingly, patients will say to me, “I got diagnosed last week, and I heard about you and want to start therapy with you before I meet with my oncologist.” It’s important to get the word out, and let people know that there are other options besides chemotherapy and radiation.

Treatment outcomes are radically different between patients that do only chemotherapy and radiation, and those that combine these treatments with naturopathic medicine. In fact, many oncologists now refer their patients to my office because they notice that their patients fare much better with their conventional treatments when they do them in conjunction with naturopathic medicine. People that do only conventional treatments look and feel terrible: they have low red blood cell counts, are anemic, and suffer from neutronpenia (low white blood cell counts, which play a key role in fighting cancer). They also have elevated liver enzymes and low platelet counts, which usually stops them at some point from continuing their chemotherapy.

People who do naturopathic therapies along with conventional treatments can usually avoid these types of problems. Because naturopathic medicine provides them with the nutrients that they need to fight disease, they feel better and have a greater ability to tolerate treatments. Also, the color of their skin remains good, and most importantly, their ability to fight the cancer increases dramatically.

Everybody has cancer cells turning over in their bodies every single day, but whether or not they actually get cancer boils down to one factor: the strength of their immune systems, and what they are doing correctly and incorrectly. My patients get sick of me talking about the immune system all the time, but by the time they leave here, and after having received two months of treatment, they understand the importance of keeping their immune systems strong. And if they are able to do that with diet, exercise, supplements and nutrition, the chances of them getting sick from cancer or another disease down the road becomes slim.

The body is amazing; it’s set up to heal itself if given the proper nutrition. In the United States, the role of diet is being greatly overlooked in the fight against disease. I recommend that every one of my patients see a documentary called
Food, Inc.,
because it
demonstrates some of the bad things that are happening to our food supply. It shows, for instance, how our food is laden with hormones, antibiotics, herbicides, and pesticides, all of which destroy the body and drastically affect health. It also discusses how our foods have been genetically modified, which I believe is part of why people are becoming sick now, more than ever, and our cancer rates have sky-rocketed.

Modifications in the food supply have also caused many hormonal imbalances in people, and those imbalances can also contribute to cancer development. Soy, for example, has been put into many products, so people are eating soy in practically everything, and soy increases the body’s production of estrogen. Women already tend to have excessive amounts of estrogen, which is due, most likely, to all of the xenoestrogens in the environment, which come from industrial compounds and pollutants. These also have estrogenic effects upon the body. Consuming soy exacerbates the problem. Women with high levels of estrogen are more prone to breast and ovarian cancer.

Xenoestrogens are found in many consumer products, as well. Plastic water bottles are one source. The plastic from bottles leaches into the water and then people consume it. Also, most bottled water is acidic, and acidity contributes to the development of disease. Studies have shown that plastics are directly linked to the development of breast cancer.

Emotional stress also plays a role in cancer development. During my patients’ initial visits, I give them a therapy sheet. One suggestion on the sheet is: “I want you to find something every single day that brings you back to the calm from the storm. Don’t think about cancer and treatments. For two or three hours a day, relax. Do something that takes your mind off of disease—find the calm within the storm.” I think this is important for healing.