Question about Farrah.

[kimmerspixelated]

It has been reported that Farrah's first round with cancer was treated successfully in Germany I assume by alternative medicine. Reagan went to Germany when he got cancer and was also treated successfully and remained cancer free for the rest of his life.SAYS A LOT ABOUT AMERICA'S "Health" SYSTEM doesn't it??The reason he went there was because he wanted superior care, which is SO not the case with our lovely mainstream medicine cancer INDUSTRY. I won't go off on a tangent here about natural methods, but why wouldn't she return to her original doctor in Germany. True, it could be that her kind of cancer is so much worse than Reagan's , who knows, but I was curious.

[Mike 03]

1. I have no knowledge of Reagan being treated and cancer free due to alternative

treatments.

Fawcette, unfortunately, has a relatively rare but very deadly cancer. She was initially treated in the United States, but elected--according to reports I can't verify--to pursue alternative therapies in Germany, which quite obviously have not helped very much.

In addition, I'm not even sure these were alternative therapies. Maybe they were clinical trials, like the ones my father is trying. Who knows?

[Mr. Ected]

2. How Is Your Father Doing, Mike, and How Have You Coped?

I read your post about your father's illness several weeks ago and have felt most empathetic each time I see you here on DU.

[Mike 03]

48. Aw, thanks for asking, Mr. Ected.

He is going through a stem cell transplant right now.

His doctors are saying he is doing as well as can be expected.

Thank you very much for asking. It was kind of you.

[kimmerspixelated]

6. The report I saw was that she was cured in Germany.

That's why several years later, it came as a shock it came back.

[trotsky]

10. Gee, so maybe she wasn't really "cured" after all, huh?

:eyes:

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

29. Cancer comes back all the time, nothing shocking about that.

[shanti]

8. how do

you get "anal cancer"? :shrug:

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

11. anal smoking.

Just say no, kids.

[trotsky]

12. There appears to be a link between anal cancer and HPV,

the same virus that can cause cervical cancer, genital warts, and penile cancer.

[medeak]

34. yep...std had to google it too n/t

[whathehell]

15. It's called Colorectal cancer and it's very common.

Katie Couric's husband died of it as did Audrey Hepburn...Second only to lung cancer in occurrence, I believe.

[paulsby]

16. you are wrong

colorectal cancer =/= anal cancer.

check it out.

the former is MUCH More common fwiw.

[whathehell]

40. "You are wrong"....Yeah?....How about a link?

[whathehell]

42. You are

not very diplomatic:eyes:

[Shell Beau]

23. There is a difference.

[whathehell]

41. What might that difference be?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

3. It's alternative medicine that gave Farrah Fawcett cancer.

That and her appearance in "Cannonball Run" which was an affront to Our Lord.

[kimmerspixelated]

5. I can always count on you to be really weird.

[Mike 03]

13. Oh god, I never thought I could chuckle at a post about a serious subject like this,

but she was beyond awful in that film. In fact, that film was a disaster. I've heard (unconfirmed rumors) that the liquor was flowing during the making of that film, which would not surprise me given who its director is.

[QueenOfCalifornia]

18. LOL!

I hate when you make me laugh. :rofl:

[Orrex]

37. But she was also in Saturn III. Doesn't that count for anything?

[Holly_Hobby]

4. She got fetal stem cell treatment in Germany,

saw it on Larry King last night. Mary Hart and Candy Spelling, both friends of Farrah's, said she went to Germany for fetal stem cell treatment.

[kimmerspixelated]

7. Interesting.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

28. and it didn't immediately cure everything. That's impossible.

[Spider Jerusalem]

9. 'Alternative medicine' is a gigantic load of bollocks.

Ask Steve McQueen how well it worked out for him.

Stem cell therapy isn't 'alternative medicine'. Nor is it 'natural'. Experimental, yes, but based on, you know, science. Unlike laetrile and coffee enemas.

[paulsby]

17. that is not true

some forms of alternative medicine are (i'd argue most), but many forms do work.

and many of the forms that do work at soome point are incorporated into conventional medicine.

chiropractic, massage, essential fatty acid supplementation, hormone replacement therapy, etc. have all been alternative.

i agree that laetrile and coffee enemas don't work.

but many forms of alternative medicine DO.

there's an old saying that 90% of any field (art, music, literature, etc.) is mediocre/ineffective, 5% is very good/beneficial and 5% is dangerous

heck, this even holds for employees, etc.

i'd say the same is roughly true for alternative medicine.

as a competitive athlete, for instance, i have used glucosamine/chondroitin megadosing, efa supplementation, and many other "alternative" ways to increase my performance. they work.

go back far enough and taking a frigging multivitamin everyday was described by conventional medicine establishment as compltely ineffective and unecessary. they changed their tune

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

20. If they worked, they wouldn't be alternative. Just medicine.

[paulsby]

21. you don't know much about the medical establishment

if you can say that with a straight face.

first of all, there is a time lag.

sports medicine/nutrition is WAY ahead of the AMA etc.

they were pimping EFA's *decades* before the AMA caught on.

conventional medicine claimed up until recently that anabolic steroids do NOT increase muscle mass or strength.

they claimed that vitamin supplementation has no practical effect.

etc. etc.

furthermore, there are monetary issues involved. ephedrine is stunningly effective but never studied by big pharma and thus accepted as a modality by western medicine because there is little ot no money to be made, since it's not patentable etc.

chiropractic and massage were understandably ridiculed by the medical establishment because they were viewed as a threat and didn't fit into conventional "cure the sympton" response of modern medicine - find the sympton, prescribe a drug.

western medicine in general is quite good at dealing with trauma and/or acute conditions. but historically myopic when addressing PREVENTIVE medicine and medicines that affect overall quality of life, immune system strength, etc. and many if not modalities that attempt to cure issues there are naturally pushed into the "alternative" medicine field.
hat
i am a skeptic. about EVERYTHING. i do my research, read my pubmed studies (not abstracts - STUDIES) and go from there.

as somebody who has risen to national level competitive performance, with admittedly not that much natural talent, i credit a great part of my success to so called alternative medicine and nutrition.

conventional medicine says that if you don't fall outside a relatively wide "normal" range on a whole host of issues, that medicine is not the answer.

alternative medicine is frequently about OPTIMIZING health and improving body systems vs. western medicine reactive response

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

22. You wouldn't disagree if you knew anything about science.

"ephedrine is stunningly effective but never studied by big pharma and thus accepted as a modality by western medicine because there is little ot no money to be made, since it's not patentable etc."

That's a joke, right? Ephedrine's been used by western science for, or, a hundred years or so. As has the related compound, pseudoephedrine. That stuff common in cold medicine, and in crystal meth productions.

"conventional medicine claimed up until recently that anabolic steroids do NOT increase muscle mass or strength."

OK, now you're obviously just making things up.

"i am a skeptic. about EVERYTHING. i do my research, read my pubmed studies (not abstracts - STUDIES) and go from there."

No, you're not. Read more pubmed.

[paulsby]

26. i'm talking about using ephedrine as a DIET aid

not for it's conventional uses, like for bronchodilation.

fwiw, i buy my ephedrine in pharmaceutical form - bronkaid.

but i use it in an alternative medicine use - combined with caffeine for nutrient partitioning, fat burning, body recompisition, anti-catabolism, etc.

[alarimer]

31. Chiropractic is proven quackery.

In fact, it can actually be dangerous. No supplements have ever been proven effective. They make a lot of money for the companies (the very same Big Pharma that most alternative advocates rail against).

Alternative "medicine" is not science-based; there is zero evidence that any of it works AT ALL. Anecdotal evidence does not constitute proof. Point to a single, reputable, peer-reviewed study (in a reputable journal, not one of the fake journals the alternative crowd likes to cite) that shows that any of these "alternative" treatments have EVER cured anything.


There have been numerous negative studies about vitamins. Steven Novella of the Blog Science-Based Medicine talks about one of these:

..Now, the largest study to date has been published (Multivitamin Use and Risk of Cancer and Cardiovascular Disease in the Women’s Health Initiative Cohorts) looking at 161,808 post-menopausal women over 8 years and finding no benefit for heart disease, cancer risk, or overall survival. This study comes on the heels of other recent studies showing no benefit from routine supplementation.

The recent study

There were two components of this new study. The first pooled data from several trials where multivitamin use was tracked, and also randomized patients to dietary modification, hormonal therapy, and calcium and vitamin D supplementation. The second component of the study was an observational study - which means that multivitamin use was tracked but subjects were not randomized. The study found:

After a median follow-up of 8.0 and 7.9 years in the clinical trial and observational study cohorts, respectively, the Women’s Health Initiative study provided convincing evidence that multivitamin use has little or no influence on the risk of common cancers, CVD, or total mortality in postmenopausal women.

The strengths of this study are its size and duration. Essentially the study had enough power to detect even a modest effect if present. The weaknesses are that the observational part of the study was not controlled. This opens the door to multiple factors that could influence the results.

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=372

[paulsby]

32. i'll quickly debunk one of your claims

don't have time to address them all


"no supplements have been proven effective"

false.
oh
among others.

1) creatine
2) ephedrine (has shown both increases in limit strength and preferenetial brown fat release, more so when used in conjunction with caffeine
3) caffeine


i can provide metric assloads of cites on both if you want.

what i said, and what i probably agree with you on is that MOST supplements are crap

of course most of ANYthing is crap - literature, movies, restaurants, work performance by employees, etc.

but there are plenty of supplements that are remarkably effective.

also, the use of these two supplements
4) GABA and Melatonin when taken together raises both T levels and gh production

so get frigging real.

of course most supplement companies are out to make money. and most of the supp's they sell are ineffective crap. duh. those of us who are competitive athletes, coaches, trainers, etc. know this.

caveat fucking emptor.

there are numerous fwiw OTC supplements that are banned by my sports governing body. why? because they ARE effective, and viewed as giving an unfair advantage.

[kimmerspixelated]

47. TOUCHE!!!!!

[Samantha]

25. I thought Steve McQueen died of lung cancer

But it has been a number of years so I decided to check it out. Found a a link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/15/health/15essa.html

that contains a great picture of a wonderful actor.



Thanks for mentioning him.

Good wishes for Farrah.

Sam

[Raine]

27. Conventional science & medicine didn't work

for him either.

[Mike 03]

14. I would love for this to be true, but I've known too many people (in my instance) who went to Mexico

for alternative treatment. They may have been declared cured or felt great for a month or two, but they are all dead now.

Farrah is not doing well. She's not cured. Her SO says she is dying, and in so much pain that she is so drugged that they have to lighten up her meds so she can watch herself on TV and know what is going on.

Cancer fucking sucks, there's no question. And I yearn for cures, just like everybody else who has a loved one or has many many loved ones with cancer.

But I don't think even Farrah or her loved ones would say her experimental treatments were successful.

Also, Germany is not some weird outpost. They have done some of the most respected work on cancer in the world, and it's quite possible she got into a clinical trial!

If Germany was testing a successful drug with respect to the cancer my father is fighting, I might well encourage him to try it too.

But I would not send him to mexico for DMSO or curry, or interveinous Vitamin C, or acupuncture or something like that.

[merh]

35. Most people who are diagnosed with cancer are told that it is

likely terminal - that is, the medical community can treat it and try to eradicate it but there is no guarantee that it will not return and cause death.

My uncle died Tuesday morning after 4 years of battling lung cancer. His treatments were effective in the beginning, but the bastard "c" continued to return, popping up in other organs, in his brain, in his bones. He was considered a success story for the first couple of years, they didn't think they were going to be able to help him. He went through 4 years of chemo and radiation, trials and successes, but he finally couldn't fight it any longer, the bastard "c" was just too much. When I saw him the weekend before this past weekend, he was in such pain and so frail. His mind was sharp, his body just wouldn't cooperate.

My family is genetically predisposed - members of my family on both my father's side and my mother's side have battled breast cancer, colon cancer, ovarian cancer, brain cancer, cervix cancer, lung cancer, bone cancer. My sister was diagnosed with stage 4 ovarian cancer 10 years ago, she was blessed to find a surgeon that spent hours removing every bit of cancer her could find from her organs - after several chemo rounds she has been "cancer free" but she knows that it can come back at any time. My mother succumbed to brain cancer that began in her breast, moved to her lymph nodes, bones, neck and back. She was only 56.

Bottom line is, we are not supposed to live forever and the only certainty in life is that it will end one day.

Let me live until I die. If part of that living for some is seeking alternate treatments, if it means not giving up, then more power to them and those that offer the alternatives.

[trotsky]

36. Thank you for sharing your family's story.

Very sorry for the losses you have endured. If the day ever comes when we truly vanquish cancer, it will be one of our greatest accomplishments.

[merh]

46. thank you

[blogslut]

19. Actually

Ms. Fawcett's German treatment involved injecting radioactive chemicals directly into the cancer - as opposed to irradiating her whole body. Not exactly homoepathic.

[Shell Beau]

24. I always think that when people go to the alternative medicine, it

is an act of desperation. I am not saying it can't work, but it usually the last resort for many.

[dflprincess]

30. But I thought that it was people who had the "misfortune" of living in a country with an

actual health care system who came to the U.S. for treatments they couldn't get at home. Americans don't have to travel to "old Europe" when they can get the best money can buy right at home :sarcasm:

[DU GrovelBot]

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[Echo In Light]

38. Okay...off topic, but...

[aikoaiko]

39. I just watched the documentary, and I don't believe it was "alternative med".

It was aggressive mainstream medicine that apparently her US doctors weren't willing/able to do.

[Baby Snooks]

44. Radical medicine the government won't allow them to do...

The only point to be made about all of this is that doctors should be free to try whatever they want at a point someone has exhausted "approved" treatments although some would say the "clinical trials" allow them to but that is not the truth. The FDA has to approve the treatment first before it is even used in clinical trials.

Personally I think "alternative medicine" is snake oil sold by snake oil salesmen to the rich and famous. The only real cure for cancer appears to be prevention. Good diet, no smoking, moderate drinking and drinking only wine, reading labels at the grocery store and avoiding products that have labels that only a chemist could decifer, staying indoors in late afternoons/evenings when ozone is at its worst, the time most people jog by the way, the list goes on and on and on.

But preventative medicine is by far the best. The preventative medicine most of us are denied. The best example of preventative medicine is Ruth Bader Ginsburg. A little tiny dot on an MRI that turned out to be the beginning of one of the most deadly, if not the most deadly, cancers.

Preventative nutrition helps. The problem is many of the compounds they test may or may not be tied into the genetics of peoples. Curry may protect the Indo-Asian peoples whose diets have included curry for hundreds, maybe thousands, of years. We don't realize that races are also peoples. And genetically speaking there are sometimes hundreds of peoples in one race. So much more to the human race than just race. Particularly genetically. Curry may protect some peoples who are bascially still indigenous to a region but probably will not protect us mutts in this country. And we are mutts genetically at this point. We are not a race but a mix of races. We are not a people but a mix of peoples. Genetics do play a role. Our genetics are a work in progress. Something many people including doctors don't understand. And then there's our familial genetics. Farrah's sister died several years ago of breast cancer. I believe she was around Farrah's age when she died and her case was the same pattern of remission and then return. So who knows really what part genetics plays. We may all have little genetic time bombs inside our DNA. Triggered by who knows. The HP virus does seem to be tied into many types of cancer.

Still there are factors proven which do affect us. Saturated animal fats. Tobacco although some believe it is the chemical additives rather than the tobacco itself. Most petrochemical products. Particularly the ones in our soaps and shampoos. Would you wash your hair with crude oil? In a way, most of us do. And last but not least anything "artificial."

Farrah Fawcett is dying but who knows. She received stem cell therapy recently. It is "new territory" so to speak.

My mother was receiving an "experimental" compound. It weakened her immune system, she got meningitis, was in a coma for 11 days, recovered, then had a pulmonary embolism and that was the end of my mother.

The doctors wanted an autopsy. The tumors in her lungs had begun to atrophy. The compound worked. Unfortunately the treatment killed her.

We die. Reality. Some of us die of cancer at 40. Some of us die of a massive heart attack or stroke at 60. Some of us die at 105 peeing on a couch along with our dogs. Blissfully unaware of what is going on around us. Or perhaps blisffully aware and simply not caring.

Unfortunately we have no real control over when we die or how we die. We just want to believe that we do. We can lead the perfect little life, hit 60 and have the body of a 20 year old and amaze even ourselves and then get on a plane that crashes. That is the reality of the reality.

I didn't watch the documentary. I don't like "reality" tv. I have read and now heard that Ryan O'Neal did some editing. And turned it into "Love Story - the Sequel." What a jerk. What a shame she didn't find someone she deserved. I don't think she deserved him. I don't think anyone deserved him. I don't think much of Alana Stewart for allowing him to edit it. It was supposed to have been Farrah's story. Instead it appears to have been turned into Ryan's story.

[slackmaster]

43. If the first round of treatment was successful, why did her cancer recur?

:shrug:

[Baby Snooks]

45. The million dollar question...

And it's a question even doctors cannot answer. Some have a single tumor removed and no further treatment and never have a recurrence. Some have a tumor removed and then begin a lifetime of cancer treatments.

Cancer, despite billions in research each year, still remains a mystery.