I was diagnosed late 2016 with metastatic prostate cancer with mets near esophagus, aorta and groin.
PSA was12.
Biopsies gave Gleeson score 8.
A top surgeon told me surgery no longer an option because it had spread and put me on ADT Zoladex. I elected to have monthly 3.6mg implants rather than the bigger 3 monthly implants.
I stopped the ADT after only 2 months because of getting really bad side effects. I had been told ADT wasn't a cure, just a way of slowing down the spread. When I stopped ADT my PSA had fallen to 1.4 from 12.
Since then I have been taking CBD oil and Essiac tincture everyday and haven't had any surgery, chemo or radiotherapy.
My oncologist expected my PSA to continually rise and the mets to spread.
For the first 2 years my PSA slowly rose from 1.4 to 14 but PSMA PET CT scans showed the mets reducing in size which surprised him.
I have PSA tests and oncology visits every 3 months. My last June PSMA PET CT scan still shows cancer in prostate but mets near esophagus and aorta have now resolved and showing signs of calcification.
My last 6 PSA results are 14, 13, 10, 9.6, 8.7 and 10 (the most recent in June 2020).
My oncologist is amazed at my results and how well I look and act. He knows what I'm taking and can't explain it. He just tells me to keep doing what I'm doing.
I know the alternatives I'm taking might not work for others but they certainly seem to be helping me.
You probably already know that you have chosen a therapy that lack scientific and medical evidence of effectiveness. According to current medical best knowledge, metastatic prostate cancer is best treated by hormone therapy. That therapy target the cancer cells androgen receptors. Already 1940 Charles Huggins (Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1966) showed that the course of the disease can be affected by hormones.
Ask for an FDG PET scan. Your cancer may have evolved into a non-PSMA-avid type that puts out less PSA. I'm not saying this has happened, but prudent to check it.
Are you sure ridding the body of the Mother Ship is always a good thing, once the seedling are out and about and settled in distant colonies? Many (including Liebowitz) are not so sure. Many potential factors are involved, such as ...
"The potentiation of metastatic progression can also be a consequence of an alteration in the inhibitory control exerted by the primary tumor. The primary tumor secretes factors that control the growth of secondary metastasis; and surgical resection of the primary tumor releases this inhibitory control . Regulation of angiogenesis plays a major role in this process. It is thought that both pro-angiogenic factors and inhibitors are secreted into the circulation by primary tumors, however inhibitors are more stable and can exert anti-angiogenic effects on distant micrometastases."
That's okay, I'm still agnostic about this one. I will look for some of those posts. There is no doubt it would seem better to have fewer cancer cells than more. But still some doubt about why and when so many of these cells either seem to want to reliably kill themselves, or to wildly proliferate and kill the host.
I will take a BILLION cancer cells that DON'T kill me, over a hundred million that DO kill me, every single time.
The thing is, it is not the mother ship that directly kills most men. It is the outposts. Bob Liebowitz and Anthony Horan both seemed to think a systemic treatment that deals with the outposts was FAR more important than dealing with asymptomatic primary tumors (that are quite common even in men who never know they have cancer and die of something else) and that messing with the primary might be stimulative to the outposts. That does not seem illogical.
Horan said of one group of men in a Japanese study of RP + ADT vs. ADT alone, "radical surgery appears to have hastened the time to death... not surprising to me [as] cancer cell biology predicts through diminution of cell suicide."
Do we know if he's wrong?
Hi everyone.
I'll try to answer some of your questions here.
The Essiac tincture I use is bottled in New Zealand and costs about $50. It lasts me about 3 months.
I'm reluctant to give a link as I don't want anyone to think I have a financial interest in it. Please Google.. Essiac tincture ..if you want to find it.
I know Essiac is not scientifically proven and probably never will be.
There's a PUB MED article about a pancreatic cancer patient who did extraordinarily well and the doctors suggested it would be interesting to do a clinical trial of chemo followed by the long term use of Essiac.
To find that PUB MED article please Google the phrase..
Pancreatic cancer eight years later
For an in depth history of Essiac please read the article by an initially sceptical journalist published in 1977 in the Canadian Homemakers magazine.
Back then its ingredients were still kept secret.
To find it please Google the phrase..
1977 Canadian Homemaker magazine Essiac
I haven't changed my diet at all and am still doing the same exercises I've done for years. Every morning I do 30 pushups and then walk up and down a flight of 15 stairs 4 times. I'm 67 years old.
With regards to me possibly having ADT, surgery or radiotherapy in the future, I'll never say never.
However I seem to be doing fine at the moment with no symptoms at all, so I'll keep all those possible treatments in reserve for now.
There are lots of added bonuses for killing the host. It lowers the burden on any systematic therapy. It gives PSA values more meaning as the large bulk of PC has been removed. And finally, it eliminates the host adding more outposts.
Hello everyone
We are all entitled to our own opinions and it's ok for anyone to think Essiac is a deceptive therapy.
However the doctors in the PUB MED article that I mentioned earlier were open minded enough to not completely dismiss the possibility that it might have helped that particular patient.
The doctors in that article even went so far as to suggest it might be interesting to do a clinical trial of conventional chemo followed by long term use of Essiac.
Here is a link to that PUB MED article and I respectfully ask everone to read it.
Please be aware that it's on a site that sells essiac products, however it's the only place I've been able to find a photocopy of the original Homemakers magazine article.
Fantastic news!quite amazing, you are telling you just had Adt for 2 months and since then only CBD + Essiac and Mets shrank and PSA keeps low ?Which CBD oil do you use? What ingestion method?
• in reply to
Yes. That's correct.
The CBD oil I take is claimed to be sourced from Endoca and is labeled as 2000mg decarb cbd in 100ml total solution.
For the first two years I was taking cbd and Essiac twice a day, but since then I have cut both back to just once a day.
The CBD oil has a dropper and when the bulb is squeezed fully and released in the oil the dropper tube sucks up about a third of the tube length. That's what I take each day so the bottle lasts me a few months.
The Essiac tincture has a squeeze dropper too
By trial and error I found that it's best to measure out the drops. About 10 to 12 drops daily seems best for me.
Cheers
Dave
• in reply to
I only found a 2000mg oil paste or a 1500mg 10ml bottle. Where do you buy it?
I started taking the CBD oil because I'd read that many people were saying good things about it, so I thought I'd try a multi pronged approach and use it alongside Essiac tincture.
I've been taking CBD oil for a long time and things seem to be going so well that I'm very reluctant to change anything.
Cheers
Dave
Your oncologist nailed it. Keep doing what you're doing!
Best wishes.
Thank you for your kind comments Cosmic_Charlie.
Best wishes to you too.
Dave.
Hi again,
I’ve only been posting on this site for a couple of months, so I guess I’m still a “new kid on the block”.
However, I was posting on the Australian Advanced Prostate Cancer Support Groups forum from October 2017 until a few months ago when that forum closed down and went “read only”.
If anyone is interested here is a link to my thread on that Australian forum which can still be read and goes into a lot more detail about by progress.
Please be aware that the Aussie forum was very much against non-approved treatments.
(They edited out every single mention of the word Essiac.)
For the first year or so I also took Bicarb Soda alongside Essiac tincture and CBD oil, but eventually stopped taking the Bicarb.
I still take Essiac tincture and CBD oil every day and am very pleased with my results so far.
Cheers
Dave
Hi everyone,
Here’s my latest update..
A little bit of bad news, and a little bit of not so bad news.
My September PSA test came in at 16 which was an unexpected jump from my previous 10.
I had a phone consult with my oncologist due to the COVID restrictions and was expecting him to want me to start ADT again after being off it since early 2017.
After he asked me how I have been doing he pointed out that my PSA has been bouncing up and down quite a bit over the last few years
He said that eighteen months ago my PSA was 14 and it is now 16, so the long term trend was still quite good and that I shouldn’t be too concerned over any single test result.
He also pointed out that my PSA in December 2016 was 12 and it is now 16, so a jump of 4 in almost 4 years without surgery, chemo or ADT was not too bad.
(That is if we don’t count the 2 small 3.6mg Zoladex injections in early 2017.)
Also, my 2020 PSMA PET scan this year was much better than my December 2016 scan.
Anyway, we agreed to wait and see what happens with my next PSA test due in December.
My oncologist knows that I am taking Essiac tincture and CBD oil.
I had been taking them both twice a day up until early this year when I cut them back to once a day as I mentioned in an earlier post in this thread.
That reduction might, or might not have anything to do with my latest PSA rise, but nonetheless I have gone back to taking them both twice a day.
It will be interesting to see the results of my next PSA test due in December .
Best wishes
Dave
Hi everyone. I received an early Christmas present yesterday. In my 3 monthly phone consult with my oncologist he told me my PSA had fallen from 16 down to 13.
Perhaps going back to taking the Essiac tincture and CBD oil twice a day might've helped like I mentioned in my previous entry here? Or maybe that was just a huge coincidence.
Either way I'll just keep doing what I've been doing in my almost 4 year solo experiment. I was diagnosed December 2016 and started taking Essiac tincture and CBD oil in early 2017 and have been delighted with the results so far.
I'm not suggesting that anyone else should try what I'm doing. Everyone here is capable of making their own decisions. I'm just reporting what I've done and my results so far.
Hi DaveI am new to this forum probably posted 3 times.
Dx in 2019 G. 7 (4+3) and had prostatectomy. My PSA kept rising in 2020 and got to 0.8. I had my first Lupron shot in September 2020. Since then my PSA remained <0.1 last check December 2020. MO said let’s wait and see if PSA is rising then will decide if we go ahead with another Lupron and radiation. I really want to know how you’re using the Essiac and cbd dosage, timing, source, brands. Thank you.
Hi Dave, my condition is very similar to yours, I'm 64 yrs old with Gleason 8, contained. Axium PET shows no Mets. The only treatment I've had so far was several types of immunotherapy at a Mexico clinic last year. Latest scan shows the cancer is still there but hasn't grown. Recently I began using CBD and an ibuprofen at night to help me sleep. To my surprise my PSA dropped 3 points from 9.6 to 6.6. I would also be interested in your protocol if you wouldn't mind
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