As per my dad the tumor (very small as per his words) was surgically removed in november and a plastic surgeon helped with reconstruction. She was suggested to undergo 6 rounds of chemo and radiation therapy.
I work abroad and my parents have avoided to mention about the issue. I have recently found about this by connecting the dots... im still uncertain about the particulars.
My Parents strongly believe in unconventional medicine and she has been taking the same from a doc in trissur,kerala.She seems to have a strong belief in the treatment. However as of this moment im not completely convinced about the treatment. Its been 4 months since the surgery. i want them head in the right direction with regards to treatment. she has strong fear with the side effects of chemo and radiation therapy. memory loss being the top of the list.
How can i help convince my mother to undertake conventional treatment and supplement it with the ayurvedic medicines.?Is that even advisable? Am i asking the right questions?
Your kind inputs will really help me cope with the situation.
Regards,
HAWBW.
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hopeallwillbewell
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Hi HAWBW sorry to learn about your mother but i agree with manish _vkg about traditional medicine practices and moreover the treatment of BC is a standardized protocol find a good oncologist who can evoke faith in your mother and convince her take good care of yourself and be strong
Hi HAWBW, its really sad to know about your mother, with respect to good dr. in banglore definitely someone reply from forum members......dear there is n number of people who said they can cure BC using Aryuveda medicine but there is no proof and no evidence exist till date so in that case believing on Aryuveda is not advisable...that's true chemotherapy has side effect but it will cure the BC.....but it depends on so many things like stage of cancer and where is it..like that..
as such conventional treatment also not advisable along with chemotherapy bcu no one know how this conventional treatment will react with chemo medicine but as such there is no restriction in taking anything which is comes under vegetable/fruit category...for better suggestion kindly share your mother post surgery reports details, like ER, PR, HER2 status tumor size, Stage of the BC, Affected Lympnode..
Hi - its very sad to hear about your mother. The only standard treatment for the cancer will be surgery/chemo/radiation. For this you have to be very strong and see that she gets the right treatment without delay.
Yes chemo is tough - but now a days with right type of medicines and oncologists the side effects can be very well managed.
Ayurveda & other medicines can help but not substitute allopathy medicine.
100mg Paclitaxel is derived from 110 kgs of a plant.if you depend on ayurveda you can bot consume this quantity of plant in whole life,whereas you hv to take 12 such chemo in 3 months
Very sorry to hear about your mother. , I have to say that I had never opted for allopathic medicine in my life and always leaned towards either Ayurvedic or naturopathic medicines. However when it comes to cancer, as a recent survivor of BC, I would strongly recommend the conventional treatment of surgery, followed by chemo and radiation or combination of these treatments. The reason being conventional treatments are constantly evolving with developments in research and technology which improves the effectiveness of the medicine towards the disease and also diminishes the harmful side effects. A patient can become free of cancer (if not completely cured, which requires all other efforts such as healthy life style and food habits) with conventional treatment. There are no clinical trials to prove that other treatment options would work well similar to conventional treatments.
While I was on treatment, I resorted to certain naturopathic medicines as a supplementary treatment to aid my digestive system, cardiac health and so forth. Those medicines were vetted with my Oncologist and I made sure it does not interact with any other chemo regimen I was on. It really helped me to manage the chemo treatment side effects in an effective and tolerable way. Once the chemo was over, I continued with some of the naturopathic supplements, to gain my energy and normal health back.
So I would say you can have a holistic approach when it comes to cancer treatment. I would not consider the unconventional treatment as a primary care for cancer.
Your mother's concern towards chemo side effects is valid. However please let her know it is manageable with adequate support from doctor, family and medicines.Some of the side effects are recoverable over the period of time if not sooner.
Since her diagnosis have not been disclosed by you, it is hard to understand how severe the case is. Irrespective of that, I wish her speedy recovery and my thoughts and prayers are with her.
We have few members in this forum who have taken treatment in Bangalore, would help you with identifying a good hospital.
hi,i had my surgery in bangalore exactly one yr back.the chemoport as also inserted at the same time. i had surgery done in abhay hospital wilson garden,i was operated by dr vijaykumar ,he is director in kidwai hospital.the best doctor as per my experience.he looks patients in abhay hospital in evenings.i can say HE IS THE BEST.dont worry everything will be fine.
"Sun_King is restricted from posting in the forum, so I am adding this on his behalf"
I am not in the medical profession, so I cannot advise you in this matter. But I can speak a bit about us and hope that may help. My wife, who is also a member in this forum, was diagnosed with Stage 2 BC early last year. Her surgery was done exactly an year ago and we completed the prescibed treatment regimen comprising of chemos and radiation. It was stressful, painful and extremely demanding. But we went through it knowingly.
Why? Once the shock of the illness subsided we started the search for the best possible way to overcome it. Part one was the study of available subject matter and this meant the ones written by experts in their fields, not the conspiracy theory upstarts who knows it all in blogs and social media. Then we consulted several doctors, who were kind to answer all of our questions. And then we sought advice from survivors. And when I say survivors, it means people who specifically had BC and survived. Oddly enough, we could NOT find anyone who had overcome BC with alternate medicine. Not a single one.
It was a matter of life and death, we were not willing to choose a path laid out by some vague Facebook post or claims of miracle healing. We are both engineers and we put a lot of importance in repeatability of claims. This is where alternative medicine was ruled out, the reports of miracle recoveries were of nameless patients of unspecified type of illness that is considered to be cancer. For us the vagueness in claims meant it is not reliable. We made our choice, it is not going to be leaves of a magical tree in someone's backyard, it is going to be skilled oncologists all the way. The early detection was our biggest advantage and we are not going to squander that!
An year later, she is back to being the person she was, no deterioration in motor skills (her painting and craft work have actually improved), I find no lapses in her memory and her physical strength is fast approaching normalcy. Proximity to the good doctors who treated her gives an added confidence. In short we took the path that seemed difficult in the beginning but leading to the life we wanted. We have no regrets, the pain and money was worth it.
And by the way, we are living in Bangalore and Thrissur, Kerala is our hometown. The surgery was done in Bangalore.
My wife was diagnosed with Breast Cancer in june 2014 and She has undergone six cycles of chemotherapy ,five weeks of radiation, and still taking herceptin, the seventeenth cycle of the same will be over in June. She had little problems during Chemos but overall she could withstand it well . She had hair loss which are now growing into lovely tuft. She is back in her routine household program and our frequent card programs and social activity. The experience has been traumatic at times but none the worse. Incidentally my wife is 70 and we are taking life as it comes.
My idea of relating our experience is that your mother should go thru the whole protocol and I am sure she will come out well . We Wish her all the best .
just try out this things, if it works. ask your father to go to a alternative treatment which have kept data. success as well as failure too, be sure that every body can not succeed all the time. fine authenticity. i am sure no body in india have it. at least i did not get one ( many people advised me). and if it is there evaluate the ratio and take decision. hope there is any other way to this problem.
You have not mentioned the number of lymph nodes involved.
But none the less from the little details available,
She has most likely Stage II/III Breast Cancer
She requires 6 cycles of Chemotherapy ( Anthracycline + Taxane combination)
My preference is FEC-T, but AC-T, CAF, Epi-CMF, TAC etc are all reasonable regimens
She also needs Adjuvant Radiotherapy to the Chest wall as she was lymph node positive. (Please see previous forum on Radiotherapy) there is a detailed explanation somewhere.
She is weakly ER positive... If she has a score of >3/8 , she will require 5 years of Hormone Treatment. (Anastrazole or Letrozole).
Lastly but not least, she is Her2+ve (3+), first she will require FISH test to re-confirm she is truly positive (Please see Dr Sumeets article on FISH and Her2 testing), and if so
the most expensive part comes in here... she will require treatment with Herceptin for 1 year (17-18 treatments ) provided her heart condition is good and her 2D ECHO scan is adequate.
Her Cancer is surely treatable and she is indeed at a high risk of relapse.
A negative PETscan is a good sign, that she has not so far developed mets disease.
Dr. Rohit has explained in detail. I have also taken the same treatment and it is not all that unbearable. A lot of premedication is given these days so the effects of chemo are not that bad. As for memory loss, I was also worried about it before I started but my oncologist said he had never come across this in his entire practice. HER 2+ is an aggressive form and so treatment should begin soon. Our doctor on the forum Dr. Sumeet has often advised against alternate treatment. He has come across several patients who have come to TATA Hospital after trying these and finding that it has failed. But by then it was too late. I have completed chemotherapy and am on herceptin and going to work. You have not mentioned your mother's age and whether she is diabetic and has BP. Your oncologist will take all this into consideration.
Try to persuade her to go for standard treatment.
As for HCG Bangalore your parents would be the best judge. If they were comfortable there it should not be a problem. At present the treatment would be as per standard protocol.
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Nov 2014)
Please help!! My mom is diagnosed with Breast cancer!
