I have finished 6 rounds of chemo for stage IIIc ovarian cancer and am slated to receive Avastin/Oliparib (Lynparza) for the next two years while being scanned periodically. Seems like my cancer was aggressive enough that my onc doesn't wan't me out of his sight for a while. Sigh.
During this in-between stage I have read the "How to Starve Cancer" book cover to cover and got very depressed. I want to live as much as she did, but I can't possibly dedicate myself to healing myself like she did! So I did the next best thing and reached out to Care Oncology Center - there is one here in the US as well. Very much need to now look into integrative/alternative care in addition to mainstream.
Question is, has anyone used them and if so what was your experience? They're such a "young" organization, would you put your life in their hands? I'm just starting up communications with them and am being very cautious/skeptical in a healthy way. Trying to decide: Are they genuine? A rip off? Just a business making money off cancer patients? Their website says they talk to you over the phone then send you your first shipment of drugs in the mail to start taking. Really?! Is that...safe?
My onc is self-admittedly NOT an integrative guy, so he'll have no opinion on it.
Any experience greatly appreciated.
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FlowerRose
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Hi FlowerRose. I'm afraid I can't really give any advice here. But just wanted to say that you seem to have a good, healthy, skeptical approach to it all, so you'll probably keep at it until you get as close to the truth as possible.
Just for the record, I don't think Avastin alone would have been up to fighting off any aggressive growths, so along with Olaparib, may well do a good job.
Hi. Your post really rang a bell with me. I am 111c and have just recurred. I haven't read Jane's book, but read her Facebook page and really don't think I could sort out and trace all the pathways etc that others are doing. Also, when people post the supplements and drugs they take it seems phenomenal let alone more expense than I could meet.
I have looked at the COC protocol and must admit that although my onc was sceptical, he said that he had patients on it but was not impressed.
My brother in law works in cancer research, and he looked into the organisation for me. He said that nobody involved in it was particularly prestigious in the world of cancer.
That said, I wouldn't necessarily write them off, and I might ask my onc if he would be prepared to work alongside them.
At present I am waiting to start chemo again and might wait till I have finished that.
Thanks for your insight. I'm so sorry about your recurrence. May I ask what kind of treatment you've gone thru and how long you went before your recurred? Where in your body did you recur? I understand if you'd rather not share.
Hi. I had TAH BSO (everything removed!) in April 2016, then started on Carbo/Taxol the following July. Avastin was added from infusion three.
I finished treatment in August 2017 and was NED until a blood test in March this year confirmed my suspicion that I had recurred. It looks as though I will be having Carbo/Caelyx this time, followed by a Parp if my treatment is successful.
I don't know if I believe everything that's out there but I will tell you I try to eat well, but I do slip. I trust in some things I read. I take 400 mg of coq10, I take tumeric and curcumin vitamins. I take vitamin D3 daily. . I take a woman's vitamin. And a 150 billion probiotics, to help keep my immune system healthy. I believe this helps me. I've been cancer free 6 yrs now. Best wishes, Liz
Co q10 is for heart health, but it was listed in Susanne sommers cancer book as one of the vitamins that helped her heart stay strong during chemo treatments. I have been taking it and my endocrinologist says it's good.
I am glad you are taking all this with a pinch of salt. To my mind cancer is a fault in our cell copying mechanism and exacerbated by our TNF cells failure to spot and kill mutations. I have come across so many bogus ‘cures’ not just for cancer but for autoimmune disease as well. It makes me angry that people make money out of these things. Care oncology repurpose drugs as I understand it, which may have more merit but I have yet to hear of anyone who did much better on their protocol. Sorry to be negative... you must do what you are comfortable with . Best of luck xx
That's ok, not negative at all! I imagine we won't hear much about how their patients are doing because they are so new, you know? That's what I mean, I feel so unsure about being sort of a guinea pig for them. Ugh. I don't know what to do.
The COC is fairly reputable in the UK - their protocol is to use off label drugs to deter cancer, but they do not claim to cure it, in fact, they want you to have chemotherapy or any other treatment your oncologist offers, either alongside their protocol or before and after if your oncologist objects. Which mine did, he doesn't want me to take anything with my chemo, but I know lots of women do take all sorts of things when they're on chemo, including the COC protocol. Certainly Jane McLelland did, along with lots of other things she outlines in the book...
They're not offering herbal or 'alternative' supplements = they're actually drugs normally used for other purposes which happen to also have an anti cancer effect - usually metformin, a statin, a worm medication, an anti inflammatory med (if you can take it) and so on, there's around half a dozen meds they use. The doctor I saw at the COC actually knows my oncologist, used to work under him some time back as a young doctor, though he's not actually an Oncologist himself.
I was under a fairly extreme regime of supplements alongside conventional medicine while having chemo (2 rounds), with one specialist and also taking Chinese herbs with another.
When I went onto Olaparib a year ago, both those people took me off both regimes because they had no idea of the interactivity with the Olaparib. In fact the Chinese herbalist checked with a cancer expert he knew in Switzerland (where Chinese medicine is much more integrated with cancer care) and she said don’t take Herbs with Olaparib.
I think they both felt that Olaparib was enough of a game changer that it shouldn’t be compromised.
I now do the normal healthy eating, take basic supplements that are good for health and immune system. (And which my onc is ok with).
I am just starting the Care Oncology protocol after reading How to Starve Cancer. I have also done tons of research and it is on the cutting edge of cancer treatment. It is supported by a lot of scientific evidence. I’ll let you all know how it goes for me. I think you should try it.
Hi, thanks for your reply. What kinds of things have you done before going to COC, if you don't mind my asking? Surgery? Chemo? How long ago were you diagnosed? Have you had any reoccurrences?
Good morning all, I hope you’re as well as you possibly can be.
Many of you here know my thoughts on these people who say they know how to starve or kill cancer and I have posted, at length, about my personal doubts on the validity of their claims. In short, if their methodology was clinically proven to be as effective as they claim, then we’d all be on the treatment path they eschew, oncologists would be embracing their ‘treatments’ and we would be seeing the end to cancers and harsh treatments worldwide.
Each and every one of us has to do what we believe is best for ourselves, we have to be guided by the experts and not by unqualified opportunistic people who do not have the appropriate and relevant medical training.
A good and balanced diet is so very important to our general health wellbeing, especially so when we’ve been given our diagnosis. Our bodies are finely tuned machines that need good fuel to enable them to heal and be as healthy as possible.
I hope you get answers to your questions and always beware charlatans. Take care and stay safe ❤️Xx Jane
I’m with you on this as if it were that simple we’d all be cured. Complementary therapies certainly have their place but they should be just that, a complement to treatment to aid your wellbeing. I completely understand people wanting to do just about anything but my unqualified view is that some end up bringing more stress into their lives by trying to follow restrictive diets etc x
Hello flower rose - I am also thinking of reaching out to care oncology, I have had 12 cycles of different chemo and 4 of a part - once chemo stops I progress almost immediately and the parp didn’t work at all - so I think the time has come to consider repurposed drugs, as the mainstream drugs are not working for me.
We are all different and what works for one may not work for another- but if you don’t try you will never know - we only ever regret the things we don’t do.
I'm so sorry for what you're going through. Yes, part of me just wanted to finish the mainstream path because hey, sometimes people get better with just that and are disease free for ages with it. But maybe that, mixed with alternative stuff is even better? It's this whole self-experiment idea that is just so unsettling. Even with Jane in her book, it could have been a combination of ALL the things she did that ultimately got her disease free. It's hard sometimes to not just shake my fist to the heavens and be super MAD that I have this whole infernal problem to have to deal with in the first place. Sorry, just so frustrated and angry these days.
Its never crossed my mind to give up on mainstream treatment, I think I would find that far to scary. What I have in mind is to use COC as well as. Hopefully for me it will make me more sensitive to chemo in the future.
The COC website gives you info on what drugs they use and what you can expect from treatment. Also you can read the consultants credentials. Good luck in deciding what is best for you.
Hi, I’m in the US too and read the book. Mayo had a clinical trial with metformin, asked my onc if I could take it, she said no. She will only do what Up to Date recommends. I know a woman doing very well on it, but she also had traditional chemo. I am familiar with the 4 drugs on the COC protocol, and do hope they end up helping, as their toxicity and cost are so low compared to what we must subject ourselves to now. There is a clinical trial with the COC protocol, so hope I’m still alive when it’s done and it shows that it helps us. I know we are all different and our biological errors are not identical, so what helps one will not help all.
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