Breast Cancer and complementary or integrative therapies

Thirty years ago chemo was common and the current aromatase inhibitors did not exist.

I tried different AI's and manufacturers because I am sensitive to fillers, and ended up with brand name Femara.

Seek out ALL methods of care you might be interested in. Talk to your family about what you have found, and consider their views. If you don’t have family support as some of us have experienced, then go with your gut feelings about treatment. Your doctor is a wonderful resource, so listen to their advise. In the vast majority of cases, your oncologist is your best resource. You decision on where to go from here is obviously a very personal decision. Best of luck to you, and hope to see you here on this message board in the future to let us know how you are doing!

My two friends who are around 70 years old didn't do any chemotherapy nor radiation. Both of them decided to choose the surgery only, which is a conventional treatment and diet after.
I have a vast support from my dear family, my darling friends from Europe, here in NY and NJ, and my doctors. Love my breast surgeon from Sloan Kettering and I appreciate my plastic surgeon, and my three alternative doctors. Meeting the oncologist on January 4th.
It's remarkable and powerful to see everyone around me praying for me. Words cannot describe the energy created during those moments. I think the richest people are those who have someone praying for them, who are carrying you on the wings of prayers. They are the friends who enrich your life. I thank God for all those humans who enrich my life.

Saying that is a blessing to have cancer is not something that I would say, but extraordinary things happened during this cancer journey which started in August.

@windyshores . I am guessing that your friend who chose the dietary approach didn't do surgery. There are a few people in my life who didn't do any conventional treatment and died fast. My other two friends who had the surgery over 30 years ago, plus diet ( no chemo or radiation) and exercises are very healthy, never had health problems after and their energy is amazing, like they are in their 20. I personally don't know know anyone who had surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, hormonal treatment with no side effects in the long run and feeling so healthy and good like my friends.

A lot of treatments that we are blindly follow is due to our fear. It takes so much courage to choose a combination of conventional treatment such as surgery and alternative treatments. It's my dream to see a hybrid among conventional and alternative.

I forgot to add that my children's piano teacher had lumpectomy 13 years ago, no treatment after. She chose a very healthy diet with no salt. She is a very joyful woman, hikes every day.....

I just asked the piano teacher

"It's been 18 years and I remember very little. Definitely remember estrogen positive. I've been a vegan for nearly 30 years. No salt, no extracted sweets, no chemicals or colors, organic, whole, unprocessed. I actually love what I eat and for years went on a raw food diet for half of the year - the warmer ones!"

The big question is: how many of us are willing to go on very healthy diet without sugar, oils, salt, no processed food, yoga, meditation, hiking, walking etc. It's not easy. I eat mostly plant based, but I eat some fish, seafood, eggs, avocado oil and salt. Hopefully I can eliminate more of those foods from my diet. One thing that I changed is fasting from 5:00 pm to 9:00 am. It's important to give your body 16 hours of no food, just water. Sometimes I eat a fruit.

@polianad22 speaking for myself I did not go "blindly" into treatment. I got 4 opinions, and did a lot of research. At the 5 year point, I introduced my oncologist to the Breast Cancer Index, which told me I did not benefit from further hormonal meds. It is now in the NCCN guidelines.

It is not unusual these days to avoid chemo (due to the Oncotype for ER+ HER2-) and those with mastectomies often avoid radiation.

Can you cite studies of diet that show objective benefit in preventing cancer, recurrence or spread?

The thing is, many of us might be cured by surgery alone, but we cannot tell if that is true for our own case. Certainly healthy eating would continue to contribute to good health, not matter what.

Unfortunately there are not studies that I could share with you, because there is no interest ( business wise) to prove that alternative treatments work. Harvard has a study about intravenous Vitamin C works, but what business would vitamin C bring? As I said before that my hope is for a hybrid among conventional and alternative treatments. How beautiful would be to see that? Alternative treatments is not just diet and exercise. My experience with Sloan Kettering have been so good. When I met my surgeon's nurse she told me " we work with the body, mind and soul". It felt so good! Right there I switched from Mount Sinai to Sloan Kettering.

Diet alone doesn't work in my perspective. Maybe for Stage 0.

We all are so unique and beautiful!

Peace and light!

I’m DCIS grade 3. Had 2 surgeries. The ladies here on this site have helped me tremendously to check up on proton radiation and gamma pod radiation besides traditional. I’m about to start traditional radiation tomorrow. But I wanted to share about my brother in law who was diagnosed with thymoma when getting treatment for thyroid cancer. It’s a rare form of cancer right near the heart. He underwent a brutal surgery where they had to collapse his lungs. He also has 6-8 weeks I think of radiation with the heart right there. He choose to go on a super healthy diet and exercise. It’s been 10 years since and he’s doing well. Combination of both strategies seems to have helped him. I’m hoping it does for me too but I just can’t seem to give up my one guilty pleasure of drinking tea with a spoonful of sugar in the mornings! 😬. I don’t drink, or smoke. Generally am healthy and eat healthy. Exercise but had IVF fertility treatments that probably did me in.

There is a new book called: Handbook of Research On Natural Products and Their Bioactive Compounds as Cancer Therapeutics, by Ashok Panduangan. It costs $500.00. I tried to order it through my library, but had no success. I am very interested in possibly adding some natural treatment along with the small amount of Tamoxifen I can tolerate.