Alternative treatment to chemo
 

Hello. I had a double masectomy 1 month ago and now they want me to do chemo. But was wondering if anyone has decided not to do the chemo and instead take an alternative route.

Re: Alternative treatment to chemo
 

It is a very personal decision. As you can see from my treating history, I opted not to do chemo. It hinges on your gut feeling whether all offending cancer cells have been removed, your age, the other factors including whether you are on anti estrogen meds, amount of excercise, etc. Age is also a very important factor. Good luck to you.

Re: Alternative treatment to chemo
 

In addition to listening to your gut you may want to read and make sure you understand all your pathology reports, ct scan reports and other reports. Then you may want to talk to a naturopathic physician or other physicians (for example osteopaths, doctors of Chinese medicine, integrative medicine specialists etc. )who are familiar with treating breast cancer by going the alternative route. You should share your reports and experiences with those providers. Leave no stone unturned so that you will be 100% comfortable with your decisions and whatever may result from those decisions.

Re: Alternative treatment to chemo
 

A friend of mine did opt to go the alternative route and sadly recurred as stage iv to the bones within two years so I'm skeptical but we all need to make our own judgements on this of course and do wish you well whatever you decide.

Re: Alternative treatment to chemo
 

Yes indeed it is a personal choice. There is a program that they use at the hospital that calculate the benefit of chemo i.e. according to nodes involvement grade her2+ ect..

So they should be able to let you know exactly the calculated benefit of chemo. i.e. for example 10% additional chance of not recurring after chemo compared with no chemo..

With this info you can make up your mind against the side effects/risk of chemo.

Also there is a gut feeling that is trying to protect us against polluting our body which feels so wrong.. but if the benefit is to not join secondaries BC well..

Again it is a personal choice but I agree with above only that you can make with the right info

There are no other alternative that can offer you a calculated %, if only if only..

Re: Alternative treatment to chemo
 

None of us will ever know for sure what "works" and what doesn't. Ann's friend might have metastasized anyway with treatment. You might decide not to get further treatment and never have cancer again. I have a friend who has had two primary breast cancers, fifteen years apart, and did not have chemo either time. She appears to be cancer free. It is your decision to make, and I hope for the best for you. But intuition is not likely to be very helpful here. You need facts.

My oncologist has access to a computer program that can estimate five year survival based on all known factors. See if yours does too, and have her or him plug in all of yours--age, stage, other health factors, tumor biology, etc. and see what the numbers are for your bmx plus chemo or without. (Sorry, but "alternative" treatments have not been shown scientifically to be superior to doing nothing. Maybe there are, but there's no evidence.) The numbers will give you a better idea of what the odds are for you. Then you can make an informed choice.

If you are triple positive then why would you not at least do hormone therapy and Herceptin? They are not as harsh as chemo and can very likely help you. Have your onc plug that into the computer program and see what you find out.

Re: Alternative treatment to chemo
 

Re: PS: Adjuvant!, was:Alternative treatment to chemo
 

PS: about the computer program Amy mentioned. I assume it's Adjuvant!, or adjuvantonline.com. It doesn't do a very good job for HER2+ treatment -- you have to pick your own estimate of how much being HER2+ increases risk, and also Herceptin (or other anti-HER2 tx) is not part of the tx choices. But it is a place to start gathering information. It's accessible to anyone although not recommended for solo access because they want you to have a provider at hand to help interpret the information for you.

Debbie Laxague