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Re: What about non-orthodox "cures"? Have you tried?
You might want to suggest to your sister that she start taking the Tamoxifen at night. That's what I do. I have no trouble at all with Tamoxifen, and I'm now cancer free almost four years.
If she's having an unbearable time with it, then she needs to consider the options that will allow her to switch to aromatase inhibitors.
Most of the treatments you've described have been thoroughly debunked. There's no evidence for their efficacy, and many have died relying on alternative "cures." Using complementary medicine, on the other hand, is often beneficial to quality of life, and it can support the traditional treatments that have been demonstrated to work best.
Nothing provides a guarantee. Cancer likes to come back, and it's sneaky. We do everything we can to avoid it, but even very early stage women have been known to develop metastatic disease.
I agree with Lauriesh that you need to allow your sister to make her own way. It may well be that her choices have saved her life, and she will live a long and healthy one going forward. Before Herceptin, women with HER2+ cancer had very poor survival no matter what treatment they chose. Now, because of Herceptin and other targeted therapies, even HER2+ metastatic patients are surviving and thriving. The alternative community has a lot of anecdote--everyone's cousin's uncle's sister-in-law's best friend was saved by a quack cure--but if there were studies that demonstrated these treatments worked, medical doctors would incorporate them in their treatment plan. They don't work, so doctors discourage patients from pursuing them.
One thing you might suggest to her is Metformin. There's some evidence that it prevents recurrence, and there's a large study going on right now. It's probably too late to join the study, but it should be possible to get a doctor to prescribe the study dose (850 mg/2x/day).
Finally, I would not recommend cancertutor.com to my worst enemy. It is a pseudoscience website. You could, however, help your sister by directing her to this group.
Rhonda Lea
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2/6/09 Core needle biopsy: negative; Mammos through 2010: no change
3/30/11 Pea-sized lump in left breast at site of prior biopsy; mammo negative, sonogram not so much
4/14/11 Core needle biopsy: negative for cancer
5/18/11 Excisional biopsy 1.2 cm tumor, LVI, positive margin; ER+60%,PR+20%,HER2/CEP17 5
6/15/11 BMX: Left DCIS & LH; Right ADH; SNB: 2/3 nodes: 1.4 cm and 1 mm; ALND L1&2: 0/10; Stage IIa, Grade 3
7/14/11 CT/Bone scans NED; MUGA 66%
7/19/11 Biweekly dd AC w/Neulasta; done 8/30/11
9/13/11 Transfusion (Hemoglobin 8.6); MUGA 64%
9/20/11 Start Taxol + Herceptin; Taxol done 12/6/2011; continue Herceptin until 9/4/2012
12/27/11 Radiation - 6 weeks; 2/27/2012 - DONE! Yayyyy!
2/29/12 Start Tamoxifen 20 mg/day; continue until 2/28/17
5/16/12 Start five-years Metformin trial
6/19/12 MUGA 61%
8/21/12 Brain MRI NED (head still hurts, brain still fogged)
9/4/12 Herceptin done!
9/6/12 Port out!
7/11/13 Aricept 5mg for cognitive impairment; increased to 10mg as of 8/23/13; back to 5mg 12/2013
5/2014 Add Namenda 7mg
9/2014 Stop Aricept and Namenda; Neuropsychological evaluation
10/24/14 Start cognitive rehabilitation therapy
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