What is Digg?122 Comments
- Buckwyld, on 11/12/2008, -1/+63When I was diagnosed with Cancer, I knew the end was near and wanted everything in their (the Doctor) power that could be done. I took the risks associated with taking Chemotherapy (and even Stem Cell Transplants) and 2 years after remission, I am still hanging around. I noticed this quote:
"It shows that doctors and nurses need to be much better at helping patients understand the pros and cons of such powerful treatments in the last year of life."
Chemo does have its pros and cons like the article states, but knowing there is a possibility to live even one more year would be the motivation to go through the treatment no matter how dangerous or painful the Chemo is. We all take desperate measures when the last year of our life has been determined. - QuestVR, on 11/13/2008, -2/+26umm I'm supposed to start chemo in a few weeks.. wth :(
- chrisinsocalif, on 11/13/2008, -0/+24My mom went through chemo...that stuff is NASTY! The doctor gave her too high of a dose the first few weeks, she could barely function. I am glad my mom is over cancer now, but I see what happens to people who are on chemo. I feel for them.
- doshindude, on 11/13/2008, -1/+20you're a tool, you know that?
- iheartrendering, on 11/13/2008, -2/+19***** cancer.
- jonnyeh, on 11/13/2008, -0/+14Every treatment has its risks. Allergic reactions are one of them. I'm sorry for your loss, but it shouldn't deter other people from seeking treatment.
- stfucupcake, on 11/13/2008, -1/+15My dad developed lung cancer and was resigned to getting chemo. What we didn't expect that he would die within minutes as he was unknowingly allergic to the common chemo drug, Taxol.
Anaphylactic shock is one hell of a way to die... - Murdats, on 11/13/2008, -1/+14so you just demonstrated a demonstrous lack of knowledge in what you are talking about, which is probably why you get suckered in by such misinformation.
it does kill all cells equally, but the thing is cells are at their most vulnerable when they are splitting, and cancer cells split more often then normal cells, otherwise it they would just be a mutated cell that eventually is replaced with normal cells again.
so if you are destroying all cells when they are vulnerable and cancer cells are more vulnerable then more cancer is killed then normal cells. the point of chemo is to push your body as close to death in a sense as you can so that hopefully the cancer cells get pushed over the brink, it sucks but is hopefully worth it.
so how does your supposed treatments work to kill cancer then? do you even know? - Folksie, on 11/12/2008, -8/+20I'm so happy to hear that you're in remission! That's great news. I bet your will to live played into it a lot more than the chemo. Eat lots of veggies and keep cancer away! Best!
- AboveandBeyond, on 11/13/2008, -0/+12moron...the study was on british patients...
- Magnus150, on 11/13/2008, -3/+14And then die even faster, because that stuff doesn't do ***** for cancer.
- iSkylla, on 11/13/2008, -1/+11Yeah and what about people with genetic disposition to cancer, BRCA I and II, or people like me who have mutated chromosome IV, palladin chromosome. Don't talk about something of which you know nothing about.
- Greengoo, on 11/13/2008, -1/+11No. Please don't degrade cancer patients, their families or doctors with this. It's just not true.
- nightsweat, on 11/13/2008, -0/+9Like hell you can't overdose on vitamins. You can wreck your liver and kidneys, especially with A and D.
- oldhick, on 11/13/2008, -0/+8Often Doctors don't want to tell patients that there is no hope. I've read several stories that involved surveys, and it was somewhere around 80% of Doctors admitted that they continued treatments that they new would provide no benefit simply because they didn't want to tell patients that there was no hope.
The reality is that these patients could spend their last weeks and months focusing on their families, friends, and tying up loose ends as opposed to suffering from chemo treatments and lord knows what else...
It's a tough thing to wrap your head around. - gerrylazlo, on 11/13/2008, -2/+10The group of patients the independent group was looking at represents 2% of the 80,000 people who receive chemotherapy each year. (Britain)
They were all severely-ill patients for which the chemotherapy was mostly being used to manage their condition rather than in an attempt to cure the cancer. - socialrebel, on 11/13/2008, -2/+10Poke smot
- Greengoo, on 11/13/2008, -1/+9Don't degrade the work of legitimate science by trying to pretend that cancer is caused by not eating enough veggies or that it can be cured by taking vitamins. It's an insult to the families and doctors of those with cancer.
- whiledo, on 03/25/2009, -0/+7To a large portion of the posters here: The plural of anecdote is not data.
- iSkylla, on 11/13/2008, -0/+7That won't do ***** against fast growing cancers (GBM, pancreatic, certain types of leukemia/lymphoma, late stage cervical, late stage merkel cell and of course malignant melanoma it it's stage II or more)
- AndrewMoyer, on 11/13/2008, -1/+8My grandmother died about a week after starting chemotherapy. Let me be clear: she did not die from the chemo; she died from the secondary infections that set in after the chemo wiped her out. She would have had a few months yet at least. There's definitely times where it's appropriate and many where it's not.
I'm glad it worked for you, at least, but it certainly has made me hesitant to do the same if I am ever in such a situation. - chaser324, on 11/13/2008, -0/+7When I was diagnosed with leukemia when I was four years old, my parents didn't hesitate to begin chemotherapy right away, and after 15 years of remission I'm very thankful that they did. Yes, it has its pros and cons, but when your life is on the line and there is even the slimmest chance that you could pull through, I would say that pro wins out over the cons every time.
Chemotherapy is a constantly evolving and improving treatment. Many of the latent side effects of early drugs used have been eliminated and there are drugs that have been developed to help people live with the resulting weakness that comes with chemo. It's not a perfect treatment, but in many cases it is the only one available. People are almost always willing to put up with the pain and risk if it means spending more time on Earth with the people that they love. - nightsweat, on 11/13/2008, -0/+7FAIL. Yes, they are. It's part of Med School.
- DrDigg, on 11/13/2008, -0/+7@noodlez
You think that your "research" on the web makes you more of an expert on cancer treatments then an oncologist who spent years learning about how to treat cancer. Doctors and scientists in this country rely on studies and data which is peer-reviewed to make decisions as to what treatment to recommend. Any quack in the globe can post on the internet that they have found a miracle drug that works in their "statistical studies". - specialempty, on 11/13/2008, -0/+6My mother (who finished her chemo for brain cancer last year) is an audiologist and works alongside an ENT doctor. Hearing aid and pharmaceutical companies come in every day with lunch and other gifts. It's not just the companies that deal with chemo, it's every company that deals with medicine.
- Greengoo, on 11/13/2008, -2/+8This is incorrect. Chemo targets cancer cells by binding the poisons to special proteins that target growing cells. Because cancer is literally an uncontrolled growth mechanism in cells, the highest growth cells (the cancer ones) are targeted first. Is there some collateral damage? Yes. But it's a helluva lot better than doing nothing and dying.
My gf is now 2 1/2 years post-diagnosis, chemo blows but it does the job fairly well. - Greengoo, on 11/13/2008, -0/+6Pot is an effective treatment for the symptoms of chemo (loss of appetite, nausea) but does absolutely nothing for the cancer itself.
- Crushkilla, on 11/13/2008, -0/+6before you guys start stomping on doctors' dicks, you have to keep in mind that malpractice lawsuits and tyrannous insurance companies have basically cornered doctors into taking the most precautionary, if not most over-the-top solutions to illnesses because if they don't, they might be labeled as neglectful. on the same token, patients tend to foolishly equate the most extreme measure to the best measure.
- jonnyeh, on 11/13/2008, -1/+6Bullcrap, doctors use treatments that they don't understand all the time, that is if they are actually proven to work. The best example is anaesthesia. No one is entirely sure how or why it works, but it clearly does. These other 'alternative' treatments probably don't have the same level of scientific evidence behind them. When judging a new treatment you need to consider its plausibility. If it's highly likely to work since it is based on well understood foundations, then it may be worth a shot. Otherwise, you'll need to pass a very high level evidence to convince doctors. This is how scientific medicine works, and is why it works better than any form of medicine.
- sealink, on 11/13/2008, -0/+5Different cancers do things in different ways, but macrobiotic diets are NOT the answer. All 'alternative therapies' should be discussed with a doctor, and medical care should never be foregone in the hopes that a change of diet will cure you. Cancers aren't caused by foods, they're caused by DNA mutations and dimers.
- MUFDVR3669, on 11/13/2008, -2/+7No. Natural health only is the stupid way. Pretending like eating vitamins will cure everything is pretty stupid.
- berfmurret, on 11/13/2008, -0/+5this thread makes me depressed. when somebody tells me that something-another will give me cancer i just tell them that there will be a cure for cancer by the time i get it. i sure as ***** hope i'm right. it seems like a really ***** way to pass.
- iSkylla, on 11/13/2008, -1/+6You really don't have any idea what you're talking about. ***** off troll.
- Zuljin, on 11/13/2008, -0/+5A chance of survival is better than staving off death a little longer.
- MUFDVR3669, on 11/13/2008, -0/+5Yes you can.
And why are all the natural cure crap that people talk about always trying to sell you something. They talk about how bad the drug industry is then they try to sell you a frickin book about some natural cure crap. Yes a good balanced diet helps, but too much of certain vitamins actually increase the risk of some cancers. - nightsweat, on 11/13/2008, -0/+5Medicine is a statistical science. If a treatment works best for 80% of a certain type of patient they use that. If you aren't one of those types and they can identify that, they will put you on a different protocol.
If you go to a teaching hospital they are ALWAYS trying to come up with new, more effective protocols. It's one of the best things they can do for their patients and their careers.
If you go to some plain old cancer center that doesn't do research you'll get the vanilla treatment which will work for you most of the time unless you're one of those exceptions. - maryniuk, on 11/13/2008, -0/+4"The National Cancer Institute (NCI) sponsored an independent study of Laetrile with cancer patients. Fifty-four percent of the 178 patients had measurable cancer progression after 21 days of intravenous treatment with Laetrile. After 3 months, 91 percent had disease progression, and after 7 months, all patients' tumors had grown larger. Very few patients reported any change in their symptoms. Half of all patients in the study died within 5 months after starting treatment; within 8 months, 85 percent were dead." (National Cancer Institute)
http://www.bccancer.bc.ca/PPI/UnconventionalTherap ... - iSkylla, on 11/13/2008, -2/+6That's true but drugs like Xeloda (which is essentially 5-FU) and Gemcitabene specifically target cell processes that occur in cancer. Yes it kills good cells, but the purpose is to shut off cell growth and certain processes that make the cancer grow and spread.
There is new research going on at Johns Hopkins which are basically cancer antibiotics which help the immune system recognize cell process mutations and try to get the body to fight the cancer along with other drugs. - alexkim804, on 11/13/2008, -1/+5dr cuddy will not be happy about this
- aduck, on 11/13/2008, -1/+5I definitely think doctors are more interested in not skewing results than in custom-building a plan for the patient. When I was diagnosed, I was prescribed one of the standard treatments, albeit at higher frequency...
Even when I went into remission 3/4 through the chemotherapy and before the month of daily radiation treatments, they insisted I continue to complete the prescribed treatment because that was the standard and ensures nothing came back.
If I could do it over again, I would have finished the chemotherapy but skipped the radiation, since that is quite likely to cause other (worse) types of Cancer.
So now they can count me in a number that says the standard treatment combination works, but I definitely got way more radiation than I needed/wanted. Oh and the medical bills weren't worth it either.
My dad has a different type of Cancer but isn't doing treatment besides taking antibiotics. He's already lived much, much longer than they originally said he would. Although I do believe in the treatments and not in the hippy organic methods. - jonnyeh, on 11/13/2008, -2/+6And by targetting 'fast growing' cells, it also hits the cells responsible for your hair, that's why hair loss is the most visible side effect of chemo. If chemo attacked all cells equally, it would kill you before the cancer.
- MUFDVR3669, on 11/13/2008, -0/+4Way too generalized there goldy. It is a business after all. But most doctors, nurses, pharmacist, and most people in the medical community actually do care whether the chemo is going to work or not. Drug companies are out to make money. But it's not all profit or nothing as you like to say.
- btgoss, on 11/13/2008, -0/+4Stay strong, and keep talking. Let your doctors and nurses know how you are feeling at all times. Silence kills, be "that" patient, it will keep you alive.
Trust me, I'm a pain in the ass and I am still here. - sealink, on 11/13/2008, -0/+4Best comment of the day.
- 30Seconds, on 11/13/2008, -0/+3When you have a hammer all your problems look like nails.
- ryansmith18, on 11/13/2008, -0/+3Dr Cuddy is an angry bitch who is never happy about anything.
- slvrbullet87, on 11/13/2008, -0/+3Might help with the nausea caused by chemo, but still get the chemo, anybody who thinks you can will cancer away or smoke it away is ignorant to how medicine and the human body works
- mercury187, on 11/13/2008, -0/+3I've seen a few articles and one of them was on digg a week or two ago that talked about how thc was shown to fight cancer and tumors...
- Rndm_Tngnt, on 11/13/2008, -0/+3Which toxins specifically?
- Cheney4Nazis, on 11/13/2008, -1/+4"The problem is when you really take a close at some of these studies, you find over and over again, conflicts of interest, poor methodology, and fraudulent methodology and results. They outlaw, denigrate and ignore all kinds of inexpensive preventions and cures. And like I said you have to dig to find the corruption, obviously you'll never get the truth from our controlled corporate media. Case in point the FDA, which is in bed with the drug companies and actually keeps great, inexpensive medicines and nutrients off the market while they are notorious for allowing all kinds of dangerous expensive drugs on the market."
Spot on!! I'm glad at least some of us sees the truth that is Big Pharma. -
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