On Tue, Dec 30, 2008 at 12:42 PM, ruthsimplicity <no_re...@yahoogroups.com> wrote: > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "I am the eternal" > > I skimmed through these threads about your friend. I take it you are > in Texas. If he hasn't been there already, I recommend MD Anderson > Cancer Center in Houston for evaluation. http://www.mdanderson.org/ > Better than roaming from one expert to another. > > Given the limited facts your presented (age, Gleason score, PSA, but > not tumor grading or PSA doubling rate) I likely would not do watchful > waiting and I would not rely on Curcumin and the like! Prostate > cancer treatment has so many options and each individual is different, > so don't take anything for advice here. (Other than what I said about > visiting a major cancer center, like MD Anderson). > > Best wishes to you and your friend. >
After lots of reading and looking at my friend's doctor's website at http://www.prostatecenterofaustin.com/cancer.php , of a number of things, which I've conveyed to my friend: 1) To accept the curcumin and other things I ordered for him and start taking them while waiting for his doctor visit. To want to do anything more with the neutraceuticals is just magical thinking. I went to the various websites supplied by yifuxero. I read the testimonials there. I didn't read as many glowing reports as yifuxero did. Nothing really about cancer. Now I was able to Google some things about prostate cancer and curcumin. Curcumin does sound very promising and exciting. It may explain why Indian men don't often get prostate cancer but American men do, very frequently. It looks like curcumin should have been a part of my friend's diet, starting decades ago. But as Peter said, once the horse has left the stable, well it may be true that curcumin does slow down the growth of prostate cancer and that medical researchers are looking at how to come up with a drug based on curcumin. But neither it nor the other things recommended are magic bullets against cancer. Oncologists aren't that biased and dumb. I attract doctors around me, though none of my friends happen to be urologists or oncologists. Though weary, they really want what's best for the patient, assuming insurance will allow it. If a food like flax seed or a spice like curcumin did work, really work against cancer, oncologists would be all over it like white on rice. 2) To immediately cut out the megadoses of vitamins and minerals my friend has taken for decades. It looks like megadoses encourage the growth of advanced prostate cancer and a Gleason sore of 7 is well into the advancing stage. 2) That a Gleason score of 7 on 3 nodes (but still at stage T0, no visible or palpable sign of cancer) is defined as moderate aggressive. There is actually a risk to life at this stage, though the odds of complete recovery are very good if one opts for the robotic surgery. This is far past the time of hopeful watching with or without nutritional aids. It's time for action and the best action right now appears to be the robotic surgery. Very neat, very clean, very good at getting out the cancer but leaving as much as possible intact. Recovery won't be the neatest thing, having to have a catheter/bag for 8 days and having to do physical therapy to get control of the bladder sphincter back. But this surgery does a lot less damage than cryo, inserted radiation rods or external radiation beam. The $25,000 HiFu available outside of the US might have been an option in the hopeful watching period and there is no track record on for this treatment. 3) That my friend lucked out with getting one of the best urology clinics in Texas and getting a consult with a very thorough and trained urology surgeon. Looking over the website, I get a very good feeling that Dr. Fagin will be very easy for my friend to talk with and that he will be open minded to all options for treatment and has been down this road many times before. Dr. Fagin has started prescribing every other day Viagra (to priests as well?) during recovery because doing so has been shown to bring one's sexual ability back. I feel that going to MD Anderson in Houston or some famous cancer clinic elsewhere might be overkill, though of course I will suggest that my friend get a second opinion. Now as far as Ayurveda, well my friend went to see Mark Toomey at the Raj the same day I did. My friend had this cancer then and mentioned his high PSA to Mark. Mark did not detect it. So much for Ayurveda, which may have shortened the lives of many THMDs, THPs and members of the TMO, what with the heavy metals and the tendency of Ayurvedic preparations to fight the effects of radiation, cancer drugs and chemical altering of hormone levels (because many cancer cells thrive in estrogen or testosterone). A trip to Lourdes and tramping around the world sounds like a good idea if you've got something that can't be cured. But if it's about not wanting to go through the recovery of what is now relatively unintrusive surgury, it's a dumb idea. I might not be the best person to advise my friend, as I have the first two years of medical school (with good grades) under my belt. I've stayed current with medical progress and I can read, understand and judge the merits of research. But I was chosen to do the legwork for my friend, which I'm happily doing.
