Cancer Blog

Frequently, the interaction between illness and treatment is described as a battle or a war. If we hold with that analogy, then cancer can best be described as a civil war. A cancerous cell operates as if it believes that martial law has been declared in the body. Sadly, because we cling to this confrontational mindset, healing cancer becomes very difficult.

The term cancer actually describes a vast number of different conditions, all resulting from the same basic problem: there is a malfunction with the instructions held within the DNA of a cell.

The natural process of life ensures that a large portion of our cells are replaced as they wear out. According to many estimates, ninety-nine percent of our cells are different today than they were last year. Many of these cells are simply duplications of previous cells, which are constantly dividing.

This duplication is what allows us to live as long as we do, as damaged and worn out cells are replaced with new and healthy cells. When something goes wrong with the duplication process, however, it has the opposite effect.

The fact that this problem even exists is actually incredible in its own way, because DNA contain enzymes to repair damaged DNA. These enzymes are designed to proofread the instructions in cells to prevent incorrect copying, remove damaged portions and insert correct replacements and generally ensure that the cells don’t go haywire.

So, when a cell manages to get around the built in protection enzymes, the cell can quickly become lethal. The damaged portion of the instructions tells the cell to divide endlessly. Every duplicate cell has the same damaged instructions and divides endlessly, which can quickly become a problem, and makes healing cancer difficult.

The current mindset of Western medicine is to heal cancer as if it is a foreign invader, coming into the body and wreaking havoc. Because cancer is a part of our body, gone awry, this mindset has not been very successful.

Traditional cancer treatments, especially radiation and chemotherapy, are poisonous to cancer cells…which are like our healthy cells, only haywire…so they are also poisonous to our healthy cells. In effect, the traditional treatments for healing cancer count on the fact that they will poison and kill the cancer cells before they poison and kill the rest of the patient.

Healing cancer can only occur by accepting the fact that those cells are a part of us, embracing those cells and looking to heal them, not destroy them. It isn’t possible to destroy cancerous cells without also killing healthy cells.

An amazing variety of alternative treatments exist, although it isn’t likely that you’ll hear much about it from your doctor. This isn’t necessarily because your doctor is anti-alternative medicine, or part of a vast health care conspiracy: it’s highly possible that your doctor just isn’t well versed in the options available to you. You need to take the responsibility for your own care and look into the highly-effective, non-toxic, alternative therapies for healing cancer that are available to you.

Visit www.alternative-health-ebooks.com for more information and free articles. This article is available for reprint for your website and newsletter, provided that you maintain its copyright integrity and include the signature tag.

From the office of Dr. Laurence Magne, author of www.cancer-free-for-life.com

I’ve worked as a therapist for about 30 years now, and in that time I’ve seen all kinds of clients with all kinds of issues. I’ve worked with people in abusive relationships – both the abusers and the abused. I’ve worked with drug dependent patients who are constantly struggling with the danger of relapsing. I have worked with many delusional, or even psychotic patients, and once or twice have even been afraid for my life. But for me the most difficult (to say nothing of heartbreaking) patients to work with are those who have been diagnosed with a terminal disease.

When you start looking into alternative medicine, you have probably reached the end of your rope. One of my patients, we will call her Mary, has been diagnosed with lung cancer. Everything that she has tried has failed, and the doctors have given her a year or less to live. She has been looking into alternative cancer treatment. Now, for every possible crackpot alternative cancer treatment that you can imagine, there are probably two or three in reality. There is even an organization – I think it is called the alternative cancer treatment instituted or something like that – that is run by all these crackpot schemes to exploit the hope of dying people. There are alternative cancer treatments that involve everything from herbs, to diets, to fasts, to so-called healing touch. There is even an alternative cancer treatment that involves dream interpretation. They claim that if you know the meaning of your dreams, the cancer will go away.

I find all this alternative lung cancer treatment stuff to be revolting. Of course it is good to keep hope with the dying, but all this alternative cancer treatment seems to just exploit them for profit while giving them no real chance of recovery. I guess I have some colleagues that see things quite differently. I know an internist, for example, who believes wholeheartedly in some of the alternative cancer treatments. He believes that more research needs to be done, but he claims that at least one form of herbal alternative cancer treatment offers great hope of recovery in some cases. I don’t know. I hope that he is right, but I think that this is just wishful thinking. The fact is that, as a doctor, he wants to do everything that he can to make sure that his patients do well. Sometimes he has such a strong desire to believe that it compromises his ability to act as a scientist.

There are four stages of melanoma that classify the severity of this skin cancer. Each stage pertains to the thickness and the amount that the melanoma has spread. When the stage of melanoma has been diagnosed, it is then possible for the doctors to determine the best type of treatment. In this article, we will discuss what the different stages of melanoma signify. We will describe each of the four stages in further detail. Hopefully, after reading this article you will have a greater knowledge of the skin cancer disease known as melanoma and the four degrees associated with it.

Stage 1 of melanoma is thin and the epidermis usually appears scraped. This stage of skin cancer is subdivided into two other categories. These additional categories describe the thickness of the tumor. Stage 1a is less than 1.0 mm and has no ulceration. Stage 1b is less than 1.0 mm but has ulceration. It is also considered to be in stage 1b if it is 1.01 - 2.0 mm even if it does not involve ulceration. In this stage and stage 2 the melanoma has not yet spread to the lymph nodes.

Stage 2 is also subdivided into three more categories that signify the thickness and the existence or non-existence of ulceration. The tumor in stage 2a is 1.01 - 2.0 mm with ulceration or 2.01 - 4.0 mm without ulceration. Stage 3b has a tumor thickness of 2.01 with ulceration or a thickness of more than 4.0 without ulceration.

When this type of skin cancer advances to stage 3 a significant change occurs. At this stage, the melanoma tumor has spread to the lymph nodes. This is a much more serious stage of the disease because when healthy, the lymph nodes fight disease, cancer and some other infections.

Patients with stage 3 of this cancer have melanoma that has spread into lymph nodes near the primary tumor. This stage also involves in-transit metastasis that has skin or connective tissue that is more than 2 centimeters from the original tumor. However, at this point it has not spread past the regional lymph nodes.

In stage 4, the melanoma has spread to lymph nodes that are a distance from the original tumor or to internal organs. These organs are most often the lung, liver, brain, bone and then the gastrointestinal tract.

When diagnosed with skin cancer, it is important to consult with your doctor concerning the degree or stage of melanoma that you may have. A variety of diagnostic techniques will likely be used to determine the stage of your skin cancer. Most stage 1 and stage 2 melanomas should not cause too much worry because they can most often be cured through surgery. There is little need to worry about getting later stages of melanoma just because you once suffered through the early stages.

Different doctors may use different systems or scales to classify the stages of melanoma. The most commonly used are the TNM staging system and the Breslow scale. The most important things to remember are that melanomas with 0.76 mm or lower thickness are low risk, 0.76 - 1.5 mm involve medium risk and when the melanoma is more than 1.5 mm in thickness you are at a much higher risk. When you are diagnosed with melanoma it is important that you understand exactly what stages your doctor may be referring to and what treatments are available to you.

Throat cancer affects many areas of the throat like the vocal cords or the larynx. Throat cancer usually affects men. If you smoke or drink a lot of alcohol then you are at great risk. If you combine smoking and drinking alcohol then the risk for throat cancer symptoms to appear is extreme.

Most throat cancer symptoms usually develop in middleaged people older than 50.

The most researched and significant symptoms are:

- Hoarseness encountered for more than 1-2 weeks

- Soar throat encountered for more than 1-2 weeks

- Pain in your neck

- Swallowing difficulties

- Any kind of swellings in your neck

- Unexpected weight loss

- Lasting cough

- Coughing blood

- Change in your voice tone

- Difficulty in breathing

..and the list goes on. That was just the most importand throat cancer symptoms.

The good news is that throat cancer symptoms can be treated succesfully if detected early. The treatment aims at the destruction of the affected throat cells before cancer is spreaded to other parts of your body.

If you are a heavy smoker or drinker it is highly recommended that you visit a doctor every now and then to perform regular tests. Especially if you encounter throat cancer symptoms like hoarseness or change in your voice tone for more than a week or two.

Don’t want to visit your doctor?

Here are some of the heavy throat cancer symptoms that may appear as throat cancer grows:

- Great breathing difficulties

- Loss of speaking and voice

- Disfigurement of your face

- Deformity of your skin

- Great swallowing difficulties (many patients cannot eat so they are fed through a feeding tube)

..and the worse thing that can happen is when cancer spreads to other parts of your body. In that case you really can’t cure the symptoms easily.

When someone you care about is diagnosed with cancer, it can be a hard diagnosis to hear. If that someone is your own child, the diagnosis is unimaginable and unbearable. The best thing that you can to before you begin treatment for your child is to research cancer hospitals to make sure that you are getting them to a reputable hospital that is up to date on the latest in cancer treatments and research as you want to offer them the best possible chance of getting well again.

Finding the right hospital can be tricky. Many hospitals offer cancer treatments of one form or the other. The decision to where to take your child for decision is, of course, a personal one. Many physicians feel that the best place for a child to receive a cancer treatment is at a children’s hospital. While you can get treatment for you child at a hospital that also serves adults, children’s hospitals are geared to the needs of children from the decor to the types of treatments they offer. Childhood cancer is often seen as a different type of cancer than that in an adult. Finding a children’s hospital that works for you might mean having to travel and be away from home for awhile.

One of the well known children’s cancer hospitals is St. Jude’s Research and Children’s Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. Families travel from all around the world for a second opinion or to receive treatment at St. Jude’s. They offer the latest in technology and treatment options and work hard to have the family involved in the treatment process.

Other children’s hospitals have pediatric cancer facilities that also offer the latest treatment options. The best thing that you can do for your child is to research hospitals and options before settling on where they are going to go. Feeling comfortable and assured with your child’s hospital, doctor and treatment options is the first step in helping your child to get well again.

Small Cell Lung Cancer is second only to breast cancer in terms of deaths. There are about 175,000 reported cases of Small Cell Lung Cancer in the U.S. each year. Of these, about 160,000 will result in the death of the patient. Small Cell Lung Cancer is so deadly because it is hard to catch in time. Small Cell Lung Cancer develops in cells that are actually so small that they do not show up on normal x-rays. By the time they are found the cancer is usually already into an advanced state.

The leading cause of Small Cell Lung Cancer is smoking. Smokers run a much higher chance of contracting Small Cell Lung Cancer as compared to non-smokers. Anyone who is a smoker should see a doctor for regular examinations.

The best chance someone has if they contract Small Cell Lung Cancer is catching it early. Those who catch the cancer in the first stage of development have up to a 40% chance of survival with the correct treatment.

There are two forms of lung cancer, Small Cell Lung Cancer and Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer. Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer is the least dangerous of the two. About 50% of the lung cancer cases reported are Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer. These are treatable. Patients often see a full recovery. Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer has 5 stages of development. The recovery percentages decrease the more advanced it becomes.

Small Cell Lung Cancer only has two stages: mild and severe. When it reaches the severe state it spreads very rapidly throughout the body. This is why it is much tougher to fight. By the time Small Cell Lung Cancer is detected it is usually in the severe stage. At this point most patients only have 18-20 months to live.

Mesothelioma is an extremely nasty and permanent cancer that infects the membrane surrounding most internal organs. It is also a very subtle form of cancer providing only a few noticeable symptoms until it becomes extremely advanced. The most common type of mesothelioma is called pleural mesothelioma. It causes shortness of breath and/or chronic coughing that can easily be mixed up with allergies or a common cold. In many cases mesothelioma is discovered by accident when patients are looking into these symptoms. Other symptoms of pleural mesothelioma include:

-Chest Pain

-Chronic coughing that worsens over time

-Shortness of breath

-Coughing up blood

-Fatigue

-Wheezing

-Lung infection

-Swollen lymph nodes

-Loss of appetite and weight loss

75% of all mesothelioma cases are Pleural mesothelioma. Another type is called Peritoneal mesothelioma. Peritoneal mesothelioma affects the lining around the stomach and intestines and can be just as dangerous and deadly. Symptoms of Peritoneal mesothelioma include:

-Pain or swelling in the abdomen

-Weight loss

-Bowel obstruction – blockage in the small / large intestine

-Anemia – reduction in number of red blood cells

-Fever

High risk groups such as asbestos and construction workers must undergo frequent check-ups to monitor any conditions leading to mesothelioma. Because this cancer is so deadly, early diagnosis and treatment can help prolong life, but the mortality rate is usually 100% within five years.