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Alternative Cancer Treatment, Immunotherapy

Your Body Knows Best: Why Immunotherapy Works

Your Body Knows Best
Your Body Knows Best

Last year Science magazine hailed immunotherapy as the medical “Breakthrough of the Year.” After decades spent trying to cut cancer out, poison it with chemicals and bombard it with radiation, cancer researchers are discovering that your body knows best! Increasingly, practitioners of Western medicine are joining Issels’ experts in integrative immunotherapy in recognizing the power of the body’s immune system to fight cancer and heal itself.

Integrative Immunotherapy

Today, immunotherapy is being used successfully as both a primary cancer treatment and in conjunction with traditional Western treatments. When used as a primary treatment, integrative immunotherapy offers cancer patients an improved quality of life both during and after treatment. When combined with traditional treatments such as chemotherapy, immunotherapy has been found to decrease the length of treatment and reduce toxic side effects.

For cancer patients, including integrated immunotherapy in their cancer treatment plan is a win-win scenario. Immunotherapy boosts the body’s natural defense system which helps your body fight cancer. But it also improves immune system strength and health, giving your body the resources it needs to keep cancer from coming back.

60+ Years of Experience

Issels Oncology Centers have more than 60 years experience using integrative immunotherapy to treat cancer. Our methods have produced a unique history of complete, long-term remission of advanced Stage 4 cancers and cancers that have proven resistant to standard cancer treatments. We offer a wide range of alternative cancer treatments, cancer vaccines, and advanced targeted therapies at our cancer medical centers.

Visit our website to find out more about integrative immunotherapy and why we think your body knows best when it comes to fighting cancer.

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Testimonials

What Do Our Patients Say About Our Treatment Program?

Positive Feedback
Positive Feedback

We could tell you all about the treatment provided at our alternative cancer therapy center. Our mind-body approach has made Issels Treatment® a leader in individualized immunotherapy for more than 60 years. But we’re proud and honored to let our patients speak for us.

  • In early 2007 Jacinta McShane arrived at Issels from her home in England. She had been battling recurring breast cancer with lung metastases, choosing to come here after refusing her doctors’ advice to begin radiation and chemotherapy. “Nothing really prepared me for the inspirational, loving atmosphere of this healing oasis. Here I was ‘cared for’ as Jacinta – a person first and foremost who happens to have breast cancer. At times, I felt more like an invited guest than a patient at all.” She continues to lead a happy, healthy life.
  • Joseph Momot came to us in June 2010 after being told his liver cancer was terminal and he had only a few months left. “It was a really, really rapid recovery for me so I call it a miracle place.” His liver is now functioning normally and he’s able to walk freely.
  • After round-the-clock chemotherapy for leukemia, Barbara Humphrey decided against a bone marrow transplant and came to Issels instead. “They care about you just like they would about someone in their own family … That’s what I love about the Issels clinic – you become empowered with so much knowledge.”

Nothing gives us more satisfaction than helping our patients to resume healthy and productive lives.  Please call 888.447.7357 or contact us online for more information.

Alternative Cancer Treatment

Relieve Stress and Insomnia with “Laughter Yoga”

Have a Good Laugh
Have a Good Laugh

It’s long been said that laughter is the best medicine. Letting go with a deep belly laugh can provide a physical and emotional release. A doctor in Taipei is helping cancer patients improve their moods and sleep better with a class in laughing.

Liao Chih-Ying, director of radiation oncology at Taichung Hospital, first learned about “laughter yoga” in the United States and introduced it at his hospital in October 2013. This innovative method is based on the idea that forced laughter provides the same physical and emotional benefits as spontaneous laughter. Through regular practice, the fake laughter can eventually become genuine.

According to Dr. Liao, many cancer patients experience varying degrees of post-traumatic stress disorder. Symptoms can include depression, stress and insomnia. This creates a domino effect when stress-related hormones and chemicals weaken the immune system, which can allow the cancer to spread.

Laughter stimulates production of endorphins, which are the body’s natural pain relievers. Dr. Liao believed that learning to laugh more frequently could be a healthy way to reduce the patients’ mood disorders. Yoga instructor Lai Ching-ju was asked to teach a weekly one-hour class at the hospital. Two months later roughly 70 percent of the participants reported improvements in their pain and mood levels as well as better quality sleep.

At Issels Santa Barbara we also believe that improving your quality of life can help build your defense mechanisms. Our personalized alternative cancer therapies take a mind-body approach toward restoring health. Please contact us for more information.

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Cancer Research, Immunotherapy

Interesting New Cancer Treatments

Build Up Your Immune System
Build Up Your Immune System

Cancer treatment is in a state of flux. The three cancer treatments – surgery, chemotherapy and radiation — that have dominated Western medicine for decades are finding much needed competition in interesting new cancer treatments. Recent genetic and cellular research has resulted in discoveries that are broadening our understanding of cancer and how cancer cells interact with the body’s immune system.

These fascinating revelations are refocusing our approach to cancer treatment as traditionalists begin to recognize the benefits of integrative medicine and immunotherapy in treating cancer.

Among the more interesting new treatment approaches are:

  • Strengthening immune response. Genome sequencing is being used to identify immune system cells that attack specific mutations in malignant cells. In a recent trial, billions of immune system cells were replicated in the laboratory and infused into the patient’s bloodstream. According to a New York Times article, the patient’s tumors began “melting away.”
  • Combining alternative and conventional treatments. Increasingly, alternative cancer therapies are being used hand-in-hand with conventional cancer treatments as oncologists recognize the value of taking an integrative approach to treating cancer. By combining immunotherapy with conventional treatment, patients are experiencing better outcomes with fewer problematic side effects.
  • Targeting cell processes. Advanced targeted therapies are being used to manipulate specific cell processes, allowing immune system cells to more effectively and efficiently attack cancer cells. Researchers are also experimenting with genetically reprogramming cells. While promising, early trials have also proven dangerous for the patients, as a recent Forbes article indicates.

To keep abreast of new cancer treatments, subscribe to our e-Newsletter.

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Stage Four Cancer Treatment

Stage 4 Cancer: From Desperation To Hope

There is Still Hope
There is Still Hope

No other disease carries the aura of fear and panic associated with cancer. Until recently a cancer diagnosis was considered a death warrant. But new discoveries and a move toward integrative cancer treatments have pushed back the shroud of death, extending the average cancer survival rate from 5 to 10 years – and many patients are living decades longer. Cancer deaths in the U.S. have been declining steadily over the past 20 years. Today, integrative immunotherapy offers even stage 4 cancer patients real hope of long-term remission.

Stage 4 Transformation

Many stage 4 cancer patients turn to Issels alternative cancer treatment centers after traditional cancer treatments have failed. They arrive at our clinics sick and in despair. Many are too ill to walk or talk. Moving beyond standard treatments is an act of desperation — a final grasp at life – as it was for Jim Gibson. Jim’s decision to seek integrative immunotherapy for recurrent small cell lung cancer was a last resort that proved to be both life-saving and life changing. Four weeks after beginning Issels Treatment®, Jim achieved complete remission. Now 10 years cancer-free, Jim leads a healthy active life.

From Desperation to Hope

Jim’s story is not unique among Issels’ patients. We urge you to listen to our patients’ stories. Each story is a tale of desperation transformed by hope under the care of Issels compassionate staff. While each patient’s story is unique; many, including patients with stage 4 cancer, have achieved complete and long-term remission of their cancer as a result of Issels non-toxic individualized immunotherapy.

The positive results being achieved with integrative immunotherapy are leading more cancer patients to choose immunotherapy as a primary treatment. As our patient Nicole revealed in her video, “It would be so nice if I had come here first.”

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Immunotherapy

Integrative Immunotherapy: Cancer Treatment that Improves Quality of Life

Relax
Relax

Cancer treatment and quality of life often generally considered mutually exclusive terms. When surgery, chemotherapy and radiation are the only options, cancer patients often find the “cure” to be as painful and damaging to their well-being as — and sometimes worse — than the disease.

If the lessons of history hold true, today’s standard cancer treatments will someday be considered barbaric. Even if cancer is not completely preventable in the future, it is likely that surgery, chemotherapy and radiation will be replaced by kinder, gentler, more effective cancer treatments that do not rely on destroying the body to heal it. We are already heading in that direction.

Immunotherapy: Natural Defense

Integrative immunotherapy, which has formed the basis of Issels’ holistic cancer treatments for more than 60 years, has allowed many cancer patients to treat their cancer and enjoy a better quality of life. Issels’ unique record of complete and long-term remission of advanced cancers and cancers that had proven resistant to the standard cancer treatments favored by practitioners of Western medicine demonstrates that cancer can be successfully fought by tapping into the body’s own natural defense mechanism – our immune system.

Emphasis On Quality of Life

Increasingly, Western cancer researchers are coming to the same conclusions that have driven Issels’ alternative cancer therapies for decades:

  • They have begun to recognize the power of the body’s immune system to fight cancer without causing patients additional harm.
  • They have begun to realize that fighting cancer requires an integrative approach that attacks cancer on multiple levels.
  • They are beginning to understand that cancer patients want and deserve to enjoy a high quality of life both during and after treatment.

At Issels alternative cancer treatment centers, you do not have to choose between treatment and quality of life – we offer both!