Category Archives: Living with Cancer

Living with Cancer, Stage Four Cancer Treatment, Stress Management

The Tough Questions – How Long Will I live?

How Long?
How Long?

If you receive a cancer diagnosis, it is normal to ask, “How long will I live?” Despite the tremendous strides made in battling cancer and extending the life expectancy of cancer patients, The Big C still carries the death stigma.

An Unanswerable Question

None of us can know how long we will live. Whether or not you have cancer, life eventually comes to an end. Sometimes cancer hastens those final days, but more and more frequently it does not. There is no magic calculator that can predict with 100% accuracy when your last day on Earth will dawn.

Prepare for Tomorrow; Live for Today

The advice of people who have faced fatal illness is to prepare for the worst but live with hope. Survivors say knowing your affairs are in order and your loved ones are taken care of frees you to live each day to the fullest.

Many Will Outlive Cancer

Today, many people with some of the most common and most prevalent forms of cancer, such as breast and prostate cancer, can realistically expect to beat cancer, live long and happy lives, and die of old age or other causes. Certain forms of cancer are now considered so slow growing and unlikely to impact patients’ lives that testing and treatment are no longer recommended. You’re more likely to die of something else before you feel cancer’s effects.

Revolutionizing Cancer Treatment

Scientific progress in genetic and cellular research and recognition of the immense value of immunotherapy are revolutionizing cancer treatment and increasing life expectancy. In Issels’ more than 60 years of experience, many stage 4 cancer patients have achieved long-term remission with integrative immunotherapy.

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Immunotherapy, Living with Cancer

The Tough Questions – Should I Pursue Chemotherapy?

Alternative Cancer Treatment
Alternative Cancer Treatment

Chemotherapy is the double-edged sword many cancer patients dread. Patients are told they must undergo chemotherapy to save their lives, but the side effects of chemo can be so traumatic that patients frequently wonder if life with chemo is worth living. Many of these patients are finding that alternative cancer treatments can offer similar results without chemotherapy’s devastating side effects.

Chemo’s Toll on the Body

The problem with chemotherapy is that it cannot discriminate between cancerous and healthy cells. Inside your body, chemo’s toxic chemicals target fast-growing cells, both cancerous and healthy. In the process, many healthy cells are killed or damaged.

Chemotherapy’s impact on the body can be felt from head to toe, as Healthline’s infographic illustrates. From hair loss and chemo brain to sexual dysfunction and infertility to swollen feet and extreme fatigue, chemotherapy’s side effects are as dreaded as the disease it is designed to treat.

Pain without Gain

What makes the decision to undergo chemotherapy even more difficult for cancer patients is the lack of guarantee that the suffering will retard their cancer. Both patients and cancers can develop resistance to chemotherapy, making it an ineffective treatment choice. When traditional medicine fails to offer patients alternative treatment options, they are forced to suffer for nothing.

Alternatives to Chemo

Integrative immunotherapy offers alternatives to chemotherapy that work with the body to fight cancer. Using non-toxic targeted therapies, immunotherapy enhances the body’s natural ability to fight off disease without toxic side effects.

Choosing a cancer treatment program is a personal decision to discuss with your doctor and family, but there are options to chemotherapy. Visit our website to learn more about integrative immunotherapy.

Immunotherapy, Living with Cancer

Immunotherapy Explained

Immunotherapy Explained
Immunotherapy Explained

Integrative immunotherapy uses the power of the immune system in order to fight cancer, mobilizing your entire immune system in order to give your defenses the upper hand.

Immunotherapy is different
While traditional cancer therapies such as drugs and radiation kill both healthy cells and cancerous cells, causing a variety of side effects, immunotherapy…

  • Benefits a multitude of cancer types.
  • Promotes the growth of healthy cells, selectively killing cancer.
  • Is powerful, attacking cancer systemically – throughout your whole body.
  • Creates few to no side effects.

Types of immunotherapy
Immunotherapy fights cancer in one or two ways, by stimulating your immune system as a whole to attack cancer, or by giving you specific immune system components, such as man-made or lab grown immune  proteins, providing more targeted therapy. Immunotherapy may also be referred to as biologic or biotherapy.   

Key players starring in your immunotherapy arsenal include:

  • Dendritic Cells
    Intelligence agents alerting your immune system and strategizing attacks against cancer.
  • CD4 & Helper T-Cells
    Commandants directing and coordinating the cancer response.
  • B-Cells
    Munitions factories churning out antibodies.
  • CD8 & Killer T-Cells
    The assassins of cancer cells.
  • Cytokines
    Communicate and help coordinate attacks.
  • Antibodies
    Ammunition, seeking out and binding to cancer cells to mark them for attack.
  • Regulatory T-Cells
    Checks and balances your immune system, preventing damage to healthy cells.

The future of cancer therapy is happening now
In the last few decades, immunotherapy has become an important part of many cancer treatments. It is expected to be a key player in the future of cancer therapy, with many new treatments under study.

Want to learn more about the future of cancer therapy what immunotherapy has to offer you? Contact Issels today.

Immuno-Oncology, Living with Cancer, Stage Four Cancer Treatment

The Tough Questions – What Should I Tell My Kids About Cancer?

Telling Kids About Cancer
Telling Kids About Cancer

Naturally, you to want to protect your children from bad news. The instinct to shelter them may make you reluctant to tell them about your cancer; however, it is best that you do. It will be difficult to continue hiding it and children are often able to sense when something is wrong. They may be more worried if they feel that important news is being kept from them.

Explain the Illness
Find a time where you will not be interrupted or distracted.  Younger children will not need as much detail as older ones; too much information may confuse and distress them. Phrase answers to questions so that each child will be able to understand. Children up to age eight may be given a short explanation. Tell them that cancer means a part of your body that is not doing what it is supposed to do. There are bad cells in your body that can spread, so they need to be kept from growing or to be removed.

Prepare for reactions such as the child thinking that they caused the cancer (“magical thinking”) or that it is contagious. You may have to explain that cancer cannot be transmitted to them or the other parent.

For older children, name the illness so that they do not misunderstand. They may need a more detailed explanation and may ask questions about your specific type of cancer. If they have more information, they are less likely to feel helpless.

Explain to the child that there are treatments available that can help and that it is much rarer for people to die from cancer than it used to be.

 

Living with Cancer, Stress Management

Dealing With Cancer Related Stress

The Stress Of Cancer
The Stress Of Cancer

Dealing with the stress of cancer is difficult, both for the patient and his or her family. Aside from the obvious worry and questions about the illness and treatments are the overwhelming details that must be handled regarding health insurance, medical appointments and financial concerns.

For the Patient

  • It’s OK to not be OK. Your mind and body are reacting to many new challenges, and if you feel sad, tired, confused, angry, lost, or afraid, it’s OK.
  • You may not think a support group is for you, but connecting with others going through similar situations, whether in person or online, can reinforce the idea that you’re not alone. And your insight might help someone else. Sometimes that is enough to make you feel more positive.
  • Give your body a break. Don’t push it. Give yourself permission to rest more by simplifying your routine. Treat yourself to massages, eat healthy and exercise as little or as much as you want.
  • Prioritize what’s really important to you and unplug from anything that causes undue stress.

For the Family Caregiver

  • Remember that your loved one is feeling very out of control, so sharing input in as many details and decisions as possible will keep the paths of communication open and ease stress between you.
  • Maintain a good support system of family and friends. Don’t become overwhelmed with the stress of caring for a family member with cancer.
  • Keep yourself healthy and watch for the warning signs of stress and depression – sleeplessness, irritability, forgetfulness and exhaustion to name a few.

Don’t let cancer related stress diminish the quality of life you or your loved ones deserve. The Issels Treatment® uses natural, alternative protocols, individualized for the patient’s health and well-being.

Alternative Cancer Treatment, Living with Cancer

Living with Cancer – Beneficial Supplements for Living with Cancer

Healthy Living With Cancer
Healthy Living With Cancer

Conventional cancer treatments, while capable of saving people’s lives, can also zap the human body of crucial vitamins and minerals.  When patients go through chemotherapy and radiation, for example, they may feel lethargic, have brittle hair and nails, and find that they cannot fight off colds and infections very well.

Rather than take chances on their bodies being able to resist viruses and bacteria or submit to feeling tired and physically drained until their treatments are done, most may be able to reclaim their energy and immune support by taking supplements in conjunction with alternative or conventional cancer treatments.

Before a patient takes any vitamins or supplements, they should consult their doctors to make sure that any product that they take will not interfere with their treatment.  However, studies have noted that antioxidants, particularly those that contain Vitamins A, C, and E are effective in fighting free radicals in the body and repairing some of the damage that these free radicals have inflicted on a person’s DNA.

Likewise, chemotherapy and radiation are well known to deplete a person’s iron level and leave that individual feeling lethargic and sick.  People whose blood iron levels are found to be very low during cancer treatment may be advised to take an iron supplement or a multi-vitamin that contains 100 percent of the daily recommended dose of iron. They should take their iron supplement with fruit juice, as the Vitamin C in juice will bind with the iron in the supplement and help transmit it throughout one’s body better.

People who go through cancer treatments look forward to recovering from their illness.  When they feel drained of energy, have low blood iron, or have other signs of nutritional deficiencies like brittle hair and nails, they may recoup some of their former physical characteristics by taking a supplement.