Curing Cancer

It's a bold statement, but we still hear of it happening here and there.  Of course, there's loads of information online about natural cures, but don't most of them seem hokey for whatever reason or just not nearly detailed enough to give anybody any confidence?  I have been a huge organic food advocate, studied nutrition and herbs, and grown organic vegetables and herbs for years now.  I was diagnosed with cancer 5 years ago.  I felt that there had to be a natural way to heal, therefore, I set our doing tons of research and invested a lot into finding my way through my crisis.  I ended up curing my stage 2 cancer within a pretty short time using a combination of diet, supplements, and herbs.  It was pretty intensive.  I will say that my way is definitely not the only way and I have known of many other stories where people have cured themselves.  I vowed that if I cured my cancer that I would give a detailed report on every single thing that I did.  I fulfilled that vow by creating a blog, which is a blog that will continue to evolve and explore the many facets of overall health.  My goal is to empower others, dispel myths, support organic choices and healthy living, while documenting many other related topics.  www.healingfield.wordpress.com

Kudos to you Hamilton and I wish you many years of success.  

I too believe (or hope) that there are alternatives to the current mainstream methods.  

Personally I believe that we are so scared when we get some sort of diagnosis from modern doctors that we feel me must go along with modern treatments or die.  It is a highly personal and emotional decision.

For myself I believe in herbal/food/lifestyle treatments and and happy to learn about the things that others have tried that they believe work.

I am currently growing and regularly taking turmeric. It is my hope that this root/herb will slow and possibly reverse my issues with skin cancer.

Since the stat is something like 1 in 2 people will develop cancer, you'd think more people would be open minded to alternative medicine or at least living an alternative lifestyle, though it's not really the case in my experience which is really heart-wrenching.

Jeanine Gurley Jacildone wrote: Personally I believe that we are so scared when we get some sort of diagnosis from modern doctors that we feel me must go along with modern treatments or die.  

When a doctor says "you need to do ___ or you will likely not live" people interpret it differently. Some get scared and go along with whatever the doctor wants without any further inquiries, while a few think "this guy is only giving me a single option?". The people of the latter group that I've known have usually found better modern doctors who will offer more than one option and don't put it in a form of an ultimatum.

Wishing you well with your recovery.

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Any older nurses will know the nickname for chemo, which they called Draino. If people knew even something as simple as that, I'd think they'd start to look at alternatives a little more closely. My grandmother recently had a chat with me about how she wouldn't get chemo if she was diagnosed because of how it might stop the cancer but leave a person unable to live a quality life afterwards. I was glad she came to that conclusion on her own, as it takes a lot of energy to get people to think outside of traditional medicine they put their faith in their entire lives. She's the only one out of 4 grandparents that doesn't have clear signs of cancer, and another 2 already got their chemo treatments.

I'm fairly young still, but I put health at the top of my priority list when I was 21. I hope that with some good lifestyle choices I either won't have to do such intense measures when faced with illness, or at the very least I'll be mentally and physically prepared when that does happen.

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Hamilton, good on you for not giving up and for continuing to search until you were cured. Thanks for taking the time to write such detail about your experience. I only read the last 3 posts so far, but will check out some of the older ones later tonight.

Great thread Hamilton, I am happy to hear of your successful alternative treatment.

Cancer comes in many forms and they can work differently, which is why some herbals and nutritional methods work for some while other herbals and nutrition is needed for others. It is truly a case by case situation past a point.

The best cure is prevention by getting into to proper diet with foods that provide the proper nutrition (these foods can be very hard to find locally, do not depend on a grocer to provide nutritional foods).

Lately there has been a glut of touting "Super Foods" resulting in many people going overboard on these foods to the point of neglecting other foods, this is not the way to go either.

For those who find out they have cancer, one of the huge determining factors is what stage the disease is in when found, the lower the stage, the better the alternative cures will work.
For those who decide to go only the "conventional modern medicine" path, nutrition becomes the best way to keep body strength at a high enough stage to be able to survive the poisons pumped into the body.
Growing your own foods can increase the nutritional values which will have great effect on the immune system and the body's ability to fight the disease and even help destroy it.

For those following alternatives be sure the nutrition is in the foods, make sure the minerals are there in quantity and quality. Herbals should be freshly prepared as often as possible and they should have been grown in the best conditions possible.
Doing all this will increase the chances for complete cure of the disease, regardless of which disease it is.

Redhawk

Glad you kicked it Hamilton! I wish you many years of cancer free life.

While I have never been diagnosed with cancer, it has been in my life; my father died from it in 2011, and I’ve lost several friends from it as well. My friends who died from cancer weren’t healthy people, having lived a life of drinking and smoking everyday, and several decades of that caught up to them. They were all in their 50’s when they died. I noticed their rapid decline when they chose chemo and radiation. It’s merely my observation, but I believe the chemo pushed them into the grave faster, as their sick bodies just couldn’t handle more toxic crap. It’s my opinion they could’ve lived another 6 or 12 months or maybe more if they had just skipped the chemo & radiation and just continued to live their life as they chose. Chemo is nasty stuff, and a side effect of this “treatment” is other cancers (I’m not making this up. Ask any oncologist). It makes zero sense to me to “treat” cancer with things that cause cancer, to me it’s like treating a burn on my hand with more fire.

I sincerely believe in natures pharmacopoeia, that treatments and even cures for most of what ails us humans can be found growing on this planet of ours. Herbs, roots, and mushrooms, to name a few, contain amazing compounds, some helping our bodies heal while others actively destroying tumors and cancers. These are great tools, but I also think a foundation of good health via eating quality, un-processed, nutrient dense foods is really the key to preventing disease, including cancer.

I have cancer and have mixed thoughts regarding it. Considering it is just rogue cells it is very hard to combat. Obviously I have seen lifelong smokers perish from lung cancer that is not all that unexpected, but have also seen a man that was president of Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association who devoted his life to organic food be felled by it quickly himself. So no one is immune that is for sure.

I have changed my diet considerably though however, and while not complete, my understanding is that cancer feeds upon processed sugars and acidity. So I am limiting those. Lifestyle changes are hard, and I would by lying if I said I was 100%, but I am better than what I was.

Lately there has been a glut of touting "Super Foods" resulting in many people going overboard on these foods to the point of neglecting other foods, this is not the way to go either.  

 I definitely agree.  I do tend to suggest to people who have cancer, or those who are recovering from cancer to research Chaga, and other fungi like Turkey Tails, which are on the leading edge of modern and alternative cancer research.  I brew birch chaga (inonotos Obliquus) regularly as a preventative. I brew it on top of my woodstove for extended periods, and take a thermos of it to work with me.  Diet is super important, but so is environmental toxicity.   I work in a toxic environment (welding manganese), and thus know that my skin is exposed to higher levels of this metal then it should be.  

These types of thread always sit uncomfortably with me. Literally millions of people get cancer every year. Some of those get better without any kind of intervention. The immune system is pretty remarkable like that.

So, even if we do nothing else, some people get better. Given that is the case it isn't at all surprising that there are lots of anecdotes about people using diet, healthy living and exercise to cure cancer. But the people who tried that and it didn't work for don't get to tell their stories. Their anecdotes don't get repeated. They literally died, and for the most part their stories died with them.

The plural of anecdote is not evidence.

These stories play on the hopes and fears of the sick and vulnerable, and too often they get hijacked by someone trying to sell something. The strength of the claims that sometimes get made, given the severity of the consequences if they are mistaken (death!), makes me feel deeply uncomfortable.

Hamilton Trimm wrote:It's a bold statement

I think the original poster was very accurate in starting this thread in this manner.

Myself, I think cancer is sort of like farming because that is life as well, at least for me! By that I mean before I started out farming I looked at all my options and then chose the best ones I should engage in based on what best fit my farm. I think that is what anyone with cancer should do; listen to the Doctors, explore alternatives, and then decide what is best for them.

No one has to remind people with cancer what may be right around the corner; it is upon their minds the moment they here "You have cancer" is uttered. Only people who have heard those words truly understand the gravity of that situation.

I agree Travis, this is one of those things that until you are part of the group, you really have no clue and you never will have.

I have squamous cell carcinoma, my wife has gone through the first part of colon cancer, she is now on round two since the operation to save her life didn't get every cell.

Those who have the disease have a different knowledge than anyone else, including the care giver/ loved ones closest to the patient, who have a knowledge also unknown to those who aren't going through it.

Michael Cox wrote:
The plural of anecdote is not evidence.

Yet, to look at things another way, what is a scientific study, but a collection of anecdotal experiences? Pharma use these all the time to sell their products.

I don't have cancer. But in other illnesses, I have found that both herbal and Pharma solutions work, or don't work for different people. Anecdotally.

A scientific study collects hard data, from experiments in which every thing is measured. This data, which is or should be tested twice or better three times before it is considered to be evidence in a paper.
Anecdotal experiences are not data nor can they be reproduced as science requires for something to be considered as either evidence or conclusive.

It seems quite interesting to me that so little is known in the general community about the actual science studying all these "untested" alternatives.  

With every disease from heart attacks to cancer the research is out there for just about every alternative there is.

So it is no surprize that a vegan diet is 90+% effective at reducing cholesterol, while the best cholesterol drugs are in the 30% range.

The studies have been done, but the radical changes they imply lead us to continue with ineffective half measures that yield no or limited results.

Some may remember the original diet studies with cholesterol where it was "proven" that limiting animal fat had very little effect on cholesterol.

What they didn't tell you was that in that series of studies, the one diet that showed the greatest effect was the one where all animal products were removed, and in that study cholesterol was lowered dramatically.

So why did we only hear about the half measures? The doctors running the study thought it was too extreme to ask the American People to give up their meat, dairy, eggs. (not to mention all the industries that might take a loss)

This sort of logic pervades modern medicine, and the real cures are known, researched, documented, but you will never hear them from your family doctor--most of the time.

The AMA is taught by the pharmaceutical industry and AMA doctors only get a couple hrs of nutrition courses even though study after study is showing that diet is more effective than the best drugs.

diabetes-diet, arthritis -diet, cancer-diet .............
latest on cancer alternative studies

I have a good friend who has survived his first bout of prostate cancer and chemotherapy.  In his survivors group, out of Prince George, B.C., he has brought Chaga mushrooms for them all, and has used them himself to help support his system after chemotherapy, and to help warding off further bouts of cancer.  I learned all this in my first meeting with him, when I was helping a friend to move and he was buying something from the friend.  It happened that I had a birch chopping block that was full of turkey tail mushrooms, and mentioned to him that I had to cut them off in order to chop my winter's wood this year, and asked if he would like them.  He was delighted.  I  brought them to him the next day.  The next week I went to his place for supper.  He and his wife cultivate some beautiful oyster mushrooms, and we dined on these and a few other local grown foods.  What a treat for me to share in his bounty, and to be able to put my chopping block harvest to such a use!   University Of Northern British Columbia get's nearly $400,000 grant to further it's research in cancer fighting fungi

I hear amazing things about Chaga (a cancer treatment since 1950's in Russia), B17 (which is illegal) that comes from some fruit pits like the bitter apricot kernel, and of course marijuana. CBD oil's are very potent and do not have to be psycho-active. Also hear that the main thing is getting rid of inflammation, and Turmeric is known for that.

I do not know any of this to be true, but it would seem as Hamilton experienced, a whole holistic lifestyle can change your life

marijuana. CBD oil's are very potent

 that reminds me, I have a friend who is having success curing skin cancer on his nose using this oil.

Bryant RedHawk wrote:I agree Travis, this is one of those things that until you are part of the group, you really have no clue and you never will have.

I have squamous cell carcinoma, my wife has gone through the first part of colon cancer, she is now on round two since the operation to save her life didn't get every cell.

Those who have the disease have a different knowledge than anyone else, including the care giver/ loved ones closest to the patient, who have a knowledge also unknown to those who aren't going through it.

I am sorry to hear of your cancer situation Redhawk. I know we have always made a pretty formidable team on Permies (in my opinion anyway) because of our fellow Indian heritage and understanding of farming. Sadly, last night my Endocrinologist called me and instructed me to contact my regular Dr immediately; it appears the cancer has moved to my liver.  It is not necessarily a death sentence for me; but the plot definitely thickens.

Joylynn Hardesty wrote:
Yet, to look at things another way, what is a scientific study, but a collection of anecdotal experiences? Pharma use these all the time to sell their products.

"Yet, to look at things another way, what is a scientific study, but a collection of anecdotal experiences?" - The scientific method exists precisely to remove the biases associated with treating anecdotes as evidence. Well designed scientific studies are carefully constructed using statistical techniques to decide whether results are meaningful or not. They have control groups, they use large sample sizes and record outcomes both positive and negative. The methods studies use are published and available for scrutiny. Individual studies frequently get criticized and dismissed as flawed - but that is the point, dubious evidence gets discarded and high value evidence is retained. If you don't accept that process then you have no reliable method of filtering truth from falsehood. Anyone can make any claim and there is no mechanism for it be challenged. The scientific method may have its problems - not least of which that the bureaucracy has been largely hijacked by large companies - but alternative medicine doesn't even attempt to offer an alternative frame work to scrutinize their claims. At least as a consumer I can scrutinize the data and the methodology of studies personally - it is published, available and transparent. I can go back to the source and judge for myself whether the trials are trustworthy.

"Pharma use these all the time to sell their products." - Yep, and the fact that they do so is appalling. They appeal to the hopes and fears of the vulnerable. But that is my exact same complaint about people who push alternative remedies, and they frequently have less evidence or justification. Evidence based medicine should be the gold standard in modern society. If a medication is being recommended and sold based on marketing then something has gone very wrong with your medical system - it has been hijacked by corporate interests over the health care of the people it serves. This is more of an indictment of the American health care system than anything else. Here in the UK the marketing of drugs is strictly regulated to prevent exactly that kind of abuse. Doctors recommend the most effective medications, based on the current best evidence.

bob day wrote:It seems quite interesting to me that so little is known in the general community about the actual science studying all these "untested" alternatives.  

With every disease from heart attacks to cancer the research is out there for just about every alternative there is.

Bob - I use Mendeley to find research papers.

https://www.mendeley.com

There is an unbelievable amount of stuff out there. I found some interesting stuff on the chaga mushroom that was mentioned earlier.
https://www.mendeley.com/research-papers/cancer-cell-cytotoxicity-extracts-small-phenolic-compounds-chaga-inonotus-obliquus-persoon-pilat/
https://www.mendeley.com/research-papers/potential-role-medicinal-mushrooms-breast-cancer-treatment-current-knowledge-future-perspectives-2/

But what I can't see yet is a paper that goes the next step and takes a compound that works in a lab and converts it to a treatment that saves lives when applied to people.

And here is another source found through Mendeley to do with diet and cancer
https://www.mendeley.com/research-papers/nutrition-diet-cancer-8/
Annotation Covering decades of research in chemoprevention of cancer, this text reviews current knowledge of the impact of nutrition and diet in cancer prevention and therapy. Discusses nutrigenetics, nutritional epigenomics, nutritional transcriptomics and metabolomics.

Again, evidence based medicine (that's actually one of this md's slogans, and all he does is research the scientific studies,)--  actual science/ research

Here's another wikipedia  description of organization

This is their website  Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine

"Pharma use these all the time to sell their products." - Yep, and the fact that they do so is appalling. They appeal to the hopes and fears of the vulnerable. But that is my exact same complaint about people who push alternative remedies, and they frequently have less evidence or justification. Evidence based medicine should be the gold standard in modern society.

 While I am all for the scientific method, bring it on, there is a lot to be said for centuries old techniques that have proven time and again to be effective in traditional cultures.  They might not go about 'studying' and using very structured controls, but the proof is in the pudding.  The pudding of modern pharma on the other hand, does not have such a sense of texture or structure, or subtlety of flavor; at least not in North America.  It seems that the U.K.s system is a lot better. The problem here is that the corporate agenda not only hijacked the system, they stole the funding model as well; and it is only just recently that any alternative therapy was given even the chance at a green light for experiments.  The entire focus was on a better life through chemistry.

am sorry to hear of your cancer situation Redhawk. I know we have always made a pretty formidable team on Permies (in my opinion anyway) because of our fellow Indian heritage and understanding of farming. Sadly, last night my Endocrinologist called me and instructed me to contact my regular Dr immediately; it appears the cancer has moved to my liver.  It is not necessarily a death sentence for me; but the plot definitely thickens

 Wow, Travis, I'm sorry to hear that.  Best of luck to you, and to Redhawk as well.  Wishing you both whole healthy long lives with your loved ones.

Roberto pokachinni wrote:
While I am all for the scientific method, bring it on, there is a lot to be said for centuries old techniques that have proven time and again to be effective in traditional cultures.  They might not go about 'studying' and using very structured controls, but the proof is in the pudding.

And we are back to "anecdote vrs evidence". Just because a technique is old doesn't mean it is effective. Bloodletting was used for centuries to treat almost everything. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloodletting

Some people got better after bloodletting and a combination of the placebo effect and confirmation bias led to it becoming mainstream.

As far as traditional medicines being effective, or not - if they are effective then their impact will be measurable in controlled trials. If they are not measurable, then they are not effective - pretty much by definition of what is meant by "effective" when talking about medical applications. The medical industry is always scouting for new potential treatments and most of the "traditional" medicines have been pretty thoroughly tested and evaluated.

Sorry Michael, I was writing before you posted, then had a couple calls...

I'm not personally familiar with Chaga mushrooms, but I do know that fungi and us are closely related and it makes perfect sense that various mushrooms could have wonderful effects treating cancer.

I was trying to read and understand one of the links, but it appeared to be research trying to get another magic bullet drug for big Pharma.

I can understand the fascination with this chemical precision.
I prefer Dr. Gregger looking at as much research as he can, eliminating conflicts of interest, poor study design, etc, and coming back with the studies that actually stand the test, then presenting them to me in a way that is easily understood. The Chaga studies might be briefly mentioned, but they would be in connection with the hundreds of other studies working  along similar lines.

I appreciate the enthusiasm for Chaga, but I have many more tools in my box to use in conjunction with it. That's not to say it can't work miracles, but like you allude to, knowing when, where, and how much to use are really the issues.

30+ years ago I read a book on curing cancer and it put forth the idea that we had dozens/hundreds/ thousands of cures for cancer, but there were many different cancers and not all cures worked the same way for all cancers.

There is a basic diet that is shown to be effective in slowing, stopping, reversing cancer--it is being cemented in place by research now, but was known (anecdotally) for a long time.

Along the way though, I will tell the story I was told about a woman with a grapefruit sized lump in her breast, lymph nodes under her arm fully engaged in cancer , being pushed around from doctor to doctor without treatment because she had no money (best thing that could have happened to her). Poke root poultices started to clean up and isolate the tumor (still an open sore on the woman's breast) but now hard and the size of a golf ball.

A surgeon the healer happened to know looked at it and was asked if there was any way to get the golf ball out of the way so the poultices could work more effectively on drawing out the cancer from the lymph connections behind it. The surgeon simply grabbed it and twisted and pulled the golf ball away and the poultices continued till the woman was asymptomatic.

The key here is not the pokeroot, although that certainly sped up the removal of the specific cancer. The key was the diet. The body wants to heal if we let it.

I am sorry to hear of your cancer situation Redhawk. I know we have always made a pretty formidable team on Permies (in my opinion anyway) because of our fellow Indian heritage and understanding of farming. Sadly, last night my Endocrinologist called me and instructed me to contact my regular Dr immediately; it appears the cancer has moved to my liver.  It is not necessarily a death sentence for me; but the plot definitely thickens.

I'm sorry to hear that; I will be praying for both of you.

bob day wrote:SThe surgeon simply grabbed it and twisted and pulled the golf ball away and the poultices continued till the woman was asymptomatic.

I think stories like this are why many people don't put stock in alternative medicines.

Redhawk and Travis, I wish you both the best and hope for your speedy recovery.  Although I don't know your wife Redhawk, the same goes for her.

I guess that I didn't state loudly enough that I am all for the scientific method.  I'm all for the scientific method! bring it on.  But there is more out there than science, and I will get to that later.

and we are back to "anecdote vrs evidence". Just because a technique is old doesn't mean it is effective. Bloodletting was used for centuries to treat almost everything.

 I"m not saying, nor did I say, that just because it's old that that equates to it being effective.  I'm saying that traditional tribal cultures have healthy cultures; far healthier than our modern culture, and that has a lot to do with medicines that work, food that is healthy, and cultures that are self enhancing.  There is a reason that wild, organic local food, good exercise, alternative therapies, and stress free cultural memes are on the rise, and it's not because the medical industry decided that was the way that we were going to be healthier, it's because that is the direction that will lead us back to health, and we intuitively know this. because our genetic cellular memories are resonating from a hundred thousand years of living this way, and not by chemical medicine and stressed out living.  The better life through chemistry approach has failed to yield the results, despite the many billions invested.  Sure it cures some things but usually with a cost of extreme side effects or long term unknowns.   Look at the massive amount of malpractice and corruption (and I'm sure that their are plenty of examples in the U.K as well).  The amount of deaths due to misdiagnoses, improper medications, and general apathy toward real preventative medicine toward wholistic health is astounding in the medical industry.  The modern medical establishment is out scouting for medicines, but they want to take coca and make cocaine, the want to take poppies and make heroin, they want to take cannabis and make cannibinol pills.  They isolate only what they deem is the most potent thing in something, whereas the plant itself has all the balance to offer the patient.  They will find what they are seeking, but they will not find what they should be looking for.   If they were really interested in gaining medicinal knowledge then they would be at the forefront of stopping the felling of virgin forests and the assimilation of indigenous peoples globally.        

So, anyway, back to blood letting...  >   there was a time in history when tribal wise women were responsible for much of Europe's health, and the population was remarkably robust during this period, where herbal medicine was used extensively along with spirit medicine.  Then, the Roman's invaded, and with them came the church and with that came the inquisition which demonized both the healers practices and the entire cultural context in which these healers worked.  Millions of people were killed because they refused to renounce their personal tribal truth.  The entire tribal culture of Europe was banned, just as Native American cultural practices were banned by Church and State in America.  The clerics who became the defacto healers, were the ones that did the bloodletting.  This was a very different style of medicine, and it was based on the 'humours'.  These practices existed in the classic civilizations of Rome and Greece.  

The medical industry is always scouting for new potential treatments and most of the "traditional" medicines have been pretty thoroughly tested and evaluated.

 They can scout all they want, but if people don't want them to know what medicines they are using then the scouts will find nothing.  And they have every reason to not give up their medicines to the global machine.  Our history has not been kind to these medicine people.

In Europe the healers that kept quiet, buried their stories, and their practices.  In Europe most of the real medicine knowledge was lost through a thousand years of Colonial imperialism, and cultural genocide.  In America, much the same has happened with catastrophic loss of life due to epidemic disease (brought on by extreme stress, not by a lack of a lack of natural immunity; all accounts showed that the native population was in far more robust health than the average European), but some of the native people kept up the practices, and are bringing them back.  I did a part of an apprenticeship with a traditional healer in the local Indigenous Nation where I grew up, so I know first hand that there is a lot of knowledge out there that has not been made common knowledge, though some of it is being shared now.  Many Indigenous nations are just in the last couple decades waking from the extreme trauma of multi generational cyclical violence that resulted through colonialism, through genocide, and through forced assimilation.  They did not share their medicine practices, or what herbs they used, because these practices were being demonized by church and state, and still are in some cultural circles of the extreme right.  Europeans, from what I understand, have largely lost their tribal identity; and are, for the most part identified by the modern nation states (my family is Gaulish by heritage, but we call ourselves French), and the cultural monocrop that is the Great Western Civilization.  That's how history unfolded, the way I see it.  Bloodletting is hardly traditional tribal medicine.      

As far as traditional medicines being effective, or not - if they are effective then their impact will be measurable in controlled trials.

 This I can agree with, which brings me back to my first statement at the top of this post....

....But that is only part of the story.    because I can agree with many things....

There is more to traditional medicine than the physical properties of the herb, but without the esoteric knowledge to understand the spiritual nature of plant medicine, it is not easy to quantify in terms that the non-acolyte would understand.  If you are interested in a more thorough explanation of that, then I would refer you to the best modern site I know on the subject.  Eliot Cowan Plant Spirit Medicine .  His book on the subject is a delight. The scientific method will not be helpful here. And thats as far as I will go on the subject, because I'm no expert.  But I knows what I knows and I've seen whats I've seen; and unless you have been experienced, then you will likely not believe.  It's probably as simple as that.  And I'm not going to derail this thread any further with going back and forth about it.  

I really see both sides on this, and I have a lot at stake.

On one side a person has to look at the issue of Scurvy and see that the medical industry has not been trying to debunk the use of eating some oranges and Vitamin c to rid the body of that issue, and with a 4 year old daughter in Pre-School, I know they are desperately trying to teach her the importance of good nutrition. So I don't think there is a conspiracy out there against herbal remedies and good nutrition per se...

But as a person who is prone to infection, it was disheartening to hear even Phiizzer has stopped research on antibiotics because it does not pay enough. In their own words they want people to rely on medication for life, in my case anti-seizure medication and now thyroid medication. There is more money in that then someone taking antibiotics for 10 days and getting better. This is disturbing because I had a burn that was a MRSA infection and I went all the way to the end of the antibiotic train to save my life. If clydomyicin had not worked, I would be dead. It is that simple. To not look for anything beyond that because it does not pay is scary and shows the heart of drug companies.

As I said, I see both sides...

I have learned one thing in my journey as a healer. many of the things that at first seem totally unrealistic can suddenly become commonplace, even expected as normal.

An example in another field might be the rocket stove. With some normal wood stoves at 80 or 90% listed efficiency, how could anything claim to use ten times (or 20 times) less wood in a season?

At first glance this seems like a totally ridiculous claim, the numbers don't add up and anyone who makes that claim is deluded or worse. But then once the details are revealed and the rocket stove principles understood, the discussion changes, the super efficiency is accepted as a matter of course, and the impossible becomes an expected reality.

How about this story. A woman (disbeliever in herbs ) had severe sinus impaction and could not breathe through her nose at all. doctors had shoved hot needles up her nose and done unspeakable things to no avail. She couldn't sleep, her face was black and blue from the treatments and finally she was brought in to a natural healer (one of my teachers) Her husband brought her in somewhat against her will, but because he and the healer were friends and the woman was obviously in severe distress, this healer decided to help. Ordinarily we wait for people to come to us, belief goes a long way to starting a cure, but herbs can be more powerful even than a person's disbelief.

He started out by giving her horse radish and a grater and put her to work. Her eyes immediately began to tear up and she was left to grate horseradish root and cry. He returned at intervals and at first had to blow an herbal snuff into her nostrils since she could not suck anything up. But after a couple hours and repeated intermissions of grating with snuff, slowly she was able to participate more in the active inhalation of the snuff until by the end of several hours she was breathing freely again.Something the best doctors couldn't do in months of treatments.

I was at a natural healing convention and had a small table and a woman came to me  with severe sinus congestion. I had some of that same snuff formula and we rolled up a 20$bill and laid out two lines on the table for each of us-(I did it just to show her it was safe).  

She was able to suck up the first line in one nostril and as the effect hit her she jerked back and grabbed the table forcefully and I started thinking --uh oh, this may be time to get a lawyer.

I kept a brave face though and said ok, now lets do the other one, but she stood there with tears in her eyes and said "no, I don't need it, I think it's crossing over"

She left my table and I didn't see her again till a little later in the day when she grabbed my elbow and thanked me and said it was the first time she had breathed freely in a month or more.

I have found it to be an advantage to take things I don't understand and file them in the "uncertain" category, rather than discard them totally.  Even if something sounds totally unbelievable, without evidence to the contrary I find it less humiliating to not say anything. Today's impossibility is separated from tomorrow's reality only by the evolution of our own spirit. The same herbs that worked 1000 years ago still will be working tomorrow, but whether we are able to accept and use them depends on our own willingness to keep an open mind to new/old possibilities

My own limited personal experience has always verified the principles behind the stories I learned from my herbal teachers. That's why it's easy for me to believe poke could shrink that breast tumor in that manner. granted, all breast tumors are not created equal, and the key to that treatment was the size and the fact that it was already through the skin, and directly exposed to the poke root poultice. Other presentations would require different approaches.

I don't think there is a conspiracy out there against herbal remedies and good nutrition per se...  

 It doesn't take a conspiracy to create an highly profitable industry from a virtual monopoly.  The fact that the public has chosen to go the herbal medicine/nutrition route, despite the advertising budgets of Big Pharma and Industrial food/Big Ag and the intense regulatory processes involved in putting herbs and organic food on the market, should be testament enough to show that we are craving a different system.

But as a person who is prone to infection, it was disheartening to hear even Phiizzer has stopped research on antibiotics because it does not pay enough. In their own words they want people to rely on medication for life

To not look for anything beyond that because it does not pay is scary and shows the heart of drug companies.  

 The prophets of profit will create self fulfilling prophecies for profiting the prophets themselves.  Unfortunately a big chunk of what is making the economic world turn is involved in this sort of unethical business.  It's a juggernaut heading toward a cliff, but... c'est la vie.  It's not a conspiracy, but that doesn't mean that it is not contrived.  This is possibly out of ignorance of the true alternatives and not malicious/evil.  The pursuit of profit is not evil in itself---it's when the profit is at the extreme expense of others that it becomes a social consequence worth investigating and potentially culling.    

I am impressed with the way this tread is remaining mostly open minded.

There are a few problems when you start really looking into the modern medicine methods.
First off you will find a mandate by the A.M.A that requires all doctors to treat the symptoms instead of a cure.
Oncologists are not allowed to use any thing but "conventional" medicine to treat their patients, they are also the only doctors to be allowed to sell the medicines they use on their patients.
Chemo "therapies" list that they are carcinogenic, this notice is on every type of chemo drug available on the market for Oncologists to use in treatment of cancers.
Per the A.M.A. any M.D. that uses "alternative methods in lieu of the accepted chemo drug treatments for cancer" will loose their license to practice medicine, that means the governing body of modern medicine says "Don't You Dare Try Other Methodologies".

When you find an Oncologist that is open to trying other methods, drugs, herbal remedies. You are with a doctor (as opposed to a physician) he/ she cares more about their patients than most.
These doctors will still use the approved chemo drugs but if you do your research and can show them the probability that an alternative will help their patient without interfering with the chemo drugs or interacting with the chemo drugs, they will probably be fine with giving that a try.
They will (rightly so I might add) want to keep close track of the patient that tries an alternative along with the chemo, drug interactions can be very detrimental or even cause death if they aren't watched closely.
These doctors will also do their homework to back up or disprove your research, that is not a bad thing, it means they are more concerned with the patient, the due diligence of the person researching will be acknowledged and if it works better for the patient than just the chemo alone, expect the doctor to use it with other patients.

If you decide to forego the chemo treatments, be sure that what you choose has no history of increasing the size of any tumors.
Example: I found several well documented studies of Echinacea root tincture and extracts successfully treating some cancers, specifically liver and colon types, but I also found three studies (also well documented) that showed an increase in tumor size of these same cancer types.
I determined that it would be in my wife's best interest to not try the Echinacea treatments while she was undergoing chemo treatments, since that was the set of the three studies that showed increases in tumor size.
We are talking about whether or not she wants to try this treatment after she is through with her chemo treatments, her Oncologist is trying to determine how long we should wait after her last treatment to start such a regimen.
He also wants me to keep the records of the trial (should my wife decide to give it a try) so he can have the documentation of the trial for future use.
(this doctor is already using an additional herbal that we found worked very well during my wife's first go round last year).

The problems with cancers are many, there are many types and each of these is actually very much like a species, they all act differently and they all respond differently to each form of treatment.
While in tumor form, some sluff off cells that can lodge and grow elsewhere in the body, other are encapsulated and don't do any sluffing until a surgery to remove them creates the opening they need to do the sluffing off of cells.
Many forms of cancer can disguise themselves from the human immune system, making it impossible for the bodies killer cells to locate and destroy the cancer cells.
Some forms of herbal and enzymatic medicines can strip this camouflage and thus allow the bodies killer cells to recognize the enemy and destroy them.
Some of these alternative medicines also boost the killer cells abilities to do their job of destroying the enemy cells, a combination of both of these types of alternatives does do a good job of allowing the human body to heal and recover from a cancer invasion.

Since I started the journey of research, experimental trials and reduction of what doesn't work when I was found to have cancer five years ago, I have determined that for my cancer there are a number of alternative treatments available and I use them.
I still have little outbreaks but my diligence of inspecting my skin has allowed my doctor to nip in the bud any new outbreaks with complete removal of new tumors. I had a fairly complete stoppage for one year, but since I have to be in the sun for extended periods, I don't expect to be able to not have the possibility of a new tumor forming. It is possible that I might get to that point and then effect a real cure, if I do that I have won my battle for my own body, that would allow me to fully concentrate on my wife. Currently I am working on both of us at the same time.

My approach is to use foods, herbals, enzymes and amino acids to keep the body undergoing chemo treatments strong and with an elevated immune system that can see through the camouflage any cancer cell might employ, thus boosting the bodies ability to fight off the invasion by cancer cells and destroy them.
Every week I have some successes and some failures, but I see progress. I have friends that have subscribed to alternative only treatments with some success, but their cancers do comeback. This is probably because they have not discovered the complete treatment regimen for their cancer type. It is something that can not be left to what is working, there will most likely be something that can be added that will make the treatment more complete.

I expect to find that there are alternative medicines that can be used along side the conventional chemo drugs that will cure cancers, that is my goal and I am not one to settle for less than goal achievement.

Redhawk

First off you will find a mandate by the A.M.A that requires all doctors to treat the symptoms instead of a cure.  

  That's a rats nest of issues and confusion in itself.  The treating of symptoms rather than focusing on the source problems is a profit model, not a way to go about solving anything.   The primary method of modern medicine in to kill to cure.  Kill the bacteria, kill the fungi, kill the virus, kill the cancer.  The problem with that model is that it does more than kill what it is intended to kill; the collateral damage is huge.  Nourishment, and medicines which support and boost toward the fully functioning organ, glandular, and cellular systems within the body, do the opposite; they create a holistic network that does not allow for disease to be present.  Cancers often shrink and do not return.  Sometimes they need to be removed first.  

Modern medicine is great for that part of things.  If I had not had things like modern surgery, antibiotics, blood transfusions, pain killers, and muscle relaxants, I would not made it past my 3rd summer when my foot was amputated.  The modern industry in that regard shines.

Bring on the surgeons... but then they need to be a lot cleaner about things without going for outright sterility.  The problem with hospitals is that they try to be sterile.  When we do that with our guts (via taking oral anitbiotics) we destroy all the good bacteria, which take a long time to build up proper populations; the bad bacteria populations seem to somehow grow at faster rates and in greater diversity, and are often made much stronger than the struggling good bacteria.  The cleaning should involve boosting good bacterial populations, but it doesn't, it just tries to kill the bad bacteria. This is back to the 'kill it to cure it' mentality.  And this mentality, of pseudo sterility and killing 'cures' through the unnecessary over prescription and improper use of Methicillin and others, created superbugs like Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus MSRA

This is disturbing because I had a burn that was a MRSA infection and I went all the way to the end of the antibiotic train to save my life. If clydomyicin had not worked, I would be dead. It is that simple.

 I wish I knew of another one that would be guaranteed for you, Travis.  Here is a topical example (before the advent of the superbug epidemics) that may be helpful and certain would do no harm (unless you are particularly sensitive to the plants).  During the second world war when they ran out of penicilin and wound dressings they used diluted garlic juice (a powerful antibiotic) and sphagnum moss (predominantly sterile and highly acidic and enormously absorbent) with zero incidence of continuing sepsis reported.

Edited to add punctuation.
 .  

Indeed Roberto, the current chemo drugs are non-discriminant poisons that in themselves can cause new cancers.
This should be unacceptable to the AMA if it weren't for the fact that they receive funds from the drug manufacturers and are more interested in producing physicians instead of doctors.

What is the difference between a doctor and an physician?
a physician is taught in med school to treat the symptoms of the patient, thus having a return customer which ends up making the physician more and more money through insurance filings and add on fees.
A doctor want's to be able to heal their patient so they are actually well and might not need to come back except for when some new issue comes up.
A doctor will be willing to try any and every thing for the benefit of their patient, a physician will stick to what the AMA approves.
I look for doctors and shy away from physicians.

Everyone should be aware that there are certain Large chain chemo drugs out there that can only get into the enlarged blood vessel pores created by a cancer, thus making the drug a discriminant poison since it can only kill the intended cancer enemy.

Antibiotics are a double edged sword, in most cases they aren't really needed but since physicians are in the business of healing for money, they like to use them far to often.
This practice is why we have so many resistant bacteria out there now, they have mutated to be able to resist the antibiotics, making it necessary to create new, more powerful antibiotics, a never ending spiral is the result.
Continuance of this mind set will eventually mean the end of the human race because we will get a bacterial infection that can't be stopped.

If we feed the human body the proper nutrition then it is quite capable of doing all the policing of the human body, making sure that all "invaders" are dealt with swiftly and decisively.

Redhawk

a physician is taught in med school to treat the symptoms of the patient, thus having a return customer which ends up making the physician more and more money through insurance filings and add on fees.
A doctor want's to be able to heal their patient so they are actually well and might not need to come back except for when some new issue comes up.
A doctor will be willing to try any and every thing for the benefit of their patient, a physician will stick to what the AMA approves.
I look for doctors and shy away from physicians.

 True enough, Bryant.  Sometimes it's hard to differentiate between the two at first glance, at least where I grow myself up.

I have heard, though I can not verify, that in China a village doctor is not paid unless his village is healthy.  If they are well, then he is wealthy.  Wouldn't it be nice.  Then I would have no problem with a physician  [  doctor    ] sitting on his yacht, drinking champaign.  

Garlic is such a great medicine it is difficult to sing enough praises.

Raw garlic freshly chewed (I put water in my mouth first so it doesn't burn) takes full advantage of some of the most potent antibiotics known to man. But even dried garlic retains lots of valuable properties, anti cancer anti biotic, antiviral, vermifuge, liver tonic.....

And you are right about the doctors being lock stepped into conventional treatments. At a natural products convention I sat at the Dr. Christopher booth one year as a rep and talked with one doctor who had been suspended --not because he had killed patients, but because he had successfully treated them using diet and other natural therapies.

I also heard about a couple of prominent doctors in the southwest (or maybe it was Utah) who did research on skin cancer and Chapparal (creosote bush) and did a newspaper article on the amazing findings of how well it worked, and within a few weeks the doctors were taken down in rank and put on probation in the hospitals where they had been chiefs.

I think the papers did a full retraction and they told everyone not to use the local chapparal because they were going to start spraying poison on it.

For a long time herbal remedies could not advertise what they were to be used for, and many herbal companies had to create a separate corporation to broadcast the information and you had to know the code to figure out which herb to use for which ailment.  Barberry LG for instance was the code for liver/gallbladder. Nowadays there are so many ineffective formulas out there I don't think the authorities care anymore- the"alternative" industry seems to be poisoning its own well.

Even more incentive to grow your own.

Many of the "supplement" companies have been found to be marketing products that when tested in labs don't contain any of the active ingredients their labels state are there. That makes it very difficult to find good quality supplements, vitamin, mineral, herb all need to be really checked out before you lay out money for the product.  Even if you purchase at a "health food store" what you buy might not contain what you are wanting or needing.

The one brand I have found that always tests out as it should is Nature's Own, no I don't get any money or have any interest in this brand. It just happens to be one of the winners of testing that I have found in multiple stores so that means it is pretty easy to find.

There are other brands that pass the testing and I will get out my list and put it up here for everyone, or you can do some searching should you need the info faster.

Bryant RedHawk wrote:Many of the "supplement" companies have been found to be marketing products that when tested in labs don't contain any of the active ingredients their labels state are there.  

That is a large part of why I started growing many things on my own other than just typical garden products.  Obviously there are many, many things I can't grow here, but I do try to grow the things I can now, including my own garlic and some herbs.  Products I can't grow I research really thoroughly before I buy them.  In my mind, a lot of the supplement companies are no better than big pharma, and are just trying to make as much money as possible, damn the people relying on them.

We too are expanding our medicinal garden into three plots instead of just one, that way I can grow the quantities I need for making tinctures, extractions and isolating those compounds that are the ones I'm looking at for testing purposes.
Last year I didn't have enough of so many of our medicinal plants that I had to suspend my work with them.
So now instead of one medical garden I will have two medical gardens and one medicals for experiments garden, each will be around 600 sq. ft. of growing space.

I have nearly a thousand garlic plants in the ground, and probably half that much echinacea purpura.  I'm hoping to continue to expand my medicinal herbs, but these two are my present focus.  I have purchased a fairly large amount of echinacea seed.  I would be interested to see your list of medicine plants more than a list of supplements, Bryant.