Anyone do CHELATION Therapy?

[stevieb]

Just wondering if anyone has any experience using chelation therapy (removal of heavy metals/toxins) from your body for cancer treatment. If so, would you please share your experiences with me?

Thanks,

Stephen

[GrouseMan]

May I ask to what end? At best I believe this to be a dubious practice. There are many minerals and metals that we need trace amounts of in our body. The Oxaliplatin you had as part of your FolFox treatment is a toxic heavy metal, but it its likely contributed to at the very least a substantial kill to your tumor cells. Do you have any fillings in your teeth? They contain silver and mercury, and you might even have a gold crown or two.

What ever toxins were in your body that might have been responsible for the mutation of the cells in a crypt of your colon, have already done their damage, and that is now being propagated by the cellular reproduction and proliferation process, natural biochemical processes. These cells are invaders now. And since they came from your normal cells the immune system think they are normal. Elimination of any "Toxins" isn't going to stop the cancer cells from replicating and migrating around in your body. indiscriminate chelation of all metals would be in all likelihood detrimental. Vitamins use some of these metals to do their work. Many other processes in the body need Selenium, Zinc, Iron, Cobalt,and chelation will also effect Calcium, Magnesium, Sodium and Potassium levels as well. Also Chelation will do nothing to affect organic toxin's which are most likely the causative agent that did the damage in the first place. Many of these as well as toxic metals get sequestered in fatty tissue which is not well vascularized and not subject to a tremendous amount of blood flow, and thus I don't think chelation will remove.

I am sorry to say - I think there are too many pseudo-scientists running around praying on people in the situation we find our selves in this "club". Your best course of action is to find a nutritionist to help you eat a good diet that will strengthen your immune system. Exercise if you can even if its just walking around the block. Keep you otherwise healthy as you fight these cancer invaders.

Regards,

GrouseMan

[stevieb]

Thanks for your reply. From my understanding, the good minerals are replaced the next day after an IV chelation via IV. I am looking into this in order to boost my immune system now that I am no longer in active treatment. My son has been doing chelation (Autism) for several years and has not needed to see a doctor for any illness in two years (along with steady improvement with Autism). Just trying to find something that can help keep this beast away and me NED!

Thanks again!

[pog451]

Not even the weirdest of weird-beards have suggested this for cancer - Why do you think it will help?

[stevieb]

The removal of the heavy metals and other toxins in the body will help improve the immune system response to the cancer. Also, the heavy metals impair the function and survival of good gut bacteria (which has been linked to cancer). You are supplemented with different probiotics and supplements to help gut function during this process also.

[stevieb]

I am looking into this as an immune booster more than for actual treatment. I am currently NED and want my immune system as strong as possible to try and prevent a recurrance. If you look at my signature, I have done the conventional treatment methods and gotten to this point. I have also read where some clinical trials are based around immunotherapy, so I am just looking for other experiences with this.

Thanks

[GrouseMan]

I would go with the probiotics, healthy gut environment is shown to be very important to overall health. But your gut isn't going to be your major problem any more. Its your Lungs and Liver. Your colon has very little to do with your disease at this point. Any reoccurrence is not going to be coming from there. Its stem cells from the Mets continuing to spread if there are any left floating around. NED means No Evidence of Disease. Evidence is the operative word. CT, PET and most blood tests can't know if there were other small micro satellite tumors growing somewhere else that have yet to be discovered. They may not have been big enough to show on any scans, or produce enough protein factors like CEA in your blood that they are measurable. Some people have normal CEA even though they have a large tumor burden. Cells in your colon are replaced frequently, its doubtful they would contain many heavy metals, after the renewal cycle they go through.
If you haven't seen the Wiki article I'll post its link here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelation_therapy

And yes - you can say its all biased by people that don't believe. The agents they use for chelation therapy are toxic in their own right. I am a chemist, and unless I was dying from mercury poisoning I wouldn't want any of these things in my blood stream. This has been studied extensively - and found to be bogus except in the area of actual heavy metal poisoning where the metals are in concentrations high enough to actually effect organ function. I have been exposed by my career to some pretty nasty metal and organic toxins. I am not the one with cancer in my house hold. My wife that ate right, exercised regularly and was in great physical shape, was the one that ended up with mCRC, she was not exposed to the things I was. Ironic given I worked to discover new anti-cancer drugs wouldn't you say?

I would urge you to save your money for other more enjoyable things than sitting in a chair getting further infusions of chelating agents, of dubious value. Things like a nice vacation with your significant other and children.

Regards,

GrouseMan

[weisssoccermom]

I know absolutely nothing about it but read up on what it was. Here is a link to what the ACS has to say about this treatment.

http://www.cancer.org/treatment/treatme ... on-therapy

[stevieb]

Thanks for the info!

[skypup]

Hi Stephen,
Had to edit out one of the stupidest posts I ever made! :-/
Best wishes to you.

[annalexandria]

I am sorry as well that folks feel free to take a harsh tone with a post like this. I somehow don't think that any of us would feel free to add that implied "you idiot" to a response if we were all sitting in the same room (well, maybe some people would... ).
That said, I think the answer to "why not" do this therapy is simply this...alternative does not = harmless in all cases. As Grouseman pointed out, chelation involves putting things into your body that may very well strip out the healthy stuff that you need, and adding it back in artificially by IV does not seem like a guaranteed approach to recreating the balance that existed before the procedure.
Just as an example of how things can be a bit tricky, I started taking baby aspirin every day, as it was suggested that it might help with crc recurrence. Seemed harmless enough, for a possibly good outcome. But I developed problems with my vision, did some research, and found that the long-term use of baby aspirin has been implicated in damage to the eye.
For everything we do, we have to weigh the costs and benefits. At least for me, there needs to be some significant scientific evidence that something is useful before I am willing to subject myself to it...there are side effects with everything, even those things we label "alternative".

But still, I think it's reasonable to be respectful, when responding to questions about alt treatments!

ETA I went and read that article from the ACS. I'll just stick this quote here..."Chelation therapy can be toxic and has the potential to cause kidney damage, irregular heartbeat, and even death." Plus I didn't realize that it involves pumping ethylene diamine tetra acetic acid into your body. Yikes.

[skypup]

That said, I think the answer to "why not" do this therapy is simply this...alternative does not = harmless in all cases.

Quite true, AA. I probably spoke too quickly.

[Voxx66]

Grouseman is on the mark. Unnecessary chelation isn't just a harmless alternative treatment: It's dangerous if you don't need it. Unless you live in a mining area and have been eating dirt, have been poisoned, or maybe are a painter who samples their paints (no joke ha - oil paints really contain some serious heavy metals though I think you'd have to eat them to get sick) you don't want to play at this. Again - this is not a harmless treatment.

[Voxx66]

I should also say for anyone actually considering something like this: Why not go to a doctor first and get yourself tested for heavy metal exposure? If you have really high levels of anything unsavory (mercury or lead comes to mind) then the doctor can talk to you about what can be done to lower those levels though I suspect his recommendations won't include chelation. I live close to a lead mining area (Doe Run -just closed) and the people in that town tend to have high lead levels. It's my understanding that even so, chelation is only used in the most extreme cases.

[MonaL]

I have often wondered about chelation therapy after chemo too, since one of the main chemo agents is platinum based. Interesting, looks like chelating something other than platinum actually helped prevent resistance to the platinum chemo: http://m.mct.aacrjournals.org/content/11/11/2483.full

I did an oral Edta/combo product chelation long ago - I had high aluminum (hair analysis), and maybe mercury (can't remember) - and I felt great after it, it really helped with a lot of brain fog. Oral is not supposed to be that effective though.