lovelife789 wrote:I have been trying to convince my doctor to do maintenance chemo with no luck. They said they don't do maintenance chemo there as researches did not show enough evidence that it works.
Their firm objection means find other, less common drs to help you.
There is some circularity in their argument and experience because they miss on other biological principles needed to break out of the rut. It often takes multiple steps with a multiple modality plan that includes "maintenance chemo", beyond std-of-care, to break multi-site metastases.
- missed M1/mCRC/high risk patients initially treated as std-of-care Stage II and III patients lose chances. Inadequate bloodwork is part of the early problem, around diagnosis.
- If the peak chemo dose is too low, not as many cancer (stem) cells get eradicated. So they blast all patients with cyclical chemo and take the statistical results.
- If the trough/off chemo level is too low, cancer cells may accumulate faster than normal cells, with greater resistance.
- If regrowth and re-seeding are not continually stopped by various chemistry, surgery with multiple sites is less likely to be curative.
We dealt with a lot of these problems by non standard means to
sensitize and target the cancer cells with off label drugs, high potency supplements and a mild, oral 5FU chemo prodrug via daily immunochemo.
So our multiple modalities were:
a. neoadjuvant (pre-op) immune therapies, based on high potency supplements and targeted cimetidine, 4 weeks
b. Surgery no. 1,"R2" but strong immune response had destroyed much cancerous tissue;
....................cluster of para-aortic nodes not operated on, yet
c. continue immune and nutritional therapies, add IV vitamin C. 6 weeks (would have used 2 weeks now)
d. continue c; add daily oral 5FU chemo, adjustments/experiments based on blood profiles, 11 months
e. Surgery no. 2, remove metastatic para-aortic nodal conglomerate, restart immunochemo next day
f. 7 years immunochemo, adjusted based on bloodwork and cancer markers.
2+ years of no chemo as of today, after everyone but my wife gave up on "cure".
We carefully consult/doctor shop to get more information, and to get around problems and obsolescent practices.
Rather than a "1 stop shop", we
had to use multiple doctors. Some for specific tasks like background information, pill scrips, insurance coverage, or 30+ yrs research and clinical experience on a specific vitamin application.
Unfortunately, there is limited experience in the US with mild, oral, daily (immuno)chemo approaches, that need extra ingredients beyond ADAPT to do the mCRC jobs best. So we, the caregivers and patients, often times have do homework to make things work or get pulled together, as discussed in the archives.
Honestly I don't get it but when we discussed this, my platelets were not up to standard, so we kinda let it go on a wait and watch journey.
Platelets might be helped by:
1. relentless removal of folic acid in your diet and supplements while on 5FU chemos. Supplements with natural type folate or leucovorin molecules are around. Pls research archived posts here over the last 8 years.
2. we used PSK and liver products to aid CBC results including platelets
3. Some chemo formulas are less destructive, not all are known in the US/NCCN/ASCO.
4. alkyl glycerols in bone marrow and shark liver oil are stated to help platelets
My wife finds bone marrows and soup too greasy for extended use. We never had to use the shark liver oil pills before we stabilized her platlets with steps 1-3, despite her also taking 1/4 aspirin too.
Also you may find biochemically oriented naturopaths and alternative MD that can help you with these.