Question For Tongren Healer

Hi!

How are you doing? You are so knowledgeable about this terrible disease I thought you might could answer a question. When they do blood work each time before chemo and then on the "off-chemo" weeks, do the results tell you anything about your tumor markers? Or, is it another type of test? I've read a little about tumor markers but don't understand.

Also, where can I find information on what the "norm" is for these blood tests?

Thanks for your help!

 

I'll look into it a bit. I have a slip with standard bloodwork we do. Mostly it's things like blood counts, liver functions,enzyme levels, etc.  The variations in cell type numbers can tell them different things about how the body is responding, like if you're fighting infection, etc. The actual numbers considered normal can vary from hospital to hospital so it's more like a general range. I don't know much about tumor markers but think that's another thing entirely, and maybe more in the field of biomedicine. Now I'm curious and I'll let you know what I find. Maybe someone else in the group can enlighten us. I was in a state yesterday morning, as I shared. PET results were nowhere to be found creating a stir at the dr's (they could do a wet read after a week). She promised to let me know by evening. I told her I didn't want to know, and as crazy as it seemed had been allowing myself to believe the tongren knocked it down again between CT and PET. She called later in day and PET was negative with total resolution!!! So to any of you reading this, I'll remind you again that tongren is worth investigating although it seems like a stretch to say the least. What have we got to lose in this fight to the death. Tongren is the most gentle, non invasive form of healing after the sheer brutality of the oncology world does it's job of debulking and killing off everything. I recognize great value in both ways at this point.

 

On 2/6/2008 tongrenhealer wrote:

I'll look into it a bit. I have a slip with standard bloodwork we do. Mostly it's things like blood counts, liver functions,enzyme levels, etc.  The variations in cell type numbers can tell them different things about how the body is responding, like if you're fighting infection, etc. The actual numbers considered normal can vary from hospital to hospital so it's more like a general range. I don't know much about tumor markers but think that's another thing entirely, and maybe more in the field of biomedicine. Now I'm curious and I'll let you know what I find. Maybe someone else in the group can enlighten us. I was in a state yesterday morning, as I shared. PET results were nowhere to be found creating a stir at the dr's (they could do a wet read after a week). She promised to let me know by evening. I told her I didn't want to know, and as crazy as it seemed had been allowing myself to believe the tongren knocked it down again between CT and PET. She called later in day and PET was negative with total resolution!!! So to any of you reading this, I'll remind you again that tongren is worth investigating although it seems like a stretch to say the least. What have we got to lose in this fight to the death. Tongren is the most gentle, non invasive form of healing after the sheer brutality of the oncology world does it's job of debulking and killing off everything. I recognize great value in both ways at this point.

I am so happy about your negative PET scan! I can only imagine the relief you must feel to know that it is negative. I can certainly understand the panic when important stuff like this gets messed up, but at least the end result was good!

I will continue to research tumor markers as well and will let you know what I find out.

Is school still going good? Daddy goes back for round 3 of chemo tomorrow after having a week off. The 2nd round was much better than the first. Hopefully it will continue to improve

Thanks for you help!

Chrysti

Looked over standard bloodwork we do before chemo. They do a CBC-D which is a complete blood count with differential and counts all the different cell types in our blood, since different types of cells have different functions. BUN and Creat are both windows to kidney function. Lytes must be electrolytes, so it would show things like potassium, sodium levels and these are essential for basic cellular function and easily depleted with some of the hydration issues that can go with chemo. LFT's are liver function tests. ESR measures the sedimentation rate of red blood cells which can goes up with infection and tumors so maybe this is what they call a tumor marker. LDH helps show if there is tissue damage or certain types of anemia. They need to know these different organ systems are functioning for it to be safe to administer chemo. School is going well. Kept waking to sound of ice pelting house in night, so I plan to stay in and study this morning. Drs office moved next CT up to 2 months from 3 since he will be disabled two years in May. Don't want to get preapproval from Blue Cross and have plan change. Have to start figuring out how Medicare works. Didn't think I've have to consider that one for years to come. Did annual health insurance evaluation and decision making in September, and need to figure it all out again for him. That's always a tedious and discouraging job, but one of the joys of self employment. Good luck with the next treatment.

I found a test called a CEA that is used as a tumor marker. Here's a little of the information about it. I have also posted the website so you can check it out.

http://www.labtestsonline.org/understanding/analytes/cea/tes

I do have some encouraging news, though. Daddy had his 3rd chemo treatment today and was able to swallow a few sips of water this afternoon. This is the first time anything has gone down in months!

That's great news, and encouraging in that it appears the chemo is shrinking the tunor. Once Pat was able to start swallowing food again, things improved steadily. It got a bit more difficult as we progressed through the radiation because then it was a different sort of discomfort swallowing but that was very short lived. So happy you are moving in a forward direction. Thanks for info on CEA markers. Your Dad must he feeling more hopeful with the turn in events.

Hi,

I am pretty aware of the tumor marker thing bec. they have been tracking my father's every 2 weeks, trying to determine if his cancer is back.   The 2 markers they use for EC are CA 19-9 and CEA.   These are really primarily used for other GI cancers (pancreatic and colon I believe), but they generally work for EC as well.   There is no marker that is totally specific to EC, so they use these as they seem to correlate with all GI cancers.   I do not believe they check them as part of your weekly chemo blood check, but rather periodically to see if your treatment is working.   There are other reasons they could go up (other benign GI disorders, inflammatory bowel disease, liver and gall bladder disease, and some lung disease) so if they are going up, it does not NECESSARILY mean the cancer is growing.  Unfortunately, in my father's case it did.  Here are some links with more info - hope this helps.

Courtney

   http://www.aafp.org/afp/20030915/1075.html

http://www.cancer.org/docroot/PED/content/PED_2_3X_Tumor_Mar