On 7/15/2008
shilpa wrote:
Hi, sorry it took some time to reply u but iam very greatfull that u provided very good information to me even i had collected some of the internet information & made her diet plan so that her body should be in alkaline state till then her cancer is stable since 8 months but not reduced that is what worrying me .
thanks alot for ur concern towards me & my family i pray god for ur recovery
gouri
Hi Gouri,
Don't despair. Even though her tumor hasn't reduced, it's possible her cancer is not just stable but has been partially or even totally eradicated.
Tumors are a mass of normal cells that surround a core of cancer cells. When cancer cells begin to collect together and grow, the body sends blood rich with stuff from the immune system to the cells surrounding the cancer to attack it. If these normal cells are unable to kill the cancer, they will totally surround the cancer and wall themselves and the cancer off from the surrounding tissues, resulting in a "tumor."
If chemo or radiation are used successfully, a tumor may reduce in size or disappear totally because the chemo and raditation don't just kill the cancer cells at the center of the tumor, they also kill the normal cells that make up the outer layers of the tumor.
If natural therapy, including nutrition, has been used successfully to treat cancer, only the core of the tumor is killed, while the normal cells surrounding it remain alive. Therefore the tumor may shrink a little because the dead cancer cells will be absorbed into the blood stream and removed from the body, but it's quite possible that the tumor will never go away, yet it is still cancer free. (Possibly with time the outer wall of a tumor that is cancer free could dissolve and the cells once again become a part of the surrounding tissues, but I personally don't know whether this actually happens. I think the type of natural therapy would be the determining factor - the idea is definitely something I will further research.)
So, if a tumor remains but is cancer-free, it may not show up on x-ray, ultrasound, and scans alone. If a PET scan is done, decreased uptake, or no uptake of the glucose by the tumor would indicate that the cancer is either in remission or totally gone. Blood work can also be used to make this determination - if cancer markers were done before and during medical treatment, a decrease in those values indicates successful treatment. If the markers return to normal after natural therapy, I say this would be a pretty good indication the cancer is gone.
Many - in fact probably most - medical doctors are extremely loath to credit natural therapy with the eradication of cancer. At best, they are likely to say the cancer is "stable," and should continue to be monitored periodically. They may even say that test results are inconclusive, so that it can't be determined that there is cancer; they may even go so far as to say that it wasn't proven to be cancer in the first place.
So, again I say, "Don't despair." Your loved one may be much better than just "stable," but the only thing that will prove it for sure is time. It might be a good idea to continue with the alkalinizing diet, whatever you have her eating, for the rest of her life. If she's taking huge quantities of particular things for that purpose, she could probably safely cut back, but not stop altogether. If she continues to remain symptom free, rejoice!
I hope I have explained this so it makes sense. IF not, let me know, and I'll take a look at my references and try again.
Thank you for letting me know you are doing well. Right now I'm doing pretty well myself!!
Take care,
Tre