Sorry for the somber subject, but it's time to unload this information in a public place, after passing it along privately for a while now.



Alternative Symptom Control and Immune Boosting for People Living with Cancer



These are methods that I explored with the several friends I've had who survived or didn't survive cancer, including my girlfriend Kris who ended her own life after a long struggle with breast and bone cancer. ** Indicate the most effective & amazing things you should definitely try if you're living with cancer.



Acupuncture- This is not for everyone, and should be tried only with practitioners who are experienced with treating people with your particular kind of cancer. However, it can be much more site-specific than other pain control methods, targeting the exact root of the pain.



** Aromatherapy / Tart and Spicy Taste-therapy- Taste or smell to help with nausea: peppermint oil, cinnamon paste, strong breath mints like Altoids also help. My Kris found the only mint strong enough to stop her nausea were the little tiny lips-shaped mints sold by Victoria's Secret in little tiny pink tins. The clerk who sold me nearly their entire stock in the San Francisco Shopping Center branch told me that she had found the mints very helpful with her nausea when she was fighting Hodgkin's disease. Ginger is also a good taste or smell to help with nausea. Trader Joe's triple ginger cookies were very helpful to Kris. Of course ginger ale is an age-old aid for nausea. Tart smells and tastes like lemon and lime- the tarter the better- can also help stop nausea. Otherwise, strong tastes and smells, even the usually helpful lavender and pine, may provoke nausea.



Hot/ Cold Treatment-Another treatment I can't speak about first or close-second hand. I had a good friend who had struggled with Lupus her whole life, and then was stricken with cancer. She had to be extremely careful with how she stimulated her immune system, because overstimulation could cause her death. One of the immune-stimulating alternative treatments she used alongside the mainstream western treatments was taking hot baths alternating with sitting in an icy cold tub of water. This can be done in smaller proportions (or with showers, instead of baths) to gently stimulate the immune system. Laura, my friend who tried this, did it through the Seattle Cancer Treatment and Wellness Center, the only place she could find affordable care that integrated alternative and mainstream approaches. She actually flew there from San Francisco about every two weeks for treatment.



Juice- Fresh-squeezed orange juice can be especially helpful for immune-system boosts. Get a juicer and some really fresh juice oranges, yum! Feel the effect immediately.



Magnets- Again, not something I've had first or close-second hand experience with, but I have an aunt with bone cancer who uses magnets to control her pain. So, again, this shouldn't be dismissed as a side-effect free addition to your pain-management regime.



Marijuana Tincture- Smoking marijuana has the unpleasant side-effect of being rough on your throat, and of exposing people around you to second-hand smoke. Eating marijuana in food can give you variable degrees of intensity of effect. Finding or making tincture out of marijuana and putting a small eyedropper's amount into hot herbal tea (evaporating the alcohol content and leaving marijuana-essence in the tea) can give you the anti-nausea and sedative benefits without the smoke and with a controlled dosage. The tincture is so strong I've read that you can rub it topically onto sore spots to get pain relief.



Massage & Reiki-The immune system reacts positively to massage. However, you want to find a massage therapist who is experienced with cancer symptoms, particularly with your type of cancer. Some kinds of massage can stimulate the lymph in unhelpful ways. Generally, though, massage relaxes you and stimulates your body to heal itself. If you've gotten to a point where your body is fragile, gentle caressing without any deep pressure, especially with unscented oils and a heating pad adjacent, can still help soothe the body and stimulate an immune response. Reiki- A wonderful, gentle art of righting the energy balance in your body. It neither requires the actual laying on of the hands, nor the presence of the practitioner, if those are impossible or uncomfortable for you.



Methadone-This is a method neither my partner nor anyone I knew actually followed-through and tried for pain control. I believe it is a fairly new approach, as an alternative to morphine. It has side-effects, such as addiction. But if you are unable to tolerate morphine, this is something to try to explore with the help of a clinician experienced in pain management.



** Quartz Crystals-These are used to regulate watches because crystals love order: they generate low electromagnetic fields that try to put everything in their field "to rights." They dislike chaos and extremes, so if any part of your body is in a spasm, or overly hot, or knotted, put a clear (the clearer the better) quartz crystal that's been run under cold water for a minute directly onto the trouble spot, and focus your breathing into that spot. You may not feel suddenly perfect, but the extremes will be controlled and moderated. With Kris, applying crystals to her painful spots would sometimes cause her to fall asleep peacefully, and I allowed the crystals to fall off when she stopped holding them, collecting them from the bed in a way that would not wake her. Even if it's just the coolness of the quartz and a little dose of placebo effect, I found quartz crystals do no harm and often significantly help with small symptom flare-ups. Running the crystals under cool water for a minute after use recharges them with healing negative ions. Store the crystals in a sunny spot if possible. Here is a link to a cancer survivor's homepage, by which she tries to distribute crystals to people suffering from cancer, regardless of ability to pay.



** Supplements: Spes Capsules-An herbal alternative to morphine that has been shown to have cancer-growth-suppressing properties. The most affordable and accessible vendor for this on-line- at least as of last year- is Seacoast Vitamins. Spes comes in two kinds- PC Spes (for prostate cancer) and Spes (for other cancers). BotanicLab, who made the Spes that I bought for Kris, has closed. You can now buy Spes under other names: Prostasol (PC-SPES) and Imusan (SPES). My grandfather and Kris both found it extremely helpful, mainly noticeable when they ran out and couldn't get new tablets right away. Nu-Gen Nutritional System, including Cantron (nee Can-Cell, an electrolyte formula), Colostrum, Magazyme Forte, Noni (derived from a mushroom), OPCs, Squalamax, and Squalamine (the last two are shark liver and shark cartilage, i.e. non-vegetarian)- This is a system that brought my Kris out of a systemic tailspin, and put her in a U-turn to remission within days. Unfortunately, it demands a rigorous system of taking pills (something like eleven per day) and one strange-tasting twice daily liquid. Aside from the annoying frequency of pills (and the stench of one of the shark-derived pills), the only side-effect is being sleepy for the first two or three days of being on the system. Kris went from not being able to bend over to tie her shoes to jogging with her dog within a matter of days when she was able to stay on this system.



Visualization & Meditation- A visualization of a candle in darkness when you are having discomfort or pain can help bring things under control. Imagine the candle: your symptom is causing the flame to flare up too high, or if your energy is too low, the flame to sputter down to almost nothing. Steady the flame and bring it to a perfect and steady still point of light. Meditation-- Otherwise known as taking time to yourself to sit and try to detach from your situation. It can be easy when you're sick to fall into a rhythm of watching TV or keeping some other thing around to busy your mind without taking the time you need to close up the portals of perception, and while still awake, reflect on your experience of the disease and detach from it. With practice this can be a very powerful tool for handling all kinds of symptoms and side-effects. Try to meditate on being IN your body, even with all its problems, and be in it until it becomes a still place where there is no dis-ease.



** Wiggling Fingers and Toes-Taught to me by a yoga instructor who was loathe to let us out of a difficult straining posture too soon. This distracts your nervous system from the trouble spot. It releases the excess energy generated by pain. Notice that when you are in a state of pleasure, you naturally and subconsciously wiggle your fingers and toes- again, to release excess energy. Hence the phrase "making your toes curl" from pleasure.



Yam Cream- for women with breast cancer taking tamoxifen: this is a side-effect free and completely topical way to control night sweats caused by the removal of estrogen from your body. I bought Kris' yam cream at the wonderful herb store in San Francisco The Scarlet Sage.



...and if none of that, and no traditional methods work, and you no longer have a quality of life that you can live with...



Self-Delivery- Seconal tranquilizer, plus vodka, plus antihistimine, plus cellophane plastic bag and rubber band. Control of her own life was a primary concern for my girlfriend. She could not tolerate the thought of losing the use of her legs, and her bone cancer had gone into her hips. She also could not tolerate the thought of relying on other people to help her go to the bathroom or take her medicine, or make decisions for her when her mind started to go. Before she reached that point, she put her affairs in order and ended her own life on her own terms, on her own schedule. She prearranged for her doctor to mis-declare her death to be from cancer, so that there would be no coroner's inquiry. The people in her life who were licensed therapists were specifically kept out of the loop of the details of her planned death, to protect their licenses.. Good timing is essential, and as much honesty as possible with your loved ones about this planned death is also important. Talk to a hospice counselor before making any decisions. In any case, Seconal (Secobarbital) is very hard to come by (Eli Lilly stopped making it two weeks after my girlfriend's OD), and I think can only be obtained from a veterinarian- it's the drug of choice for self-delivery of humans, and for euthanasia of animals.



That is all for now, happy Solstice.