Yes, there are differences, and that's how the drugs work. The point is that the differences are not big enough to avoid damage to normal cells as well.

What percent of patients that respond? I can't give you numbers but it's definitely the majority. As I said, the chemo does kill lots of cancer cells, but the cancer often returns. But it seems you're asking how many patients are actually cured, am I right? That number is of course far less.

If this was all about making money, I'm pretty sure the pharm industry would provide drugs that would prolong life further than they do today, since longer treatment would mean more money. Some people would say that's what's happening with HIV meds.

Drack:

I have read that cancer cells are most happy and content when they are living and growing in an oxygen poor acidic environment. Conversely being in an alkali oxygen rich environment gives them a bad hair day.

With that in mind there have been treatments developed to change the PH of the body and there also a number of treatments to increase the amount of oxygen in the body. It appears that remarkable success has been had with these procedures, and in some cases people that were sent home to die have had the gall to recover.

Are you aware of this approach and if so what do you know about it?

First, if you really are a doctor, then you do write scripts, thus that does make you a drug pusher. Nothing personal, just a fact.

As far as treating symptoms goes, medical doctors use the words "control" or "pain management" because they can't cure anything. They just prescribe drugs, then more drugs to deal with side effects, then even more drugs.

How many people have you cured of diabetes doc? Nevermind, I already know the answer is zero, and that will never change.

As far as "dead doctors don't lie", Wallach made a very good point. He said if you follow doctors orders you will surely die. I know you are not from the states, however, you could easily determine the average lifespan of an American doctor, which is 56 years, and Wallachs' point is to not listen to someone who can't even live to the average age of 72.

I am not going to debate you on medical issues because we are both firmly planted on opposite sides. I do not expect you to change your beliefs so please don't expect me to change mine.

I have seen what your health system did to my mother, my dad, and several other relatives and friends. It should not be called health care, it should be called sick care, since there is no profit in health.

My only question to you would be why would an M.D. come to a site called "natural med talk"?

On a final note, I do not dislike you, however I don't like what you stand for... having said that, I welcome you to the forum..

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Let Food Be Your Medicine And Medicine Be Your Food.(Hippocrates)

I have not heard of this approach, and quite frankly it sounds a bit far-fetched. One effective treatment used to treat some tumors is to block the artery supplying the tumor. When you block an artery like that, the tumor would become acidic and oxygen-deplete, yet this approach kills the tumor.

Furthermore, since cancer cells are basically mutated host cells, they will still use the same mechanism for metabolism, which is dependent on oxygen.

So yeah, it seems a bit strange, but if you have a study on this, I'd love to see it.

Drack: look up Hydrazine sulfate and cancer. Look at it with an open mind.

Oh please, as if you're not using this term with a derogatory intent.

We cure infections, we cure certain cancers, we can cure appendicitis and a whole bunch of other surgical problems. You probably know this, so don't give me the "doctor can't cure anything" crap.

But yeah, there are a lot of things that we can't currently cure, in which case we control it. You mention diabetes. You probably want to tell me that diabetes type 2 is best controlled through diet and exercise. That is true, and that's why it's our first line of treatment. But let's talk about diabetes type 1. Do you know of any cure for this? Are you seriously saying those patients should not receive insulin? Because then they will die. So yeah, at the moment there is no complete cure, but by giving them insulin they can live a full life. What exactly is wrong with that?

Btw, interesting note: They have managed to cure one case of diabetes type 1, by growing new beta cells from stem cells, and implanting them. So there is hope on the horizon.

I certainly get the point, but I question his numbers. He'd have to give some sources, and if it's true that he just calculated it from one obituary, then they mean nothing. I tried to find any statistics on lifespan of doctor, but couldn't find any except one from the American Medical Association, which I'm sure you won't believe anyway. But the claim is made by Mallach, so the burden of proof is on him.

First, I want to learn some of the problems people have with doctors, so that I can address them myself. I also wanted to see if there are any common misconceptions, as I might bump into the same misconceptions when meeting patients, and this way I'll be prepared. Also I don't like the idea of two camps just hating each other. I like to communicate, and that's what I'm here to do. I'm not here to pick a fight, despite what you might think.

Btw, I'd love to read Andrew Weil, but my reading list is so huge now I doubt I'll be able to get around to it.

If you do get around to it, please read his book spontaneous healing. there is another book (not by weil) called The Cancer Industry. I assure you these two books will open your mind.

As for surgical procedures, sugical means mechanical problem. yes, like I said before docs do a great job with that. As molecular bio gains more knowledge, I do believe there will be cures for diabetes, but overall, (not daibetes) but many degenerative disorders respond better to alternative medicine. If someone has asthma, yes, they need albuterol occasionally, but eating a better diet, fish oil, turmeric, ginger root will help lessen the frequency of attacks etc.

Yeah, about the surgery I was responding to pinballdoctor's remark.

If by molecular biology you mean biochemistry, then yeah that is the basis for the current treatment of diabetes. Maybe one day a drug would be able to cure diabetes type 2, but there is no way a drug, alternative or not, will be able to fix diabetes type 1. In type 1, the beta cells that produce insulin are gone, dead. I hope the stem cell approach will continue to show promise though, because that would be awesome.

As for astma, remember that there are different degrees. Some may only need albuterol, whereas other has more severe astma that will need more treatment. That said, We would probably have less astma in the first place if people went outside more and took care of themselves.

A good diet would benefit anyone, of course.

Drack: you have a nice day, I am getting ready to hit the st patricks day parade in Pittsburgh along with excessive alcohol consumption (and when I get into the city, I do drink european beer: Stella Artois The cure for everything!

Have fun, Stella is one of my favourite beers

The specific problems I have had with doctors in my area are the following.

They rely almost 100% on antibody tests for determining disease or infection.

My family has been a victim of this at least twice. Once for an H-Pylori infection I had, and rid myself of because I had no choice.

The second was my wife's patently obvious case of Lyme Disease which presented itself with test book symptoms, and situation. Because of a negative lab test, she never was treated properly.

Lab tests are never 100% accurate. They actually fail quite often, especially if your body does not recognize the invader. People that do the tests seem to realize this, as I have asked many of them about this. Doctors do not seem to have an understanding of how often these tests fail.

You cannot substitute a lab test for a clinical diagnosis. Especially when you have very obvious recognizable symptoms. Lab tests can confirm your suspicions, but they cannot rule them out.

There are not many long lasting infections that can cause Stomach inflammation. H-Pylori is about as common as any bacteria, and shoud be the number one suspicion when you have someone with GERD, chronic Stomach pain, etc.

In our area, these problems will get you several prescriptions for acid blocking drugs, but almost never an H-Pylori treatment. Certainly not without a positive lab test.

I was not looking to get into treating myself and my wife. I never even looked into disease, prevention, treatment until I was backed into a corner. I was in my forties before I even began to look into this out of necessity.

If someone is not smart enough to diagnose a disease, they probably are not smart enough to treat it properly either.

Another problem is the limited amount of tools that Doctors have available.

No doctor here can use the methods I use without attracting unwanted attention from authorities. They are safe, and effective for some conditions, but they are not approved, and never will be.

In this situation, I have the choice of using the safest most effective method, or going to the doctor for a less effective method, and side effects, and paying for the privilege. That does not seem to logical to me.

Having said that, there are many situations in which I need a professional, or specialist, as you cannot self treat everything. I just wish I had some more professionals to work with. We have excellent surgeons, physical therapists, and even some good mental health people. We have lousy general practitioners, diagnosticians, and nutritionists.

I do not lump them all together, but the few good GP's we have, are booked for a year in advance, take no new patients, and that makes them basically unavailable to most people.

Until that situation changes, I will be my own doctor for anything that does not require specialized training. I have more tools, I have the time to investigate properly, and am not indoctrinated into any particular way of thinking.

I have also seen several doctors for my annoying hay fever. Over the counter drugs were somewhat effective, but never worked 100%.
They have no good treatment for it.

I mentioned this to my Chiropractor, who did a muscle test, which I still am skeptical of. She said "you have a mold allergy". She then gave me a homeopathic treatment for my allergies. I was not particularly convinced that homeopathy worked. It was on of those treatments that seemed pretty sketchy to my way of thinking.

I was wrong, as the homeopathic drops relieve 100% of my symptoms, as long as I use them. Not a cure, but a safer alternative that works better.
No other doctor in our town would ever have even considered this. I owe a debt to the one women in town who did her own thinking, and testing.

Would you have prescribed Homeopathy in the same situation? If I was a doctor, I think I can honestly say I would not have. I am open minded, but homeopathy seemed far fetched to me. I did try it because it had no down side, other than it might not work. Luckily I did.

Dan

Hello Drack,

I have been a nurse for 28 years and I am fully commited to alternative health. But I do not discount conventional medicine. It has its place..

It has its place in critical care and the emergeny room
and it has its place for those people who do not believe in alternatives.

Believing in what you are doing is essential to success as lack of belief will undermind
compliance and be a detriment to the spirit, which inhibits the body in its healing.

Conventional medicine is also essential to those who lack the will to eat right and really take care of themselves or to re-educate themselves to living in accord with the natural process and nutritional needs of their bodies, mind and spirit.

I have seen too many people die in my time from drug poisoning and lack of essential nutrients. And how many can I tell you died from constipation due to neglectful or ignorant doctors and nurses? Way to many. Such a basic thing... it is a shame.

Conventional medicine severely fails in regard to understanding and providing methods for the body to detox itself of heavy metals, pcbs, and other environmental toxins. It also severely fails to address a wide variety of pathogens that are detrimental to health, that they refuse to recognize, but are common knowledge to alternative practitioners as well as many physicians in Europe.

I will give you a heads up. Conventional medicine and alternative medicine will blend.. it is coming and you will do best to prepare yourself. I do think you will see it in your time.. it is already happening and it is what the people want.

So I am right now down here in Mexico. I had a health concern and had to go to a hospital..
I was so impressed! The compassion projected and the time spent with me was amazing. I had a sonogram and consult with two physicians. The songram was done by a physician also, not a tech. The bill was $200 US total. The treatment was almost entirely natural and the doctor was stunned to find out that US doctors do not use what he was recommending as it is widely used everywhere else in the world. I looked all the things up.. they are legal in the US but no doctor I know uses them anyway... they were prepared out of natural substances, by Merck, no less.. in highly absorbable particles.

Anyway, it will be good if you can stick with this forum as there are conventional medical questions that come up that are difficult for many of us to answer. This could be enlightening for all.

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By sheer luck, I received this private message from another forum, by someone who is in exactly the same position I was in, regarding an H-Pylori infection. Since it illustrates what happens so often, I thought it would be of interest.

It is just an excerpt from the post, not the whole post in its entirely.

It was the patient who did not beleive the tests, not the doctors. I am quite sure they "humored" her request with much scoffing. But she was right and they were wrong. She will never again have the confidence in her doctors that she had before.

I also told her how I got rid of the infection, and if she chooses to try it, as she has the needed equipment, I am confident it will work. It certainly can be tested later to see if it does. If it does not work, it will do no harm, and she still has the harsher antibiotic route available to her.

We will see how this turns out.

Dan

I had a friend that said she solved her H. Pylori problem with yogurt and probiotic supplementation. Since h. pylori responds particularly well to Lactobacillus, I think VSL#3, which has strains that product lactic acid, would be good to completely overwhelm the system.

My recent experience with an Ear Nose Throat MD is clearly the action of the mainstream med world wanting to clear the symptoms and not treating the cause. Finally, we are working together on this, but initially she just wanted to find the right steroid or corticosteroid nasal spray that I could take for the rest of my life. All I wanted was allergy testing, but could not without going through her first. Of course, nothing worked for my 6 decades of sinus problems, even whatever I tried in the alt med world. Anyway, none of her sprays worked either. She did not testing, just guessing. I did tell her that I had a sinus infection, rare for me, and my GP gave me an antibacterial + antifungal which helped for 2 weeks. Then I ordered Diflucan (fluconozole) from out of the country (no prescription). That completely cleared the infection, but still lingering sinus congestion. She decided that I should be irradiated and get a CT scan. I agreed. It was chronic sinusitis. With my relating the story of flucozanole, she agreed that it must be due to fungus. After nebulizing with flucozanole and saline solution for 3 weeks, I am better than ever. Just occasional mild congestion that is easily managed. So, it takes a good diagnostician to figure these things out, then very good test equipment to confirm. After this, I will nebulize with colloidal silver, which I should have tried in the first place. I certainly drink enough of the stuff, and have for years.

My other recent MD experience was due to infrastructure, and I was not going to try alternatives for that. My 5 year internal hemorrhoids prolapsed with bleeding and oozing pus. Result hemorrhoidectomy, pain pills, and sitz baths. I think he used a meat grinder. After 11 days, still throbbing pain and difficult to do my business. But I'm happy to have MDs available for something like this, which became a crisis.

By the time I seek an MD, I am already desperate after personal study and trials.

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- Jim
That which does not kill us makes us stronger. -Friedrich Nietzsche