Archive for November, 2009

Alternative Breast Cancer Treatment Options

Being diagnosed with Breast cancer isn’t something anyone wants to have in their lives. Luckily, for the majority of people, medical technology has advanced enough that with proper treatment, recovering and continuing on with life is greater than ever.

While you might have heard of it, you may not be aware of all the options that are available to you. However, conventional and alternative breast cancer treatment options are numerous. Many probably already know a bit about the conventional methods radiation, surgery, and chemotherapy and hormone treatment, though they might not know everything doing a web search and taking a look at information available on websites may be a good way to gain a little more knowledge into what exactly are your options when it comes to alternative breast cancer treatment.

Cancer is a tough one to beat, especially if it is not caught early. While the traditional methods of dealing with breast cancer have been found effective based on medical science knowledge today, you may wish to consider looking at treatment options. These alternative breast cancer treatment options are something that can be used in conjunction with conventional methods of treatment in order to increase the body’s natural healing abilities.

One of the more commonly known types of alternative treatment options is touch healing. This covers things like chiropractic, massage and Reiki treatments. All of these deal with bringing the body back into balance in order to help promote healing. It is also true that things like massage and Reiki have a very relaxing effect and Reiki is known to have significant pain reducing properties. It can also help to speed up the body’s natural healing process, which means you can get better faster.

One of the down sides to conventional treatments is that they can make you very tired. Being relaxed means that you can sleep better and the sleep you get is deeper. That can make a big difference in how you look at life, your situation and how you handle your treatment.

Massage can help with muscle pains as well as help you to relax. Going through treatment is a stressful process and stress hinders the body’s natural healing abilities.

Other alternative breast cancer treatments options are things like dietary changes. Adding supplements and foods to your diet that help promote good health are another way to help your body fight off the cancer and keep you from feeling run down which can make both you and your outlook feel worse than you have to be feeling. There are also homeopathic treatments that you can consider that might be of benefit in helping you to feel more like yourself even when you are going through cancer treatments.

If you would like to know more about alternative cancer treatment options, breast cancer itself or conventional treatment options and what is available, consider checking out the Internet. There are a number of websites with up to date and accurate information on what is available for you. As with any treatment plan consult with your doctor before trying anything and let them know what works and what does not for you.

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Breast Pain After Breast Cancer Surgery Or Radiation Therapy – Nurse’s Report

If you’re currently a breast cancer patient or survivor as I am you may be interested in a new study. If you’re scheduled for or you’ve had any kind of breast radiation treatment or breast cancer surgery including radiation therapy, axillary lymph node dissection (lymph node removal), and/or breast conserving surgery, you may be interested in knowing about the recent study done by Danish scientists regarding breast pain.

The study was revealing and confirms what many women with breast cancer who’ve had surgery or other breast procedures think. The pain they’re having in their breast or breasts is directly related to the treatment, therapy or surgery they had even if it occurs two years later.

The scientists were able to confirm that at least half of 3000 women in the study had experienced this pain. It’s not likely that the women were aware they would be experiencing this post-radiation therapy or post-surgical pain or at least not two years later.

Following surgery, the average length of time when the pain started, was about two years. The pain was moderate to severe and only one in five of the women had told her doctor about it.

In breast cancer patients or survivors not in the study, the likelihood of reporting this breast pain to their doctors, went up if they were younger women or if they had several breast procedures, specifically radiation therapy, axillary lymph node dissection and/or surgery to conserve the breasts. It’s not known how many women have never reported this pain not realizing there may be a connection.

It’s already known that lymphedema can occur following lymph node dissection and women can feel a golf-ball size or tennis-ball size lump in their armpit, causing pain and discomfort ongoing.

There is a nerve that runs under the arm that may have been damaged while doing some of these breast cancer therapies, procedures or surgeries, in turn causing the breast pain later.

Doctors who know about the study may try to find ways to avoid damaging these nerves however there may be doctors and surgeons who aren’t aware of this new study. If you’re scheduled for any type of breast cancer surgery or radiation therapy, you may want to discuss this study with your doctor to make sure he or she is aware of it. You may be able to save yourself a lot of breast pain down the road. Also, many women today find they have more options and are choosing alternative treatments or methods for a more natural route to curing breast cancer, as I did, many years ago.

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Breast Cancer – Post-Treatment Side Effects

So you’ve finished treatment, your hair is starting to grow back and the fog of chemotherapy is slowly starting to lift – what now? One of the issues all breast cancer survivors must deal with is the long-term side effects that can arise post therapy.

From a physical standpoint, your body has changed. The after effects of surgery can leave you with a stiff shoulder, so exercise is important in terms of regaining a full rage of motion again. You’ll probably have to always take a little extra time with it when stretching in the future. Depending on how many lymph nodes you had removed, you may have to contend with lymphedema. Exercise and eating healthily are probably the best ways to deal with the physical side effects of surgery and radiation. Massage can be a good way to help with some of the scaring that may have occurred, limiting your physical motion.

If you had chemotherapy, you will have to contend with some long-term sided effects. Chemo brain is probably the most annoying of these. This is a decrease in the cognitive brain function, which may or may not improve over time. Another issue is fatigue, which will lessen over time. You may have gained some weight, so, again, exercise and diet changes can help you get back to a more comfortable weight. Bone loss is also an issue, especially when women are thrown into early menopause after chemo (yet another side effect). Taking calcium supplements will help with that. A chemotherapy called Adriamycin can cause damage to the heart.

Body image and intimacy are other issues and usually the hardest to talk about. After having surgery and treatments that are very invasive in addition to the feeling of distrust towards your own body for turning on you, it’s no wonder that it takes a little time for a woman to feel good about sex again after having breast cancer. It’s important to let your partner know how you are feeling if you are having issues of this type so that they don’t take it personally and can give you the space you need to recover. Talking to a professional about any issues you may be having can help immensely during this time.

For younger breast cancer survivors, pregnancy is sometimes an issue if they had not yet had children. Survivors can struggle with the decision to have children after their diagnosis. On one hand, some women feel that they should not bring a child into the world if they are not completely certain they will be around to raise them. On the other hand, some feel that they can at least carry on their family heritage and give the child a few years of love and care in the event that the cancer comes back. Also, chemotherapy can cause you to lose your fertility, so if you think you may want to have children using a donor egg or in vitro fertilization, you will need to consider the risks associated with hormones that will be used to regulate the pregnancy.

Recovering from cancer can take time, but being aware of these potential long-term issues and being proactive with them can help make the recovery easier.

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Hormone Replacement Therapy after Breast Cancer

Generally speaking, a great deal has already been discussed on the issue of hormone replacement therapy. However, less is known specifically about this form of therapy for breast cancer survivors. One reason for this is that physicians are concerned about prescribing any of these drugs to their patients for fear that it might increase the risk of cancer recurrence. But along with this, blanket statements regarding hormone replacement therapy are quite inappropriate. Each individual woman should be given the chance to consider the risks and benefits of hormone replacement based on their personal situation. Every woman experiences menopause differently, with varying degrees of symptoms. Some women go through menopause with little difficulty and without increased risk of osteoporosis or heart disease. For others, menopause is traumatic and can introduce increased chances of illness into their lives.

Professional practice in medicine has endorsed allowing women to replace ovarian hormones with hormone replacement therapy once the ovaries begin to fail. Evidence and clinical experiences indicate that the benefits clearly outweigh the risk and expense of such therapy. However, evidence has yet to be found with regards to the risks to women surviving beast cancer. Most concerns are based on speculation and anecdotal experience alone.

For most women, the question lies in the correlation between hormone replacement therapy and an increased risk of breast cancer. Does hormone therapy contribute to breast cancer? Before starting such treatment, physicians often require their patients to get a baseline screening mammogram and because women receiving treatment are under a physician’s surveillance, they are more likely to get annual screenings. Although there is no difference between women who are not on hormone replacement and those who are on it for less than ten years, once the duration exceeds the ten-year benchmark, there is a slight increase in breast cancer incidence, but the numbers are insignificant. There also appears to be anecdotal data that women with breast lobular neoplasm may have an increased risk for recurrence with hormone replacement therapy. However, with or without this form of therapy, these women are still at an increased risk of recurrence.

On the other end of the spectrum, how does one know that one is cured of breast cancer? Unfortunately, there is no absolute way to know. Statistical probabilities can be given based on the cancer’s characteristics. If one is destined to relapse, it will usually happen in the first five years after the diagnosis. Regrettably, late recurrences do rarely occur. Breast cancer patients are advised that once treatment is complete, they should consider themselves cured, move on.

Medical research shows that low dose hormone replacement therapy for less than 10 years does not significantly contribute to the development of breast cancer in the general population, but the question is, does this apply to the population of women cured of breast cancer? Sadly, there are no studies to confirm this and no evidence has yet surfaced from past studies to answer this. The safest way to think about it though, is that for women with a high probability of cure, the benefits of this treatment far outweigh the risks.

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Male Breast Cancer – What is it, How is it Detected, How is it Treated?

Abnormal cell growth patterns in the breast or cancer of the breast occurs mostly among females and is rare among males. It is estimated that for every 100 breast cases, one involves a male victim. The good news is survival rate of both male and female cancer patients has been increasing, especially if the malady is detected in its early stages.

For obvious reasons, cases of male breast cancer can be easily detected among men as they have lesser breast tissue mass compared to women. In a physical examination, the masses of tissue abnormally developing in male breasts could be easily detected. Nevertheless, the fact that the breast tissue among males is lesser also means that the cancer growth detected may have already spread to a wider area. Men are also more likely to ignore small chest lumps as early signs of the disease because of its rare occurrence among males and may only seek for a medical opinion when an abnormal tissue mass has considerably grown in size. There is also the macho factor wherein some men may show reluctance to have their breast lumps checked on some misguided concern that their masculinity could be put into question. This paradoxical situation is very similar to men who suffer from the more common male disorder called gynecomastia or male breast enlargement.

As indicated earlier, the signs of male breast cancer are also similar to those found among a female afflicted with the dreaded disease. Abnormal lumps appear in either of the breasts. Bleeding of the nipple may also be experienced, which indicate that the cancer may already have reached the lymph nodes, and wherein immediate medical intervention is needed. Another sign to look out for is an abnormality of the skin surrounding the area of the lump.

With breast cancer’s rarity among males, general screening of men for the disease isn’t usually practiced unlike among women who are advised to have yearly breast checkups after age 40. The cause for both cancers of the male and female breasts has not yet been fully established. For males, several risk factors have been identified. One is genetic, with some studies showing that males at risk are those who have several female family relatives afflicted with breast cancer. Other risk factors include exposure to radiation and high estrogen levels which may result from obesity and cirrhosis of the liver. Men with these high risk factors are often advised to undergo mammography and/or genetic testing. Other diagnostic methods include breast ultrasound and biopsy.

There are several steps that may go into male breast cancer treatment, and the specific method applied may depend on the type or stage of the disease. Mastectomy or removing the breast surgically, followed by radiation and chemotherapy are the ways of treating breast cancer. These procedures, essentially the same as those used in female sufferers, should be discussed closely between the doctor and the patient. Also up for discussion prior to actual treatment patient preparation for the treatment or operation, possible side-effects and the expected prognosis or outcome of the procedure.

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