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Here's the treatments I have been working with so far this year:
ongoing: American standard
Lupron shot (every 3 months to zero out testosterone, which is the building block for prostate cancer)
Zometa IV drip (every month to whack metastases)
January - February: pancreatic enzyme treatment
This well-regarded alternative treatment is based on 1) good vegetarian and raw diet, 2) wide range of supplements, 3) big doses of pancreatic enzymes, and 4) detox. See Dr. Gonzalez's site at http://www.dr-gonzalez.com/ . this looks great on paper but -- I couldn't handle the pancreatic enzymes! They created so much toxic sludge in my system that it overwhelmed my liver and other detox organs, and I got mind-numbingly depressed. It didn't improve even with some uber-detox ideas I got from a practitioner in Idaho, and with a second try in May.
March - June
In January I saw Dr. Michael Schacter (http://www.mbschachter.com/) speak at an alternative medicine conference, and was quite impressed with his approach. I visited his offices in March and he prescribed a great and well-researched mix of supplements, vitamin C infusions, diet and exercise. (I have the spreadsheet of all the supplements I was taking, let me know if you would like it). the combination of this regimen plus daily coffee enemas (to de-toxify my system) worked fairly well. Downside -- it would have cost $3000 per month to do everything that Dr. Schacter had recommended! I also didn't want to be dependent on taking so many supplments long-term.
July - present
In July I discovered the Mt. Diablo Wellness Institute and their ayurvedic regimens. They start with a set of cleansing rituals -- "panchakarma" -- to bring your system to a baseline, and then develop an individualized regimen based on your body constitution. This regimen includes meditation, yoga, and a number of herbal supplements. I'm starting the panchakarma cleansing in a couple of weeks, which will supplement any other treatment regimen that I decide I might need.
I already feel a lot stronger on this therapy, and I am daily thankful for the change in orientation from both standard and alternative medical practices: the emphasis is on creating your health, and knowing that the body naturally wants to regain its balance. In such an environment, the cancer is unwelcome (both physically, mentally and spiritually) and decreases in course.
Because of this change in orientation, the treatment is necessarily more oriented toward the mid- to long-term than the others that I've been doing. If I need to do a short-term intervention, I'll do it but will return to ayurveda for my long-term approach.
Links to the programs at the Mt. Diablo Wellness Institute:
http://www.mdiwellness.com/panchkarma.shtml
http://www.mdiwellness.com/preshka.shtml
OK, now that the last visit to the PraxisKlinik is under my belt, I can turn to the question at hand: what's the best way to continue my treatment going forward?
One option is to continue the visits to Dr. Thaller every 6 weeks or so. The three treatments I'll continue with would be the fevertherapy, the Newcastle Disease Virus injections, and the Dendritic Cell injections. (Alongside these there are the additional treatments of vitamin C and ozone infusions, and local hyperthermia).
Liz and I have 20 vials of the virus with us here in the States, so the injections with those will continue through January in any case.
A second option is to work with Dr. Pfeifer at the Aeskulap Klinik in Switzerland. He has a very interesting-sounding protocol for prostate cancer, which consists of high dosages of four different supplements. (I've already started taking one of these -- ProstaSol -- and my PSA went down by over 50% in one month! )
The third option is to go with the enzyme therapy that Dr. Gonzalez is known for. This is an intensive self-care program consisting of supplements (mainly pancreas enzymes), a strict diet, and detoxification procedures. I'm strangely drawn to this path, as it is a way that 1) I can take responsibility for controlling my own health, and 2) is something that I can maintain over the long term, as I manage this cancer as a chronic condition. (I don't imagine that there will be a sudden cure for what I have, and the costs of Thaller's treatment -- around $15,000 a visit -- make it extremely hard to envision continuing to do it over the long term!)
In any case, I'm going to be getting some help in sorting these issues out -- I'll be doing another phone consultation next week with Dr. Ralph Moss, the über-researcher that keeps his finger on the pulse of all the new cancer therapies that are being tried.
Yesterday I had my weekly appointment with Francis, a local healer that several people have recommended very highly. He's humble, non-descript, Scottish, and has a definite spiritual power. I've felt things move during his sessions with me. And I'm a big fan of synthesizing several approaches, so I see him regularly.
I've always been with him in groups, but yesterday I started out the session with him on my own. He asked me about my Gleason score (a particular way of measuring the extent of the cancer), and asked what I was doing to treat it. I explained Dr. Thaller's procedures briefly.
Then he asked me if I had become vegetarian. "No," I said, "I've cut out red meat but still eat chicken and fish." He launched into a very articulate defense of not eating meat because of the death it necessarily entails. He was strong and pretty relentless. "There's no happy pill you can take to cure your cancer," he said. "Nothing will really happen until you take responsibility for curing your own cancer by eating the right things, and by helping heal the pancreas -- when you have cancer you don't have a proper supply of pancreatin. It's your own choice, of course, but that's what you're looking at."
I was pretty taken aback -- not just because of his firm tone, or the fact that this was the first time he had spoken more than a couple of words to me. It was the synchronicity at work. What he described was almost exactly the same treatment that Dr. Gonzalez recommends, and that I've been reading extensively about. Chalk it up as one more strong clue from the universe.
One of the advantages of putting together my own health care plan is that there are so many options to choose from.
And, the major disadvantage of putting together my own health care plan is that there are so many options to choose from!
This week has been pretty confusing, as Liz and I have been weighing the pros and cons of continuing with Dr. Thaller's treatment vs. starting one of the other promising treatment regimens that I've run across.
On Dr. Thaller's side: he's a great guy with a fabulous curing attitude; the four treatments he offers are very highly-regarded*; I'm not even halfway through the series of dendritic cell treatments; and frankly, I want to try *anything* that has a good chance of helping me to heal.
On the other side, it's soooo doggoned expensive. The next treatment series will be $18,000…and there are two other series waiting for us in the next couple of months at the same cost. Since so many people have been so amazingly generous with their contributions, I want to make sure that their money is well-spent.
There's also some doubts about the dendritic cell therapy, which is the core of the next few visit to Dr. Thaller. Ralph Moss (the most competent researcher I've come across) said that many people consider this line of inquiry to be "yesterday's news". (To be fair, there are lots of people praising it to the skies as well.)
In the midst of this confusion, I've been reading about two other therapies that might really help out someone with an advanced cancer like mine.
The first is Dr. Pfeifer's prostate protocol . He's the head of the Aeskulap Clinic in Switzerland, and developed a series of four different supplements for men with *very* advanced prostate cancer (even worse than mine). There's just been an EU-wide study on it that concluded it produces a 50% reduction in PSA in 70% of the patients treated. (PSA decreases if your cancer is decreasing).
The second is the combination supplement-and-diet regimen of Dr. Nick Gonzalez in New York City. He started out at Sloan-Kettering examining a "folk" remedy that had achieved some notoriety back in the 70s (actor Steve McQueen was on it). He found out it had a 93% *cure* rate, quit Sloan-Kettering, and started his own practice administering the regimen.
The case reports are really breath-taking for this treatment. Take a look at them and you'll understand why we're on the fence about what to do next.
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* Dr. Thaller's 4 treatments are local deep hyperthermia, Newcastle Disease Virus, Coley's Toxins and dendritic cell vaccine. (there's also Vitamin C and oxygenated blood infusions, but those are just gravy.)
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