Prevention Archives

April 15, 2020April 27, 2020

When you thought it was over…Burning your reconstructed breast…

Breast reconstruction is just the beginning. Once your breast cancer treatment is over, and most of the anxiety that goes with it. You then face new challenges!

Just over a week ago, I burned my reconstructed breast. Four months after immediate reconstructed and 7 weeks after finishing radiation.

The only thing I will emphasize, is do not have any heat around your breast at all!

This means, hair dryers, lamps, heating pads, hot water bottles, boiling water, cooking items… I hope you get the point!

I am not the first to do this but I hope I am the last.

When you loose all sensation after breast reconstruction you must be aware at all times of what is near you! Heat, knives, sharp objects, or ice all of these and more can completely destroy the tissue over your implant.

I am writing this post from the hospital bed I was admitted to several days ago. I burned my reconstructed breast using a heat lamp. Before you ask why? I was getting ready to start rehabilitation for my arm post-mastectomy.

This is also not the most ideal time to be in hospital. The world is currently on lock down due to the COVID-19 pandemic!

I had to have a nasal swab before I could be admitted for surgery to ensure I didn’t have COVID-19. This means being in the isolation ward for about 24 hours, with other people like you and also suspected COVID-cases! Once cleared your moved to the ward with many other people who all past the test. All private rooms are saved for COVID-19 patients!

After just finishing Cancer treatments this is the last place you would want to be.

The good:

I don’t feel a thing.

The bad:

I am “on the board” waiting for a surgery slot. I am not sure what will happen but my surgeon hopes to save as much as he can. After having a nipple-sparing mastectomy I may loose my nipple areola complex along with skin.

One week post-operative:

Luckily, the surgeon was able to save my nipple with most of the skin. My breast is now much smaller and looks very badly scarred. I am just praying something can be done to fix it later or it heals miraculously.

This experience has made me wonder why they don’t warn women about this!

Another aspect that I wasn’t prepared for, was nerve pain after removal of the tissue expander. It feels as though the entire breast area is on fire.

Homeopathy is amazing, for general pain arnica and nerve pain hypericum perforatum.

June 10, 2019June 12, 2019

Tamoxifen Resistance

Tamoxifen is a pharmaceutical drug (Novaldex) given to premenopausal women with estrogen positive breast cancer.

Tamoxifen can also be used in prevention for women at high-risk of developing breast cancer or used in fertility treatment.

It’s main task with breast cancer is to block estrogen receptors on tumour cells. This stops the growth of cancer, in the breast and in the body.

A less known fact among women with breast cancer, is that tamoxifen raises estrogen and progesterone levels in the body.

This seems counteractive to me.

In 2008, a collaborate paper between the top American cancer centres determined that increased estradiol (E2) is significantly associated with a risk of cancer recurrence.

As a side note, there are four main naturally occuring estrogens in women: Estrone (E1), estradiol (E2), estriol (E3), and estetrol (E4).

Each estrogen hormone is most active during the following times:

E1 menopause
E2 reproductive years
E3 pregnancy
E4 pregnancy

On top of that, the increased levels is though to contribute to tamoxifen resistance.

So I would like to know why that when I asked my first oncologist if they would be testing my hormone levels… she answered: No.

For now, I will be testing my hormone levels with urine and serum.

I started testing my hormone levels after my initial diagnosis. I test my hormones after all major changes: My diet, after starting tamoxifen, and through changing different supplements.

My ultimate goal is to see my hormones become balanced.

I am not happy with the wait and see approach, this would mean that I would have to wait for recurrence to know if tamoxifen actually worked.

CYP2D6 gene mutation

There is also another aspect aside from hormones that causes tamoxifen resistance.

This can be tested by buccal swab (mouth swab) done by your physician. The companies name is Genelex located in the USA.

I have not yet done this testing but will be ordering it and will let you know the results!

Mushrooms Supplements: Look for β Glucan from fruiting body

Hand Picked European Mushrooms from the Tatras by Lindsay

β-glucans are the most important aspects to look for when sourcing mushroom supplements.

β-glucan is higher in mushroom extracts from “fruiting body” than the more commercially known mycelium”.

Many supplements use extracts from “mycelium”, which are significantly less in β-glucan than fruiting body extracts!

It is also extremely important for mushrooms to be cultivated in their natural environments.

Each mushroom has a particular source in which it likes to grows on. Some only grow on birch bark, while others on moss or manure.

Cultivated mushrooms on the other hand, are typically grown on rice or cereal grains, depleting β-glucan by more than 50%.

We should also consider increasing absorption of mushroom extracts.

Vitamin C or ascorbic acid should also be taking in combination with the extracts to increase absorption.

Mushrooms are a powerhouse to our immune system and in order to make sure you are getting the maximum benefit, use the quick list below next time you are looking for mushroom supplements.

Checklist:

Also look for mushroom extracts from “fruiting body”
Take your supplements with Vitamin C
Source your mushrooms from North America or Europe to reduce toxin exposure
Eat plenty of fresh mushrooms from organic sources in your diet

Additional reading recourses:

March 17, 2019April 1, 2019

Sick Care System > Health Care System!

Understanding the limitations of a treatment based medical system and the responsibility of the ‘government’ and ultimately what we need to do in order to keep healthy can only be accomplished if we understand the limitations we are working with.

Allopathic medicine or Medical Doctors (MDs) are not in a position to prevent disease when incentivized to care for only the sick. Furthermore, a portion of the responsibility falls on the ‘state’ to keep their citizens healthy and safe through regulatory measures from banning smoking in restaurants to providing food labelling on menus and grocery store products.

For so long, I assumed it was my family doctor that was suppose to keep me healthy, but in reality family doctors are the gateway into the medical system that only want to see you if there is something medically wrong with you.

If you want to stay out of the system, then the government needs to promote health seeking behaviours, which is a blanket to the general public but definitely doesn’t include the outliers.

This realization has made me think about my own disease and how it could be prevented in others and essentially have people be the healthiest versions of themselves. I had come across the video below by Matthias Mullenbeck who really hits the nail on the head…. our current system is a Sick Care System…his thoughts on changing the mindset to only pay physicians to keep people healthy is brilliant.

Beyond just changing the mindset within modern medicine, I would add that integration of natural medicines that seem to understand the body in ways outside of medications and surgeries sound also be integrated.

If I were to ask someone in Traditional Chinese Medicine or Ayurvedic Medicine they would describe being healthy as having balance in the body through the flow of chi or in the balance of the doshas.

Naturopathic medicine works to combine all forms of natural medicine and if integrated into our medical system would provide the perfect base to provide primary prevention: that is making sure people never get sick. I also feel that because men and women are so different, it doesn’t make sense to have one provider for both. There is already a lot to know, why complicate things even more.

Specializing primary health care by age and sex would help make sure patients are getting the best possible care and allow the provider to be able to stay up to date on the latest and greatest. It’s a win win!

So in the meantime, until we get there as a system, you can choose to learn more about your body and it’s limitations through DNA testing, hair analysis and hormone testing for starters and find yourself a good naturopathic doctor and a family doctor that is responsive to your needs. Build your health care team to work for you, to keep you healthy and if your like me, never get sick again.

Further reading:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4339086/pdf/nihms663715.pdf

Healthy Incentives

March 16, 2019April 8, 2019

The Epidemiology of Breast Cancer and Individualized Medicine

There are 4 basic aspects to epidemiology: figuring out the cause of the disease of concern, the incidence or frequency (how often it occurs), distribution (who it affects and where), and ways to control or treat the disease.

Of anything I have ever studied, breast cancer seems to be the most vaguely touched on when it comes the “cause”. As far as my physicians are concerned the cause is not important, it’s getting rid of it that is.

However, if we are truly offering individualized care, as it so clearly says on the side of the hospital I have been attending, then as an epidemiologist, in order to prevent a disease we must know the cause for each person in order to prevent recurrence. Even more importantly what we learn from these individuals we can extrapolate to family practice to prevent our society from ever getting cancer. This to me, is what continues to attract me to epidemiology and what I feel is my responsibility to others.

As a side note, one huge missing link is getting this information back to primary care providers… so that we can prevent the disease from occurring. In my opinion, family medicine should require more years of training and also should be defined or sub-specialised in terms of male or female, and age. With the amount of information that is out there it is virtually impossible for a family doctor to be able to help keep society healthy with so many differing variables.

I do not see individualized care when it comes to breast cancer and I don’t see anything being done in regards to prevention.

There are many such “approved” tests available, that still at the doctors discretion are employed; as OnchoType Dx, a test that examines a sample of your tumour post surgically to assess whether the risks of chemotherapy out weight the benefits.

For me it was crucial to understand the cause of my disease. This is truly the only way to prevent it.

Cancer is not simple and there is definitely more than one contributing factor in order to develop this disease, but knowing the triggers can help you take control from ever being sick again.

From my research there where several tests that led me to understand how I developed breast cancer including emotional manifestations that impact these ‘weaknesses in my DNA’, when I didn’t have any of the ‘so called’ associated risks: smoking, drinking, BRCA1/2 gene mutation, and family history.

So then how did I get this? A relatively young 40 year old women. I would have also included healthy, but for me there were so many warning signs from the age of 20 that to me I didn’t feel healthy, even though doctors would have described me as healthy.

At first glance I thought the best place to first look was at my hormones,
considering I was diagnosed with estrogen receptor (ER) and progesterone receptor (PR) positive cancer. The dutch test, is the only test I would recommend for hormone investigation. This test on me clearly showed that my hormones had taken a walk down a dangerous path that would make them carcinogenic. However, they also showed that my testosterone was low which is caused by increased cortisol levels. Combined with my years of insomnia, I knew this was correct and one very crucial piece of the puzzle in learning about my risk factors in developing breast cancer.
Second, was understanding my body’s genetic capabilities.
This can be done though DNA testing from 23andMe or Ancestry.com and then requesting the raw data and sending it to your naturopath to analyse in PureGenome free software.

After learning that I am unable to methylate estrogen, it become clear to me that my cancer could be prevented through B vitamins, magnesium and other supplements that encourage detoxification of hormones as Indole 3 Carbinol, Calcium D Glucarate, glutathione, and a diet rich in cruciferous vegetables.

Knowing all this, I feel it is important to educate other women in hopes they can avoid ever having to walk this path…

February 28, 2019April 1, 2019

“It’s not your fault…”

“It’s not your fault…” These were some of the first words I heard when I was seated in the surgeons office with the nurses who had just given me confirmation of my diagnosis. I suppose these words were mean’t to be comforting, but to me they were not.

Blaming doesn’t get you anywhere, but the fact that there were years of symptoms left unexplained really makes me question the role of our health system.

If you were like me, I had symptoms for 20 years prior to my diagnosis. All my symptoms were related to two things: hormones and detoxification pathways. After learning about my DNA only 1 week back we discovered that my body is unable to process and remove one very crucial hormone: Estrogen and that my body in general had a broken link in removing toxin, both a disastrous combination.

I had visited doctors numerous times for symptoms of headaches, migraines, extreme intolerance to caffeine and alcohol, swollen painful joints, chronic diahrrea, and insomnia, all at the top of the list. Every single doctor just put their hands up and said “I don’t know”.

This is the expected response when their training is confined to symptom management, screening and treatment and very limited in terms of disease prevention and understanding an individual’s unique requirements to express their greatest health.

As a public health professional I question the validity of the current state of our system in being able to keep Canadian’s healthy.

Considering the abundance of technology at our finger tips compared with the 15 minute maximum a doctor will spend with you, patients are now better informed than ever. This is an advantageous aspect that needs to be incorporated into the system.

Among policy makers and administers there is much talk on patient-centered care and individualized medicine, and I sadly need to concur that this is still just talk.

As wait time management ended years back, the current state of the health system in Ontario took many steps back making wait times worse than before the program had been implemented, was there no exit strategy in place? So I ask, how is care patient centred when family doctors now limit appointments to just one issue per visit and maximum 15 minutes per patient?

Much more needs to be done to implement theory to practice.

It’s not your fault… only seems to add fire to my flame, as I relied on the system to help me understand what was going on with my body and only with the diagnosis of cancer was I pushed into understanding that if you want health you need to get it yourself.