Quote:
Originally Posted by cnidoblast  Thanks a lot for sharing that with me. My stepdad was completely devoured by cancer and the sad thing is he probably would have survived it if it hadn't been for his belief that the only treatments that work are the ones the doctors recommend. Have you heard of fucoidan? Its another substance that has been found to trigger apoptosis in cancer cells. |
In most cases your stepdad would be right and I would agree with him. DCA is a special case, maybe. As my oncologist says without comprehensive trials we don't really know if it is the DCA that is keeping my cancer in check. It could be, as she says, just the normal path my cancer is taking.
That said I believe it is the DCA that is working and there are a number of trials, limited, that show that DCA does/may work. There have been no large trials yet.
As of now I do not think that DCA is a cure and I am looking at all the other amazing things that are taking place in the search for a cure. I do flip the current thinking in the medical community which is take standard FDA approved treatments first and then try Phase one trials or such things as DCA when everything else, first second and third approved drugs, until they fail and then go for the experiments.
Personally while I am in good health, I want to take the risk that look good to me and I would like the medical community to be able to advise me the best they can in taking those risk. Everyone has a different take on risk, the medical community today wants you to only look at risk one way, the FDA way. I want to be advised on the risk and choose my own path.
Which I have done. To be fair the oncologist I am working with are so busy that I have no idea how they can stay up with what is happening. In fact they can't in most cases.
On the other hand I, who has not even had a single class in biology, have all day to search out what is happening. I get 100 Google alerts a day on stuff.
And it is not fair to hound them with it all. I do it online.
Obama in a speech to the AMA said "We (his family) just do what you tell us to do". And I would have done the same, have done the same, till now. And I am now again doing what my oncologist tells me. While she is not telling me to take DCA she also is telling me to keep doing what I am doing because whatever my cancer is stable.
The story of how I started on DCA is unusual. I was not looking for some crackpot solution, I was just looking for a delay of chemo since in my case it would be only palliative anyway while I got a second opinion. The fact is my primary physician told me emphatically not to touch DCA but since I had this delay for a second opinion I tried it anyway AND when I confessed to him that I had and asked him for a CT scan to see if it had worked before I started chemo he said yes.
My main tumor had shrunk at least 35% and maybe more in 45 days. End of story. Till then I didn't believe in DCA myself. There are a number of doctors including a brother in law and a niece who are more than amazed I am still alive.
Feel fine, no symptoms.
