About 3 months have passed since the positive scan results in February.
Hmm. What shall I say? I feel a bit "blind" at the moment. My next scan has been scheduled for mid-August – and my resilience and confidence still waver at times. I really don't know whether the tumour might have continued to shrink further or has become stronger. Cancer is unfortunately quite unpredictable.
Hypnosis, meditation and visualisation are still part of my daily routine. I stick to mistletoe therapy, continue to take omega-3 and now also folic acid, vitamins D3 and K2 to support my bones, and magnesium, for my muscles... But my muscles are sometimes very sore. And somehow I'm sure that the anti-hormone therapy is behind this. The body needs oestrogen in many areas: for the skin, the blood vessels, the nervous system and, of course, also for healthy and strong bones and supple muscles.
I really don't understand conventional medicine. Why this aggressive approach to eradicate the cancer down to the last cell? Is that even possible? It seems to me like trying to kill a fly with a cannonball. For me, and this is, of course, only my personal opinion and experience so far, the risks of such an attempt are much worse than the cancer itself. Sure, in the case of an aggressive cancer, strong measures are needed. But why is it necessary to completely undermine the body (in the hope of somehow undermining the cancer too) with medication that has a long list of side effects (that often can't even be explained), only to then rebuild your poor, broken body - again with medication and the associated side effects. It bothers me that the strong self-healing powers of the body - and the unity of body, mind and soul - are completely ignored.
So while I carefully try to go down the stairs - in a house full of stairs (from -1 to +2...), I wonder if I should reduce the anti-hormone medication. Because the price is just too high. I mean the physical price. One of my doctors suggested that maybe enzymes could bring relief. But nobody seems to be able to answer the question of whether it would make sense to reduce the anti-hormone therapy. This is because there are no studies that prove whether a reduced therapy is still effective. Why are these studies missing, I wonder? Surely I’m not the first person to ask myself and my doctors this question?
My dream gives me a clear indication: the price is too high... But why am I paying it then? And why does everyone around me consider that the price to be paid is perfectly normal? Once again, I realise how little we (and that includes the medical world) actually know. The decision is therefore once again up to me: as of 1 June, I have reduced my anti-hormone therapy by half – I now only take one tablet every other day. Time will tell whether this decision was the right one.
One more thing about oestrogen and indole-3-carbinol:
"Secondary plant substances, the so-called phytonutrients – such as the glucosinolate derivative indole-3-carbinol – are particularly interesting in the treatment of breast cancer. Humans ingest indole-3-carbinol (I3C) mainly when eating cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, Brussels sprouts or kale, which contain mustard oils and which, depending on the type of cabbage, are further metabolized in the human organism into different substances, such as indole-3-carbinol.
A special feature of indole-3-carbinol is that an acidic environment or gastric juice from indole-3-carbinol produces 'DIM', which is considered an active metabolic end product. DIM is now offered as a dietary supplement, just like indole-3-carbinol.
Researchers suspect that, in addition to detoxifying, anti-inflammatory and growth-inhibiting effects, indole-3-carbinol is able to attenuate oestrogen signals by causing the 'good' 2-hydroxy-estradiol to be formed from estradiol and not the 'dangerous' version, i.e. cancer growth-promoting 16-alpha-hydroxy-estradiol.
One of the anti-cancer mechanisms of glucosinolates is described as follows: “The body's own oestrogen (17-beta-estradiol) can be metabolized to 16-alpha-hydroxyestrone or to 2-hydroxyestrone. The latter has only a weak oestrogenic effect and therefore hardly affects hormone-dependent breast cancer, while 16-alpha-hydroxyestrone has a strong oestrogenic effect and can contribute to the progression of the cancer. For this reason, some breast cancer patients take indole-3-carbinol, but there are no clinical studies that could prove this beneficial effect outside of laboratory experiments.”
That's good enough for me, so I'm going to take indole-3-carbinol capsules regularly, but with caution. Maybe the results will be visible on my scan in August.
I'm reading up on medicinal mushrooms at the moment, so I'll keep you posted!