Sunday August 9th 2009

DAILY

• ESSIAC tea (orally) 10 ml + 1ml extra Sheep Sorrel Decoction Twice a day.
  
• DAY 30 PREDNISOLONE 1.5 ml x2/day (60% of the original dose)
• DAY 40 OPC one capsule twice/day - South African 'anti-cancer' herb
• DAY 39 CF IP-6 & Inositol one capsule twice/day
• DAY 55 HYDRAZINE SULFATE one capsule/once a day in morning after food.
• SHEEP SORREL DECOCTION ON GAUZE compress : on back left leg lump. Nightly applied with a gauze soaked in the sheep sorrel, kept in place with first aid tape.

GOOD NEWS... Lucy has bounced back again gradually after a few days back on the steroid. I have brought the dose up to 1.5ml twice a day. (the liquid suspension is 5mg/1ml of liquid, so 1.5ml is equivalent to a 7.5 mg tablet dose which equals 15mg/day. Her original dose was 25mg/day)

SHEEP SORREL DECOCTION
The sheep sorrel soaks in overnight through the skin. This feels like a good way to introduce it to her system, in addition to the more well-known Essiac tea given orally. In the 1930's Rene Caisse was injecting Sheep Sorrel into muscle tissue, with great success at fighting cancers. However since I don't know how to do those injections, I am hoping that by soaking in through the skin a similar treatment is occurring. I am curious if anyone out there has managed to find a vet willing to try injecting it?

BLOG FOLLOWERS
Lucy's Love-oma now has a site counter. We were pleasantly surprised to find out that about 50 people a week are currently reading Lucy's blog. We hope the information we are posting here proves useful to those of you out there that are also fighting canine lymphoma.

SOME QUESTIONS sent to us by a blog follower in Nova Scotia:

So, a few things- you are suggesting we avoid the steroids altogether? So far we have started the essiac tea, twice a day like Lucy, cottage cheese with flax oil twice and two meals of boiled chicken with some steamed carrots. Honestly, she seems so great- and since we started this stuff- only three days ago- she seems like a whole new pup- so we are very grateful for this. You said that steroids decrease the validity of the homeopathic approach? I have read pages and pages over the last days and never read that- but we are new and certainly don't know much right now- we are just trying to know everything we can.

I also found through reading that i did not think a remission was even possible without chemo? You seem to think it is- can you please tell me everything you can about that?
Our vet is telling us to wait for the signs that your Lucy had before we consider the steroids- rejecting food, loss of weight, etc. He has already explained that steroids really do, unfortunately, only buy some precious time with your dog...

It's great to hear that the Essiac tea is helping your dog.

STEROIDS & REMISSIONS?
It was my homeopathic vet who told me that the Steroid treatment prevents the possibility of a remission. I will ask her to give me more information about this so that I can share it on the blog. The steroid seems to be a life-saver at critical times when the dog is crashing hard. However, it is best not to give it unless they need it... That is my own personal feeling about it, which vets seem to agree with. But each person must do only what they feel is right.
The reason seems to be that the steroid is useful to reduce cell inflammation and out-of-control cell responses, but in the process it also shuts down the natural healing processes. My homeopathic vet feels that some healing might still happen, if the steroid dose is significantly reduced, but the regular vet's doses would be too high for the cell's natural healing processes to happen.

This quote from WIKI:

Corticosteroids inhibit the inflammatory response to a variety of inciting agents and probably delay or slow healing. They inhibit the edema, fibrin deposition, capillary dilation, leukocyte migration, capillary proliferation, fibroblast proliferation, deposition of collagen, and scar formation with inflammation.

CHEMO & REMISSIONS?
Since I have decided not to pursue chemo treatments, I have not done much research on it lately. However when I did that earlier on, it seemed that it could only buy time in the form of a remission, but never a cure. So chemo might extend the life of the lymphoma animal by a few months, but those months would be more traumatic for the dog, due to the side effects and actions of the chemo treatment itself. Other factors for me about the chemo are the cost and the fact that it is modelled on human treatments. Chemo doesn't seem to work as well in dogs as it can in humans. It costs an average of $8-10,000 to treat a dog over several months with chemo. I don't have that kind of money, but if I did I would not choose the chemo path even if I was treating myself.
Since Lucy is only 6 years old, I feel that the homeopathic and 'alternative' treatment paths offered Lucy the best chance of a long-term remission. No-one ever seems to talk of a cure being possible, however the woman I spoke to in NY who is the main researcher for the Hydrazine Sulfate (which my vet had never heard of), has had successul results, extending the life of lymphoma and other cancer dogs by as much as 8 YEARS!

So to sum it up, I am currently putting my faith in the combination treatment of Essiac Herbs, Sheep Sorrel compresses, Hydrazine Sulfate, the OPC herb (ordered online from a cancer researcher in South Africa) and the homeopathic remedies prescribed by my vet. This is quite a load for Lucy daily, but she seems to respond very well to them all, without any obvious side effects.

There are labels for these treatments on the right hand side of this blog with links as well so you can find out more about these treatments.