The C-Word: How to Cure Your Cancer in 30 Days

this is the title of a book by ty bollinger. actually, it's "the 31-day cancer cure."

despite the confidence of the title and the fact that they sell it hard online and that ty bollinger is a committed christian and uses those metaphors in his work, it actually has some very useful advice.

the question remains - can you cure your cancer in a month?

i would say, yes. with some qualifiers:

1. it depends on how far your cancer has advanced.
2. it depends on how much chemo and/or radiation you've had already.
3. it depends on how much you are willing to commit to resolving it.

people who have cancer call me about once a week with questions about what i did and how i did it.
so i add with my own qualifiers - 1. i had a cancer that has a very high "cure" rate. 2. i did do fourteen weeks of traditional chemotherapy (though my experience made me believe that if my cancer were to return, i would never step into an oncology ward again). 3. the symptoms - very heavy bleeding - made it easy to discover i had cancer, however, i had an extremely aggressive and fast-moving cancer and i (like lots of busy mothers) ignored the hemorrhaging for six months.

i also swam laps - 3/4 of a mile - daily, until the last month, and did pilates every other day so it IS possible to be sick and not really realize it.

personally, i recommend the book - not as the be-all and end-all - but because it addresses the physical parts of healing cancer very well.

bollinger begins with the idea of the "de-tox" - i recommend this to EVERYONE who has cancer or any kind of degenerative illness - and then, re-building your strength.

1. eliminate sugars (and anything that turns into simple sugar) from your diet. that includes wheat, white rice, potatoes, most fruit, corn - i'm sure you know the drill. you might need to do this just until you are in remission, but i recommend one do it forever - with slight exception of fruit. you can start havng organic fruit once the cancer is resolved.

2. eliminate animal products - many sources say that a cancer diet should be low-protein AND low-carbohydrate, especially during chemo. i refer to william li's ted talk, can we eat to starve cancer? so bump up cruciferous vegetables. now almost everyone knows that broccoli, kale, brussel sprouts, cauliflower, cabbage and daikon (japanese radish) are the enemy of cancer cells. i like to tell people the story of how i stopped eating sugar, wheat, dairy and animal products the day i was diagnosed (my brilliant brother had found the "cancer diet" online and printed it out and taped it to my fridge). in those two weeks, the size of my tumor shrank by half. this is before any chemotherapy or treatment of any kind.

i had ultrasounds in four different medical facilities before i came to memorial sloan kettering. my tumor was 4 cm and appeared to be expanding rapidly into the uterine wall.

when i got my first ultrasound at msk, my tumor was 2 cm.

my msk doctors said the rapid shrinking was the result of different kinds of ultrasound machines in the different hospitals. however, the other four places all had the same result. i find many cancer doctors feel like they have to cover their tracks.

3. eliminate ALL processed foods. if you have done the first two, you are probably forced to do this anyway. no artificial colors, sweetners, nothing that comes wrapped in cellophane, no MSG, nothing from a fastfood restaurant (where it is probably chemically-treated), no preservatives. if you can prepare your (organic) food at home - eat it fresh and quickly - you will always be better off.

4. ty bollinger - and many german doctors - suggest you address your teeth. first, like many naturopathic doctors, they suggest you get all your mercury fillings very carefully removed and replaced. mercury leaches out from the fillings and damages your immune system. people who do this report having headaches and colds disappear. next, there are a lot of illnesses lurking in the bacteria between your teeth and there is a theory that root canals - where a cavity exists inside your gum that is closed up and allows bacteria to hide and reproduce - can be the cause of everything from heart attacks to cancer. if you go to a holistic dentist, they can address the root canals as well as the mercury fillings using the proper materials so you are not exposed to the mercury. the idea is the stronger your immune system will be in order to fight the cancer. at the time, i did not have the finances to do this - and i still haven't but i have heard that it is a very important step.

5. the longer you've had cancer, the deeper its gone, and the longer you've had chemotherapy and/or radiation, the longer your healing process will be. simply put - and even doctors admit (like mine at memorial sloan kettering) - chemotherapy and radiation damage your "good" cells, your fast-growing cells (thus your hair falls out) and your immune system. most forms of natural healing work by activating your own immune system in order to fight the cancer. while you've been treating your cancer, you've been suppressing your body's own immune system.

if your cancer is quite deeply entrenched, or you have had a lot of allopathic treatment, i suggest you learn to be very patient with your body. if you've ever been pregnant, you remember that the day after your baby is born, you are horrified to see that you still look pregnant. my midwife used to say, ten months' up and ten months down. (it's sort of the same way you recover from a bad relationship).

ty bollinger suggests you start with a parasite cleanse. this takes about a week and can be done simultaneously with the liver and colon cleanse.

in my classes in naturopathy and chinese medicine, i've learned that almost all of us have parasites (some beneficial) - if you have ever eaten sushi, raw fruits and/or vegetables and/or almost anything prepared in a restaurant - you probably have some malicious ones too. it doesn't take a trip to somewhere exotic to have parasites and they are often not obvious.

the reason to kill the nasty parasites is to optimize your body's ability to utilize nutrients. it's not that hard as there are a number of kitchen plants and herbs that kill parasites, amongst the, ginger and garlic and oregano oil.

6. after the parasite cleanse, the liver and colon cleanse to help strengthen your immune system and to clear out the toxins that are building up from the chemo and/or radiation.

again, i would recommend that everyone do a liver and colon cleanse, at least once a year. but if you are feeling very weak, these might be hard to do. this is hulda clark's version.

for a gentler liver cleanse, my teacher of herbalism, peeka trinkle, suggests this. for 48 hours, avoid ALL fats, sugars (including fruit, potatoes and alcohol), grains (wheat, rice, oats, barley, quinoa), caffeine and animal products (no meat or dairy), no medicine (not even aspirin or tylenol, which settles in the liver) - with NO CHEATING, not even a teensy bit. lots of well-meaning people say, "just a little bit won't hurt..." in this case, it will - don't do it.

drink at least three liters of water a day and as many fresh vegetables as you can eat. if you can handle it, drink a spoonful of organic apple cider vinegar in water every few hours.

this has been known to get homeless alcoholics to get over the alcohol sickness and dry up for a little while.

after a liver cleanse, you'll notice immediately that your skin is brighter, the whites of your eyes clearer and the bags under your eyes depuff or disappear entirely.

7. continue to eat a ketogenic diet.

8. since ty is a christian, he suggests you go to church. i suggest you increase your level of prayer and/or meditation, wherever you do it - church, mosque, synagogue, temple, forest or beach - to help you manage stress, tension and anxiety.

9. add anti-tumor supplements and foods to your diet - including large amounts of turmeric, quercetin, vitamin c (pure l-ascorbic acid), vitamin d3, bitter almonds, cesium chloride, potassium, essaic tea, co-Q 10 and polymva. (please note, i am not suggesting you rush out and fill your shopping cart. work with a good naturopath or natural pharmacist to get your dosage and brands. i recommend speaking to david restrepo at vitahealth in nyc, they deliver all over the country).

10. take probiotics in the morning and pancreatic enzymes with every meal.

11. make sure you get a lot of sleep, at least eight hours a day - if possible ten.

12. drink only purified water - chlorine and fluoride are carcinogens - you need to avoid them at all costs.

13. if you are strong enough to exercise, do it. walk, yoga, pilates, swim (in non-chlorinated water), bicycle, run or lift weights if you can. it doesn't have to be intense, but it reduces your chance of cancer by 50% and increases your chance of recovery.

in reference to my own exploration of alternative and complementary medicine, someone asked me how i figured out which things to do. how did i know which were scams? "how did you decide?"

i said, "i just did everything non-invasive that anyone suggested."

that's not completely true.

everything that i read or heard about or that was suggested to me, i investigated online and with friends to see if there was real back-up. i also checked if it had more than one source that recommended it. i cross-referenced with the crucial database www.cancertutor.com

how to cure your cancer in 31 days is somewhat similar in that its program addresses the physical cancer from every angle.

like bollinger, i agree, there is NO SINGLE CURE. it's not just acupuncture, hypnosis, getting enough vitamin d3 or juicing or even switching to a total raw diet if you don't address all the cleaning and strengthening - and even more so, if you don't address your mental and spiritual state.
anxiety, self-doubt and tension will take you down, my friend.

in the end, if you are strong and committed enough to actually follow all the recommendations in ty's book. i believe you WILL cure your physical cancer in a month or less.

however, the cancer could come back if you ignore your mind and your programming. personally, i'd recommend working with a good hypnotist and/or an energy healer to help calm your subconscious and improve your self-talk.

be well. you can do it. it just takes work and a real commitment.

The C-Word: Trust and Medicine

It seems to me that the biggest problem right now in the medical industry and the healing community is trust.

People don't trust doctors, what with all the news about kickbacks from pharmaceutical companies (check out the dollars for docs site to see if yours has), doctors working 24 hours a day because insurance companies squeeze their time (thus sometimes they make mistakes) and the horrible instances where the process goes wrong and a person gets hurt.

Every day, I seem to get another piece of direct mail/email with a headline like "WHAT DOCTORS AREN'T TELLING YOU" or " WHAT THE MEDICAL INDUSTRY DOESN'T WANT YOU TO KNOW..."

Doctors don't trust patients, because medicine is imperfect and they are humans and doing the best they can, and patients are likely to sue them if the insurance companies don't do it first.

In the complementary medicine community, energy healers, acupuncturists, homeopaths, naturopaths, massage therapists don't seem to trust each other and they really don't trust the allopathic doctors.

And average people don't know if they can trust the alternative medical practitioners because the government has cracked down so hard on them, they can barely hang a shingle, let alone help anyone in any way. I was talking to a friend who is a very sucessful hypnotist yesterday and I asked her what she says when people ask for a guarantee - like what if the treatment doesn't get them to quit smoking? (or whatever it is)

She said, "Does your doctor give you a guarantee? Does he guarantee the pencillin will work?"

And I thought about it and mumbled something about test results, but of course, we all know that about scientists falsifying research. 

Not only does my doctor NOT guarantee results. If something doesn't work or has horrid side-effects, I have to contact her and pay for all the different tests and other prescriptions that she guinea-pigs me on, along with all the subsequent appointments.

One thing I have discovered in being ill so many times is that one needs an arsenal of healers. Allopathic, regular doctors and internists and surgeons who can stitch one's face back together after a taxi accident

Energy healers who can help you re-gain your spirit. Acupuncturists who can make sure the systems are running properly. Nutritionists and naturopaths who can help you eat well enough that your wounds disappear. Homeopaths who can help with the swelling and the healing. Some good friends who can help you do some research and find a lawyer and make sure you don't miss the deadline to sue the taxi company (I did, you only have 30 days, but I questioned the litigious society we've created and the poor taxi driver looked terrified and sorrowful.)

Personally, on his or her own, I don't trust anyone. (Except myself and Universal Intelligence - and even that's a team).

I think, as humans, we need to stop expecting easy answers. There is no single way to address any challenge. And no one should expect perfect solutions from any one practitioner. We need a team, we need ourselves (because NOTHING will work unless you want it and believe it and are willing to put your own work in too).

And if our practioners don't feel safe with us - trust me, they are terrified - they can't really help us.

So drink your green juice. Stop eating sugar and white flour. Step away from the lawyers and spend a bit more time opening up to your healers - on all sides of the spectrum. Cut them some slack. Take some responsibility for yourself.

Feel better.

The C-Word: The Power of the Mind, Trudy Beers

today, i interviewed a well-known hypnotist called trudy beers. (i apologize, i will edit it, i swear - but i was excited to share it, i thought i'd go back and edit it later. )

trudy beers is in her mid-50s and lives an old school sun-filled loft in tribeca. there are no crystal balls or taxidermed alligators, just lots of certificates that prove she's the real thing. she's been practicing hypnosis, reiki and the power of suggestion for about 40 years. when i was in the midst of my chemotherapy, another friend of mine who had recovered from breast cancer recommended i go to her.

my friend, who had radiation for her cancer, gave me these words of wisdom:

"you have to stay positive and you MUST believe in your complete recovery."

hypnosis operates on the theory that your mind controls your body. if you commit yourself, mind-body-soul, to your recovery and wellbeing, you will get there. it's similar to the way athletes prepare themselves for strenuous events, sort of like psyching yourself up.

everyone - including allopathic doctors and nurses - has experienced the way in which an emotional crisis of some kind precipitates an illness. so why can't the opposite - meaning, a resolution of that crisis - start one's body on the process of healing.

one drawback with mind healing, like most kinds of faith, is that if you get lazy or tired or let doubts creep in, you begin to slide. you need to convince yourself that you are well and then your subconscious mind will convince your body. hypnosis works on your subconscious to help you stay focused (and stubbornly attached) to your goal of returning to a balanced state. hypnotists should give you a tape or cd or mp3 to listen to as you fall asleep at night so that you can program your subconscious to keep you on track.

keep in mind is that every kind of healing process requires a multi-pronged approach. as trudy says, "it takes a village..." the more serious and more entrenched the illness, the more ways in which one needs to support one's body and mind in the process. so you still need to be conscious about eating clean, organic, healthy foods, you need to find ways in which to exercise - or maybe get regular massages - to stimulate your circulation and your organs. you still need to drink fresh vegetable juices.

honestly, it seems there is no easy way out. if you want to recover from cancer or any other serious illness - if you really want to - you can, but you will have to work like crazy.

like any other practitioner, she will tell you what i keep saying (not that i am always successful at this myself), you have to give up sugar. this means ALL sugar. cane sugar, white flour, white potatoes, alcohol... depending on how bad your cancer is, you might have to give up fructose as well, which means fruit and potatoes, all types of grains, and absolutely anything your body could turn into sugar to feed those hungry cancer cells. personally, i felt that while my cancer was active, i should give up caffeine as well, because there was no need to speed anything up.

hypnosis does work in tandem with standard western treatment for cancer. the idea is that your mind can help you steel your body against the destructive nature of the therapies.

i've tried various mind-body games myself. like, while getting my blood pressure taken at the doctor's office, i imagine i am on the beach. i zone out and feel the sun on my forehead, turn the office noise into the sound of the waves. i can bring my blood pressure and my pulse down really fast.

i've also gotten my blood pressure taken when i am still fuming over some argument or frustration and watched it shoot up, so i know it's possible.

try it yourself. walk on to the subway platform on a really hot day and keep thinking about being cold. imagine icy places. keep telling yourself you are chilled and - if you focus - you can really keep yourself cool for ten minutes or so. i haven't been able to do it for longer than that, but maybe with practice.

the goal of hypnosis or suggestion is to help you release psychological blocks - the emotional remains of unhappy incidents in your life - and return calmer to your day-to-day life. according to chinese medicine - and a lot of spiritual healers - breast cancer is connected to women's romantic relationships and lung cancer to grief and sadness - so these cancers might be an especially receptive to emotional unblocking.

in a lot of ways, it's similar to prayer. the idea is to separate, to forgive and to lift your spirit to a higher level.

the way trudy works is this: you contact her and do a phone consultation. then she sends potential patients a 12-page questionnaire she calls her "intake form."

the questionnaire goes into great detail about your personality, your tastes, your styles, your character traits. are you patient? are you easily distracted? you list what disappoints you, what irritates you and what pleases you. i found it very similar to what acupuncturists, homeopaths and naturopaths ask you to fill out. the idea being that your personality or habits tend to affect the way your body gets ill and also the way it gets well.

a good hypnotist reads your intake form and spends some time processing the information so that, by the time you get to your appointment, she feels like she knows your starting point.

in trudy's case, an appointment takes about three hours. after going through your challenges and your intake form together, you eventually end up on a cozy chaise longue with your eyes closed. a trance state is like a deep meditation. you feel like you are almost asleep - you know that feeling - you are just drifting off, the world is starting to recede. you can hear the voices in the background, but you are not quite listening because you float in and out of dream states.

for me, i feel like this at the end of the yoga class, when i am lying on the mat in shavasena, totally relaxed and listening to the teacher. (personally, i often fall completely asleep here as well, but i am a tired, stressed-out single mum.)

trudy leads your subconscious mind to release what she identifies as the four negative or blocking emotions - fear, shame, guilt and anger. in the relaxed trance-state, apparently, one is happy to give them up. one leaves feeling lighter and freer.

then she gives you a recording of the session to listen to every night as you go to sleep. eventually, your subconscious starts to act on the suggestion that is programmed into your mind.

according to trudy, you will just need a single session to get the process started. then your own mind and body takes over.

is it worth the $400-500 fee? as trudy says, "it's worth ALL your money to stay well. you won't need the money if you go." i haven't tried it myself but, as i said, i know that trudy has had a lot of success, especially with breast cancer.

on the other hand, if you, like me, had children to feed and shelter no matter what your physical state, you can't think only of your immediate needs.

clearly, there are a lot of scam artists out there - pseudo psychics and tarot card readers - so make sure you do your research. there is an organization called the national guild of hypnotists that certifies practitioners and seems to have a database. ideally, ask friends and people you trust for real life references. if you ,or a friend you delegate the responsibility to, is looking online, make sure you can cross-reference their testimonials (because there are lots of people who write them for themselves).

if you really can't afford it, sometimes it's worth it to talk to the practitioner and see if you can trade or barter. or try a payment plan.

and if all that still doesn't work, maybe hypnosis isn't the thing for you. maybe there's a way to do a D.I.Y version? if you do some research into the french dr. coue, perhaps you could have a friend with a voice you really trust, record some affirmations for you. then listen to them as you fall asleep. just to reassure you, the power of suggestion or reprogramming the subconscious is a scientifically-proven method that many doctors use with their patients today.

the advantage of going to trudy - and she does practice on skype as well, so distance needn't be an issue - is that you get a personalized set of affirmations that integrate your larger issues.

just remember there are lots of alternatives out there. but nothing works alone. it took a lot of people and events (think back, you'll remember) to get you sick. it takes a team of people to get you well.

focus. believe. you will get there.

The C-Word: Exploring the Alternatives

people are always asking me about alternative or complementary healing methods and how to figure out what works and what's a scam.

so i decided to put together a list of alternative - or non-traditional - practitioners who i know and who have helped friends and interview them on this blog.

watch this space.

in the meantime, my first piece of advice when you are looking at any kind of non-traditional healing or "miracle cure," always cross-reference!

for instance, if someone says he cured his cancer using blackstrap molasses and baking soda, don't drop everything and rush out for those products.

remember that while he may be telling the truth, it may only have worked for him because of his body type, his genetic make-up and his personality - i.e., the way he handles stress or tension.

next, spend some time online and see what those particular products can do to one's body. many alternative practitioners recommend "alkalizing" one's body - and as such, baking soda in small quantities can do that. but look around, what kind of baking soda? how much and how often? could this be dangerous? and what other changes will you need to make?

be cautious of websites that make you enter your email address before they give you any information. there are thousands of ways to make money online and one way is to make someone pay to get information that is available elsewhere for nothing.

personally, i recommend an immediate cross reference on www.cancertutor.com

also, nothing - whether it's chemo, radiation, surgery or alternatives - works very well in isolation. you will need to combine and you will need to make changes in your lifestyle (that's how you got here, remember?) so that you can give your body the energy it needs to get well.

so my second piece of advice - before you try anything - is be skeptical. no matter what your doctor or a practitioner tells you, look it up. ask around. ask questions.

when i started at memorial sloan kettering, the doctors told me i was so lucky because my cancer had a 70% cure rate. "isn't that great?" said the chemo nurse.

i said, "well, what about the other 30%?" i mean, if something had a 30% chance of killing you, that was still pretty high.

my doctor said, "those are mostly women without health insurance..."

more to come.