Cancer in Animals - What is to be cured? E-Book

Sue Armstrong

• Herausgeber: Narayana
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 242

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

We are at the early stages of understanding the disease process of cancer. It is difficult to make decisions when it comes to treating affected animals. Subjecting animals to anaesthetics and toxic drugs to achieve remission is a moral dilemma. Homeopathy is not the magic bullet for treating cancer and does not claim to be so. However, the clinical experience that Sue Armstrong has gained over thirty years of treating veterinary cancer patients that could not tolerate chemo- or radiotherapy, or whose owners could not afford to treat using these methods or refused to treat conventionally, has given her insights not only into a methodology for treating cancer cases but also into the disease process itself. In the first volume of the series, the expert vet describes the scope of homeopathy. She looks at the basics of how cancer arises, its genetic origins and the role of inflammatory processes and oxygen. Then she describes the development of homeopathic cancer treatment from Hahnemann until today, showing the successful approaches of famous homeopaths such as Kent, Grimmer, Ramakrishnan, and Burnett. Sue Armstrong describes her approach in great detail, distinguishing the various stages of cancer. In animals with a strong predisposition for cancer, a great deal can be achieved by prophylactically altering the diet and using miasmatic treatment. If the tumour is confirmed, treatment is selected according to the stage of the cancer and, for example, whether surgery is indicated. Organotropic remedies, drainage and Schuessler salts are used supportively together with the major cancer nosodes Carcinosinum and Scirrhinum. Clear instructions are also provided for treating the effects of cancer such as cachexia, disturbances in haemoptysis or vomiting. She documents her approach with impressive cases. At the end there is a concise materia medica of cancer remedies.

Leseprobe

The Veterinary Homeopathy Oncology Series

Sue E Armstrong

Cancer

in Animals

What is to be cured?

Vol. 1

IMPRINT

Sue E Armstrong

Cancer in Animals

What is to be cured?

The Veterinary Homeopathy Oncology Series I

First Edition 2016

E-Book ISBN: 978-3-95582-131-9

© Narayana Verlag 2016

Cover layout: Narayana Verlag

Cover illustrations: Tatiana Makotra/shutterstock.com, Maciej Bledowski/shutterstock.com, pirita/shutterstock.com

Narayana Verlag GmbH, Blumenplatz 2, 79400 Kandern, Germany Phone [phone]; [email protected]; www.narayana-verlag.com

All rights reserved. Without the written permission of the publisher, no part of this book may be reproduced, duplicated, photocopied, translated or stored in any form by any mechanical, electronic or photographic process, with the exception of short passages for book reviews.

In so far as registered trademarks, trade names and common names are used, the usual protections apply (even if these are not marked as such).

The recommendations in this book have been compiled and checked to the best know-ledge of the author and publisher. There is nevertheless no guarantee provided. Neither the author nor the publisher shall be held liable for possible detriment or damage resulting from the instructions in the book.

CONTENTS

Imprint

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Foreword

Introduction

SECTION ONE: Through the Conventional Lens (The chicken and the egg)

Chapter 1: The conventional (Molecular Level) Understanding of neoplasia – Cancer as a Genetic Disease

Defining the words we use for cancer

The aetiology of neoplasia

The genes involved in neoplasia

Hanahan and Weinberg hallmarks of cancer

Stem cell theory of cancer

Cancer prevention and screening

Cancer diagnostics

Conventional therapeutics

Where homeopathy meets the conventional paradigm

Bibliography and references

Chapter 2: The Role of Inflammation in Cancer

Inflammation and the cancer connection

Plant remedies for cancer and inflammation

The microbiome, inflammation and the connection with the bowel nosodes in cancer management

Mineral remedies used in cancer and inflammation

Other important remedies involved in the cancer and inflammation connection

Final words

Bibliography and references

Chapter 3: Oxygen and its Role in Cancer

Bibliography and references

SECTION TWO: The Homeopathic Perspective (The dynamic nature of disease – before the chicken)

Chapter 4: The Homeopathic Understanding of Cancer from Hahnemann to the 21st Century

Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843)

James Tyler Kent (1849-1916)

Arthur Hill Grimmer (1874-1967)

James Compton Burnett (1840-1901)

Robert Thomas Cooper (1844-1903)

RM Le Hunt Cooper

Donald Foubister (1902-1988)

William Lees Templeton (1898-1978)

Dr AU Ramakrishnan (1942-)

Dr Prasanta Banerji (born 1933)

Bibliography and references

Chapter 5: A Homeopathic Approach to Cancer

1. High-risk patients – no cancer presenting

2. Cases with a pre-cancerous condition

3. Cases with confirmed primary tumour (no conventional intervention)

4. Primary tumour – surgical cases

5. Primary tumour – animal on adjunct therapy

6. Cases with Stage IV cancer – advanced metastatic disease

Bibliography and references

Chapter 6: Organ Remedies, Drainage Theory and Tissue Salts their use in the Management of Cancer Cases

Primary organ disease and organ remedies (organopathy)

Drainage

Tissue salts (biochemic therapeutics)

Bibliography and references

Chapter 7: Treating the Secondary Features of Cancer

1. Gastrointestinal

2. Haematological disorders

3. Endocrinological changes

4. Cutaneous disorders

5. Renal disorders

6. Neurological and musculoskeletal disorders

7. Miscellaneous disorders

Bibliography and references

Chapter 8: Carcinosinum and Scirrhinum

Carcinosinum: know the nosode

Scirrhinum

Bibliography and references:

Chapter 9: The Evidence base for the use of Homeopathy in Cancer

Case studies

The mixed modality nature of most veterinary cancer cases

Three cases of multiple primary tumours in dogs – an integrative medicine approach

In vitro studies showing the action of homeopathic medicines on cancer cells

References and list of published papers on different aspects of homeopathy and cancer in both animals and humans

Chapter 10: A Materia Medica for Cancer

Location of the cancer

Bibliography and references

APPENDIX

A Brief Introduction to Homeopathy for Beginners

Glossary of Homeopathic Terms

Names and Abbreviations of Homeopathic Remedies

Index of Symptoms

Index of Illness/Conditions

Index of Remedies

About the Author

DEDICATION

KEI

Photograph by Ruth Downing

21/06/2003 - 26/11/2014

Kei completed his life during the final stages of the writing of this book. He was my constant companion for eleven and a half years and taught me endless lessons throughout our time shared together – but none so profound as when he presented with cardiac haemangiosarcoma and rapidly progressing lung metastases. He left within 5 days of revealing his first clinical symptoms. No homeopathy, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, targeted therapy or any other therapy was going to save him; this was his time.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

To my husband Rick, who thankfully has the same work ethic as I do, your love, support and patience has meant everything to me. My constant companion for over 11 years, Kei, taught me untold amounts about so many aspects of life, death, relationship and love, and until his leaving he made it imperative for me to walk in the fresh air and connect with nature at least a little every day. My sons, who grew up despite me to make me immensely proud, encouraged me at every step and provided me with plenty of their opinions during the many healthy discussions around the dining table at home, have helped me to develop my thoughts around the issues raised in this book. My heartfelt thanks and love go to my parents who are as much now my best friends as they are my source. They have provided me with reason, purpose, encouragement, and of course the genes that help to make me who I am and do the things that I do in my life.

Homeopathy would not have entered my life were it not for John Saxton, a business partner, colleague and friend for many years. I have learnt much from working and teaching alongside him and am so very grateful to him for pointing me in the direction that I have now taken. There are so many homeopaths around the world that have shaped and contributed to my practice and way of thinking and I am grateful to each and every one of them. There is one who will never be surpassed and that is of course Samuel Hahnemann who was a visionary genius; his legacy has held me on my course at times when it would have been so much easier to forget all about homeopathy and pretend it does not exist. It is the students and the trailblazers from around the world, who are so hungry to learn, who have given me immense joy and inspiration, notably Julie Ann Lee (Canada), Yumi Koseki and Tsubomi Suzuki (Japan), Jaana Kolehmainan (Finland), Morten Riis (Denmark), Shelley Epstein, and the many wonderful members of the AVH (USA). There are so many others, I hope they know who they are, as well, of course, as friends and colleagues in the homeopathic community in the UK, especially my dear friend and colleague Wendy McGrandles who doesn’t let me get away with anything!

To Isobel, Doug, Mary and Conrad who have helped keep Balanced Being afloat in difficult times, when I have stubbornly held on to my principles and refused to become a peddler of drugs, foods and treatments that I do not believe to be in the best interests of my patients (decisions that had made sustaining a viable veterinary business, in this era, difficult to say the least), I cannot thank you enough. The same goes to my loyal staff who have had to deal with my endless deadlines and seeming diversions from simply being a clinician; I think they too see the bigger picture of how important it is to share the knowledge and experience that we have all had at the practice, working in the way that we do. A special mention must go to Vivien Swift, one of the most courageous women I have ever met and a veterinary homeopath in her own right, who has done many hours of researching for this book as well as for many of my other talks and ventures.

My thanks go to my publishers Narayana Verlag for their support, integrity and professionalism. This book has been a long time coming and my visit to their publishing house in 2013, spending that short time with members of the family and business, was such a great inspiration and encouragement.

There are no greater teachers for any veterinary surgeon than the many clients and animals that come to us for help and treatment; every one of them has played their part in developing my understanding of health and disease. Finally, I would like to acknowledge the millions of animals whose lives have been taken in the name of cancer research over many decades. Human beings have so very much to answer for.

FOREWORD

This is the first in a series of books on the homeopathic and integrative approach to veterinary cancer management in animals. Other books in the series will cover nutrition and supplements in cancer management, canine neoplasia, feline neoplasia and equine neoplasia. The species-specific books will cover the major cancer types for each species and will include example case studies throughout.

I have been developing my ideas and current understanding for over 30 years in clinical veterinary practice, treating mostly dogs, cats, horses and also humans as an RSHom. Of all the chronic case manifestations that I have had to deal with on a daily basis, cancer is the one that I have been drawn to because it challenges us all as practitioners on so many levels. Cancer exposes our inadequacies, fears and falsehoods perhaps better than any other disease process and it can be so unforgiving when it does it. No other disease process has had as much money poured into it for research over the decades as the collective of cancer. The history of how this money has been allocated and what the human race has done with the findings of the research has provided us with a beautiful mirror on human nature, greed and politics that has changed little as we evolve.

My initial intention when starting these books was to provide a comprehensive body of work to support the work of veterinary homeopaths. However, the concept of the books has evolved as I have talked to conventional veterinary oncologists and to clients who have experienced the cancer process in their own animals. I hope that the series will provide a source of information to help everyone involved in cancer in animals, or indeed in humans, to see things from a different perspective, and to piece together the different ideologies into a more unified whole.

My nature includes a deep aversion to conflict, which of course has ended up being the challenge of my life, as our deepest fear nearly always does. It has been the saddest aspect of my life’s work that homeopathy has brought me nothing but conflict, most notably in the aggressive attitude towards it held by so many members of my own profession. None of us has all the answers to treating the diseases that afflict humans and other animals, nor do any of us fully understand the purpose of disease and what is truly to be cured. Homeopathy is not a belief system, it is a science, and we ignore it at our peril.

INTRODUCTION

Cancer is not a new disease; it has been a part of the story of humans and other animals from the beginning of cellular life on earth. A fossilised rib excavated from a shallow cave at Krapina, Croatia, came from a Neanderthal living 120,000 years ago and was found to have the same bone tumour type that is commonly found in humans and animals today. Bone is the most common tissue remaining from our ancestors and one of our few tangible connections with the dead. Other examples of cancer, in other organs and tissues, have been found in Egypt in the mummified remains of humans living between 1000 and 4000 years ago, confirming that we have a long history of living and dying with cancer.

Cancer is nearly always viewed as the enemy, a terrible disease that we have to eradicate and fight. Every cancer charity, government and organisation talks in this way, making us deeply fear not only the disease but the very word cancer. I have patients who cannot even bear to see the word written, and resort to such requests as “Please do not use the ‘c’ word”. There is perhaps a greater depth to the story of cancer than is obvious at first sight: cancer may well be inevitable for at least a percentage of us and our animals if we do not die prematurely from other causes such as accidents, epidemic diseases or poisoning. However, only a percentage will inevitably succumb to cancer; other causes of age-related death such as non-neoplastic major organ failure will be the ending for others. Throughout time the volume and nature of the threats that can lead to premature death have changed. As we both identify the threats and learn to deal with each of them, minimising their impact on the health of humans and animals, we are still left with the inescapable birth, life and death scenario of each individual and the natural processes of ageing and dying.

Genetic mutations are happening all the time in the mammalian body at a small but steady rate; if this did not occur throughout time, species could not adapt or evolve. I will be looking at some of the extrinsic causes of mutations later in the book but the reality is that mutations happen in every one of us and our animals as random events, and cancer is a major ‘natural’ cause of age-related death and is most likely a price that we pay for the evolution of life on Earth. I was brutally and yet poignantly reminded of this aspect of cancer recently with the loss of my own beloved German Shepherd dog, Kei, who, in the last month of writing this book, developed an aggressive cardiac haemangiosarcoma with secondary lung metastases. After just five days of his expressing clinical symptoms, his life was ended. He had been, up to that point, a ‘healthy’ German Shepherd dog, having lived eleven and a half years of relatively problem-free life. The trail of the origin and development of his cancer was, however, written in the richer texture of his life story (as it can nearly always be traced in us all). This was an example of cancer the completer, the end-game of life, working swiftly, and with only the short disturbance that attends any end of life for the bearer and loss for those left behind. This is not to say that end-of-life cancer should not be treated; however, the reality with this form of cancer presentation is that it is invariably incurable and treatment, such as it is, can only ever involve palliative end-of-life care. It is also the typical cancer presentation that appears following an earlier ‘cure’ of an often completely different cancer phenotype. I have discussed this phenomenon with several experienced homeopaths and conventional oncologists and all were familiar with this observation. The homeopathic understanding of miasmatic theory and Hering’s Law mean that experiences with these cases can lead to massive feelings of self-doubt for homeopaths regarding their abilities. Surely you have failed if your patient ultimately dies of a tumour, and surely your previous attempts to cure must have been suppressive? If that were the case every doctor, veterinary surgeon and homeopath on this Earth fails, and suppresses disease all the time, because not one single human or other animal has yet achieved eternal life. While I know there are many who disagree, I do not believe that life on Earth should ever be eternal for any single living being, no matter how clever we think we have become at manipulating nature. Every individual living thing has a birth, life and a death, and life itself evolves over time to be what it needs to be in order to survive.

The presentation of cancer I have described above is, despite being essentially the same cellular process, a different beast from the one we fear most: cancer that has been triggered ahead of the normal end-stage ageing process. These cancers develop when we or our animals have not reached old age, have not declined gradually in our ability to maintain homeostasis and have not completed our life potential and purpose; this is cancer that shortens life, cancer that interrupts the life while it is still in flight. This presentation of cancer can take many forms, can have completely different speeds and complexities and, as I will discuss later, this is invariably a reflection, in homeopathic terms, of the miasm involved. These cancers are primarily triggered by our actions, behaviour and lifestyle. There will be predisposition in the form of susceptibility and underlying miasmatic disease, but rather than the miasm developing slowly until the organism is finally destroyed the miasms are activated and accelerated.

It is very difficult to estimate the real size of this problem in the companion animal population because these numbers are simply not recorded and collated. However, the current estimate for cancer rates in humans in the UK is that one in three people will experience cancer in their lifetime and one in four people will die from it, which gives some idea of the scale of the issue. The pet insurance industry is able to give us some idea of the incidence of cancer in companion animals through its recording of claims. A paper published in the JSAP in 2002 reported that of 130,684 insured dogs, 2,546 had tumour-related claims (Dobson, 2002).

There are considerable ethical and moral issues when it comes to the treatment of animals with cancer. We are currently living in the era of evidence-based medicine which, in its bare concept, cannot be deemed anything other than the correct way to proceed in both human and veterinary medicine. There are however serious flaws in the reality of its implementation at this time. The evidence is simply not available, for any form of medicine, in sufficient quantity and of sufficient quality for any of us to limit ourselves, and most importantly our thinking and questioning, given the small numbers of published trial results available. Much of the lack of evidence is not caused by trials disproving the efficacy of treatments but quite simply because the trials have not been done. Equally, by far the majority of trials in veterinary medicine are for specific drug therapies sponsored by pharmaceutical companies with vested interests, with no reporting of negative trial results. All veterinary therapeutics (e.g. so-called conventional, homeopathic and herbal medicines, and nutraceuticals) that are involved in the real world of treating cancer in animals, and often used in combination, are at a similar stage in the development of a meaningful, high-quality, independent evidence base. Evidence can be produced to substantiate just about anything, and history supports this. Everyone interested in cancer therapeutics or in the way that thinking and progress in medicine is manipulated, should read the book The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddartha Mukherjee; it is a veritable masterpiece and underlines how careful we must be when jumping on the bandwagon of believing that we are practising evidence-based medicine. There is hope, however: thanks to the digitisation of the world, we now have the ability to collate vast amounts of data and can conduct clinical studies involving hundreds and thousands of genuine clinical cases with all the complexities of different diets, multiple medications, collateral diseases and lifestyles recorded and accounted for. It is only with this type of population study that we will be able to see the reality of what is and is not working and, importantly, to see the impacts that the interventions have not only on our patients but also on their owners.

There are considerable shifts starting to filter through, in the conventional treatment of animals with cancer, that involve more targeted approaches. These promise to be both more effective and, most importantly of all, less toxic to the patient as a whole. In my practice, many of the cancer cases that come to me for homeopathy and integrative medicine care have already had multiple conventional interventions that have either failed outright or the animal’s physiology is unable to tolerate them. There are so many trade-offs with different cancer treatment protocols and extremely difficult decisions for owners to make when choosing the route that they go down to treat their animals. I see animals that have been given multiple general anaesthetics, for example weekly for more than ten weeks (sometimes as frequently as daily). This is a commonly accepted practice in the regimes of delivering fractionated radiotherapy. The technique involves giving small amounts of targeted radiation locally that accumulate with the repeated doses to give an overall higher total radiation dose than can be tolerated with other techniques. The method can avoid the radiation sickness and morbidity that can be seen with larger-field, lower-frequency radiotherapy protocols; however, this short-term gain and the improved kill rates of cancer cells can be totally outweighed by the long-term consequences for both the animal and owner. It is not, in my opinion, a success to ‘cure’ the cancer in an animal but destroy the animal’s quality of life. Impaired cognitive function, liver damage, bone necrosis, not to mention fear and loss of trust, and many other issues can occur over time following these protocols and ultimately lead to the animal’s death.

Quality of life has to be, in my personal opinion, one of the most important, if not the most important, consideration when treating our animal companions. This consideration applies whatever treatment methods are employed. It is just as unacceptable for a homeopathically treated animal to be denied conventional pain relief if it is needed as it is for an animal to be subjected to daily general anaesthesia to achieve a few months of additional life. We have at our disposal an extraordinary symphony of treatments that can be integrated to provide the best possible protocols for our patients, and none should be mutually exclusive. Humans have a serious issue with these judgements on quality of life and suffering, not least because we often have a totally schizophrenic attitude as to what is humane in animals versus what is humane in humans. A veterinary surgeon can lose their licence to practise for allowing an animal to suffer in extremis and not performing euthanasia, while a doctor can be struck off for euthanising a patient in extremis and not perpetuating their suffering, both in the name of humanity. No one, when going through the final expression of distressing symptoms that can attend the end-stages of terminal cancer, should have a different judgement placed on their suffering; we are all the same – we are all animals. As a veterinary surgeon and human homeopath I have been privileged to witness and take part in both medical worlds, and our human choice to separate and elevate ourselves from the realm of animals has created tides of hypocrisy. In over 30 years of practice I have witnessed the euthanasia of countless animals that was far too freely agreed to by the owner, contrasted by the intolerable suffering of so many human patients with terminal illnesses who, in the end-stages of their disease, have been robbed of their ability to die naturally (which often takes energy and focus) by the interventions of the medical profession and the numbingly slow death induced by the opiates.

There is still much debate regarding the correct understanding of the nature of cancer, and there appears to be a tangled web of different viewpoints, therapies and explanations. This can leave both the practitioner and animal owner confused and often narrowed in their focus, which is a result of the desperate need to make sense of it all and not become paralysed by indecision. Every oncologist you meet tends to nail their colours to a paradigm and fights their corner. This is amplified by the way that funding is allocated, and the commitments made by the pharmaceutical industry and governments when they start down an avenue of research. We will see in the next chapter the influence of the discovery of DNA and its repercussions on the direction of research efforts, and the parallel influence of Warburg’s work on cell metabolism, and of course, quietly in the background, the homeopathic understanding of the cancer process. Each idea cannot be right – or can it? It is very hard for an individual to maintain fluidity when assessing any complex situation, to keep refocusing at different depths, to see the bigger picture at the same time as the minutiae. This is one of the many reasons why we work best as collectives, with each person bringing their particular skills to the discussion, but this is often followed by some individuals starting to believe that their knowledge is more important than that of anyone else. At a darker level still, it is sometimes not even that some believe they have genuinely more important knowledge, it is that they have too much vested interest to allow others to express opposing views. History has shown this over and over again, and not only in the field of cancer.

The level that different researchers focus on is represented in a simple way in Figure 1. This schematic shows how each of the areas of focus can overlie each other and represent aspects of the same truth. The levels in the diagram not only represent a progression from top to bottom but also represent elements of the story of cancer that may be occurring at the same time and are continually influencing each other. Most importantly, each can and has become the focus for therapy, from surgery, radiotherapy and standard chemotherapy targeting the gross physical neoplasm, through to the opposite extreme of the homeopath working at the level of the dynamic disturbance of the whole organism or of the particular breakaway energetic of a neoplasm that has lost its communication with the surrounding cells and may have a dynamism of its own. There is still so much that we do not know, but if we can all remain open to how things work at the many different levels of perception, we stand a much better chance of meeting the genuine needs of our patients.

Figure 1.  The levels of focus in the cancer story

Section One

THROUGH THE CONVENTIONAL LENS

(The chicken and the egg)

CHAPTER 1

THE CONVENTIONAL (MOLECULAR LEVEL) UNDERSTANDING OF NEOPLASIA – CANCER AS A GENETIC DISEASE

Cancer is a flaw in our growth, but this flaw is deeply entrenched in ourselves. We can rid ourselves of cancer, then, only as much as we can rid ourselves of the processes in our physiology that depend on growth – ageing, regeneration, healing, reproduction.

Siddartha Mukherjee, The Emperor of All Maladies, 2010

I make no apology for opening this book on the homeopathic and integrative medical approach to neoplasia in animals with a section on current conventional thinking, because no matter how the understanding of homeopathic philosophy and therapeutics differs from current conventional thinking, the veterinary surgeons who will read this book have all been trained in conventional medicine and surgery and work in a world where the dominant viewpoint is of molecular reductionism. We all need to be able to communicate effectively with both our professional colleagues and our clients, and to do this well we need to see any subject in the round, otherwise we are in as much danger of bias through ignorance as many of the detractors of homeopathy. There cannot be two absolute opposing truths on a single subject unless they represent different aspects of the same reality, and to this end we can use the conventional understanding to further our homeopathic knowledge and vice versa. The currently accepted paradigm (which, like so many principles in life, follows an 80:20 rule of acceptance) suggests that all the answers to medical problems are to be found at the physical molecular level. Billions of pounds and dollars have been poured into the understanding of the molecules involved in cancer, in identifying genes, proteins, biological pathways, and the drugs that interact with these molecules. It is in this physical realm where the current cancer drama for most veterinary oncologists, veterinary surgeons, pharmacists, cancer researchers, owners and clinically affected animals is being played out. This is the language we need to understand in order to be able to communicate with other professional colleagues working in this field, as well as, of course, understanding the dilemmas that owners face when having to make therapeutic choices for their animals. These molecules exist in the physical world and will be altered ultimately by well-selected homeopathic medicines, supplements and other interventions if these treatments have validity. It is the understanding of the nature of disease and, most important of all for homeopaths, the concept of the dynamic disturbance and the use of dynamic medicine to stimulate cure that is the fundamental difference, and not a rejection of the knowledge that genes and biological pathways are involved once the disease processes somatise.