| I admit it, I'm one of those people who is easily | | | | clinical trial and none of them have proved to |
| drawn into false promises of hope, heck I even | | | | have any efficacy for RCC. Kidney Cancer is also |
| failed to win the lottery last night! | | | | one of those highly resistant cancer's that means |
| Prior to my Nephrectomy I paced the floor | | | | things such as standard chemotherapy has little or |
| endlessly panicking about what may or may not | | | | no impact, which is why we're left with a few |
| be, did I have cancer? didn't I have cancer? As a | | | | very expensive treatments and drugs such as |
| computer geek I also surfed the web hour after | | | | HDIL-2, Sutent, Nexavar,Avastin etc. Again none |
| hour looking for anything that could tell me that a) | | | | of these drugs boast a cure, they only proclaim |
| it wasn't really true i.e. the doctors didn't know | | | | to hopefully extend a person's life and check the |
| what they were talking about and b) there's a | | | | growth of tumours. |
| miracle cure out there, some sort of "magic | | | | If these other remedies had any serious efficacy |
| bullet". | | | | then I suspect they would have appeared on all |
| I got suckered into 3 things | | | | of the worldwide Kidney Cancer forums that are |
| | | | patient and carer driven, such as ACOR which I |
| 1. Some sort of Chinese herbal remedy that was | | | | use on a regular basis. Patients are not |
| supposed to improve kidney function (maybe it | | | | themselves driven by the government or |
| did) | | | | pharmaceutical companies , they are driven by |
| 2. Zeolites - Very expensive | | | | their disease. Any miracle cure would have |
| 3. A drug called Graviola that was highly expensive | | | | surfaced by now and we'd all be popping |
| and made me feel violently ill to the point I | | | | whatever that pill is, crushing seeds, eating grass |
| collapsed and threw up. | | | | or standing on our heads with one arm behind our |
| None of the above things that I tried had any | | | | backs singing Alleluia whilst drinking red wine |
| clinical or scientific evidence to back up their | | | | through a smelly sock; because basically I'd do |
| claims, just anecdotal hearsay. What's worse is | | | | anything not to get this cancer again. |
| they wrap up their sales patter with false claims | | | | That doesn't mean that a cure wont be found, |
| about it being some secret that's been deliberately | | | | and maybe the cure will come from some natural |
| hidden from us, basically because they have no | | | | source, however pharmaceutical companies look |
| scientific evidence themselves, so they have to | | | | at thousands upon thousands of compounds each |
| have something to hook us in. | | | | year to see which ones could be a basis for a |
| I've since learnt now that as with most things "if | | | | cure, if these snake-oil substances had any validity |
| it sounds too good to be true, then it generally is". | | | | behind them then they would have made a |
| I feel ashamed that I was drawn in to this stuff. | | | | treatment from them already.... so to me, it's not |
| I do not hold that there is some conspiracy | | | | about money. |
| theory holding back a cancer cure fed the | | | | For sure we should question our oncologists or |
| pharmaceutical companies desire for higher profit | | | | urologists, and in that sense we should be armed |
| margins, and it disgusts me that there are those | | | | with as much information as possible so we can |
| out there that feed off this and people's | | | | have effective discussions about the best clinical |
| vulnerability to sell them these snake-oil | | | | paths given our individual conditions. I hope goes |
| concoctions. | | | | some way to helping. |
| Some of these concoctions have been put on | | | | One for a forum debate I suspect. |