Treating cancer without hysterectomy?

I don't know, AnneH, but sending good thoughts and prayers for health your way.
{{{{{{hugs}}}}}}

Hi AnneH,

I admire you so for arming yourself with knowledge. You seem to me to have very reasonable questions that need answers. Power corrupts, and more power corrupts more. Doctors have a great deal of power over us in our lives, and I would not allow a doctor to lift a scalpel in my direction without displaying big dose of very specific information as well as humility.

Have you begun to sort through the alternatives to medical solutions to cancer? Last year, after much consideration, I abandoned mammography for thermography to avoid the high radiation and squeezing that many believe can cause and spread cancer. Again I dodged a barium enema (which this time would have meant even more radiation) for my incomplete colonoscopy (I have tortuous colon) by switching to more of an anti-cancer diet. I figure that the medical community can make much more money prescribing medical and pharmaceutical treatment than by prescribing good food. If they say I have a high chance of getting colon cancer, they had better tell me a specific percentage over a specific period of time (of course they tried to scare me with slick verbiage). My own research more accurately told me what kind of wiggle room that I have to try something else.

If you are up to finding possible other ways, read deeply what someone like Dr. Mercola has to say about cancer on his website. His articles are full of references to continue from. He is a DO as well as a watch dog and a whistle blower, and so far I have little to fault him for.

I can't say I have any more specific advice on your problem. Hopefully statistics turn out to be on your side and you never have to face the doctors. Just know that I support all of your efforts. As a matter of fact I am on the sideline cheering you on!! Please let us know on WW where your quests take you.

Hey AnneH, How's your prolapse? When did the bleeding start? How long has it been going on? When did the pain start? Is it all day or just sometimes?
I hate the idea of a biopsy. Whew, my thoughts are with you as you deal with this worrisome event.
I love your observations about fear of the female reproductive system. So interesting. I'm also so impressed by your attitude, not just wanting to live, but wanting to live comfortably.
I sure hope it's just nothing and you did all your research for nothing ;)

(ps. how's your leg?)

HI Anne

Sorry to hear that you are having these problems. Post menopausal bleeding can be a very lonely place to be. It is not always cancer, but sometimes it is. You are right to be doing all your own research to balance out what the doctors are telling you. At least you will understand them a bit better too.

Dr Christiane Northrup, in her book, Women's Bodies Women's Wisdom, says, "After nearly 20 years of medical practice, I continue to be amazed by how clearly menstrual cycles and bleeding are connected to the context of our lives. Abnormal uterine bleeding is always connected to family issues in some way." She continues to describe cases where women have experienced this, both during childbearing years and post menopause . She says, "I always ask her what is going on with her and her family. She will often tell me that an emotionally significant family event preceded the bleeding."

Her website is http://www.drnorthrup.com/ . You might be able to find her books in your local library system. She has also written The Wisdom of Menopause.

Anne, I would be looking at doing the least invasive thing first, and make your decisions one at a time. I have no idea how you go about assessing surgeons, other than my word of mouth, or by trusted referral.

Just don't get bound up by fear. The truth will reveal itself. Just deal with it when you know what it is. At the moment you have several threatening monsters staring you down. You may end up fighting just one of those monsters, or you may be fine, just as you are. The female body has a life of its own. Take care. Big hugs across the sea.

(((((Anne)))))

Louise

Anne, it sounds like you have just the right attitude to be able to cope reasonably well with any scary monsters they can throw at you. I think it was just this morning I read something along the lines of "doctors treat the human body as a thing that things can go wrong with. It is our job to find things that are wrong and cut them off or poison them" or words to that effect. Nothing about "What is normal?" or "What are the limits of normal?" or "What is causing this?" or "Are these symptoms possibly harmless?" I don't think they will get away with much with you!! Good on ya. It is your body, not theirs!

Wow! I am amazed that Christiane Northrup's theory could be true. See if you can borrow Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom from a library. She really is a very interesting doctor. You might even be able to go visit her, if these tests show some abnormalities and you need somebody who understands about the more subtle ways our bodies express themselves.

I can go on forever about how they always give us the worst possible prognosis to scare the living daylights out of us and make us feel dependent on them for salvation, as if they were God or something. However, in the longrun it is probably better that they rule out the potentially life-threatening conditions before deciding whether or not a 'minor' symptom is harmless. They are not fools, just foolish sometimes.;-)

I am reminded of a nurse friend of mine who had experienced menopause prior to being with her daughter during a pretty traumatic first labour and birth. Several weeks later the mother had a full blown period.

I am so sorry that you have had these traumas in your family. S*** happens. You just gotta roll with the punches and be kind to yourself, so you are in good shape to look after others as well. I do hope you can resolve this.

Take care. You are right. These experiences do sharpen up our responses and our sense of making the most of what we have.

Louise

Dr. Northrup's theory makes complete sense to me. Several lowly species in the animal kingdom have the ability to completely change their *sex* if needed in order to preserve a continuation of the gene pool in threatening times. In my mind, it follows that something primal can be triggered in the menopausal human female should her gene pool be threatened. All the equipment, though quieted, is still there. Endocrinology is an infinite mystery, and my humble guess is that the potential for hormone production remains even when operations appear to have ceased.

sending lots of love your way

Hi Bad-Mirror

Thanks for pointing this out. These abilities have, no doubt, contributed to the continuation of species and their gene pools from time immemorial. It is like an automatic 'rabbit up their sleeve' when the going gets really tough.

Plants do a similar thing. Vegetables when stressed, bolt, or go into fruiting phase prematurely.

Crocodiles can change the sex of their eggs by adjusting the temperature of their nest.

Kangaroos can put their tiny little babies (About 2cm long when born, they claw their way up into the pouch and and attach semi-permanently to the nipple) into 'suspended animation' in their pouch if the conditions outside the pouch are not conducive to growing a joey to independence, and to prevent excess milk production which would compromise the mother's ability to survive drought. When the drought breaks the joey begins to grow to maturity.

Our sheep seem to change the ratio of ram to ewe lambs, depending on conditions at mating. In good years there are slightly more ram lambs born (or survive) to make the gene pool more diverse, whereas in bad years there are more ewe lambs, perhaps to ensure that there is a greater supply of breeding stock survive, and less 'non-incubators' eating all the food available.

Hormone production doesn't actually cease in the ovaries at menopause. I saw one paper cited in Womens Wisdom Womens Health that demonstrated that women's ovaries can produce progesterone and oestrodiol for decades after menopause. In the book, Woman's Body: A Manual for Life, by Miriam Stoppard there is a diagram that demonstrates that there is *still* a wave cycle of oestrogen levels in a woman's body after menopause. It is about 10% of the peak height of the oestrogen level during fertile years.

In addition to residual oestrogen production from the ovaries, oestrogen is also produced in other parts of the body, ie pineal gland in the brain, hair follicles, breasts, liver, adrenal gland and body fat. After menopause the adrenal gland increases its oestrogen production, presumably to counteract the decrease in oestrogen from the ovaries. It is an amazing system!

As far as I can see, all that happens at menopause is that the part of the ovary responsible for making follicles changes, and can no longer respond to the pituitary's release of follicle stiimulating hormone. This refusal to make a follicle causes the pituitary to continue its high FSH production after menopause. The supply of healthy eggs also runs down as a woman gets older.

I posted a description of the hormone cycle under Orangewoman's topic called Hormone Changes. I have also found a wonderful set of pages about Menopause here, http://www.50plushealth.co.uk/My-Health/Menopause/What-is-the-menopause%3f/ , where the same process is described.

So you are right, it is all still there, as long as the woman has ovaries and their blood and nerve supply has not been compromised by surgical intervention.

Louise

Thanks Louise, for broadening this topic. I actually did know that estrogen production continues for the lifespan of a woman, and should have phrased my last sentence differently *blush*. How fascinating about kangaroos! Talk about interesting endocrine dynamics! How smart all we creatures are! Really miraculous to have these potentials to keep our kind on earth!

The more I find out about this stuff the more awed I am that we exist at all! It is all so sophisticated. I personally find it more and more difficult to believe that there is no deity or life force or whatever behind the whole universe.

BTW, you are forgiven for your last sentence. All this stuff I am finding out about menopause and how it relates to earlier and later years is, like Christine's POP evidence, hidden very well in diverse places. Normal hormone function after menopause seems to be TMI, or totally irrelevant.

The other possibility is that nobody has a commercial interest in de-mystifying it. It is easier to treat menopausal women as 'sick' and 'fix' us in exchange for money.

Even books about women's health in general seem to devote only a fraction of the pages to perimenopause, menopause and beyond.The average Australian female life expectancy these days is about 78, I think. That is approximately 25-30 years post menopause, along with another 5 or ten years perimenopause, which follows on from about 35 years of fertililty. Hmm, that sounds more like 50/50 to me.

Why the silence on menopause????? Because for some reason it is as if we do not exist. We become invisible in a world that worships youth and airbrushed skin, gravity defying faces and boobs, and all that youthful marketing stuff. I am sure that is why we so many older women wearing pastel shades. They *are* almost invisible.

GIVE ME RED AND PURPLE AND ORANGE!!!

L

;-)

Hmm, maybe. Here's hoping.

Louise