My mum is diagnosed with nasopharyngeal cancer, stage 1. I am looking for a hospital to send my mum for her treatment but i have no idea which hospital is good and credible at treating cancer.

Any recommendation for a hospital with good radiotherapy service or cancer treatment? Can also tell me how much does it actually cost? Btw im from selangor. My family is not rich but we will try to provide the best for our mum.

You are free to share me your experience about cancer (or person close to you), food to eat and avoid, or anything else related to cancer. I appreciate all the information you are willing to share with me. Thanks.

Does alcohol increase cancer risk?

Yes. Alcohol raises the risk of cancers of the mouth, pharynx (throat), larynx (voice box), esophagus, liver, and breast, and probably of the colon and rectum. People who drink alcohol should limit their intake to no more than 2 drinks per day for men and 1 drink per day for women. A drink is defined as 12 ounces of beer, 5 ounces of wine, or 1.5 ounces of 80-proof distilled spirits. The combination of alcohol and tobacco increases the risk of some cancers far more than the effect of either drinking or smoking alone. Regular intake of even a few drinks per week is linked to a higher risk of breast cancer in women, especially in women who do not get enough folate. Women at high risk of breast cancer may want to consider not drinking any alcohol.

At Cancer Treatment Centers of America (CTCA), we fight cancer using an integrative approach. Our Mind-Body Medicine Department offers supportive options, including laughter therapy, to help you cope as you receive conventional cancer treatments.

Laughter therapy strives to help you use and enjoy laughter as a tool for healing. Dr. Katherine Puckett, National Director of Mind-Body Medicine at CTCA, first introduced laughter therapy to Midwestern Regional Medical Center upon a patient’s request.

CTCA offers humor therapy sessions, also known as Laughter Clubs or humor groups, to help cancer patients and their families use and enjoy laughter as a tool for healing. These leader-led groups take patients through a number of laugh-related exercises including fake laughter and laughter greetings.

Laughter Club is based not on humor or jokes, but rather on laughter as a physical exercise. One group laughter exercise involves patients standing in a circle, with the leader in the middle. Patients put their fingertips on their cheekbones, chest or lower abdomen and make “ha ha” or “hee hee” sounds until they felt vibrations through their bodies. Dr. Puckett says during these exercises, it is hard for people not to join in because laughter is so contagious.

According to Dr. Puckett, at the end of a laughter therapy session, patients have said things like “I didn’t even think about cancer during Laughter Club” and “That felt great! Things have been so hard that we hadn’t laughed in months.” Dr. Puckett adds that, just recently, the eight-year-old daughter of a CTCA patient who attended Laughter Club said afterwards: “I never thought about laughing everyday, but now I realize I can. Like even when I don’t feel happy, I can still laugh and feel better.”

Although available research has not supported claims that spirituality or prayer can cure cancer or any other disease, spiritual well-being is linked to better quality of life in people with cancer.

Some proponents of spirituality in the context of health claim that prayer can decrease the negative effects of disease, speed recovery, and increase the effectiveness of medical treatments. Faith and religious beliefs are also thought to improve coping and provide comfort during illness. Attendance at religious events and services is sometimes linked with improvement of various health conditions such as heart disease, hypertension, stroke, colitis, cancers, and overall health status. Scientific evidence is mixed.

Studies done on the impact of prayer and spirituality often focus on the effect of religious beliefs and behavior on health, survival, and quality of life. For many of these studies, results have been mixed. Although some research has found that religious groups with orthodox beliefs and behavior have lower cancer death rates, this may be due to healthier habits. For example, some religious groups ban smoking, limit food intake, and drink little or no alcohol. These factors often help promote good health outcomes and lower cancer risk.

The U.S. Office of Technology Assessment reported that a survey of articles published in the Journal of Family Practice over ten years found that 83% of studies on religiosity found a benefit in physical health. Another study of 2 major psychiatric journals over 12 years found that for the studies that measured religiosity, 92% showed a benefit for mental health, 4% were neutral, and 4% showed harm. Religiosity was measured by participation in religious ceremony, social support, prayer, and belief in a higher being.

An analysis of 43 studies on people with advanced cancer noted that those who reported spiritual well-being were able to cope more effectively with terminal illnesses and find meaning in their experience. Major themes of spiritual well-being included self-awareness, coping with stress, connectedness with others, faith, empowerment, confidence, and the ability to live with meaning and hope.

A more recent study found that spiritual well-being was linked with lower distress levels in people who had been treated for colorectal cancer. The researchers reported that the factors with the strongest link to lower emotional distress were finding peace and meaning in their lives. This result would suggest that spiritual well-being might mean less emotional distress at several stages of cancer.”

actually my mum is not really diagnosed with this cancer yet, some tests have been done and the doctor says that the chances of this cancer is 75%, possibly higher because doctors always try to comfort patients. however, my mum does show a few symptoms of head and neck cancer. the final result will be concluded on monday.

so the outcome could be my mum is alright, or worse. i can only hope for the best for my mum.

thank you for all ur help.

my mum is now diagnosed with nasopharyngeal cancer, WHO type III, T1, N2, MX, should be stage 3 or 4. will be doing a CT-PET scan on monday. will still need recommendation from all of u..

my mum is now diagnosed with nasopharyngeal cancer, WHO type III, T1, N2, MX, should be stage 3 or 4. will be doing a CT-PET scan on monday. will still need recommendation from all of u..

Hello Guitary,

I suggest for you to find the medicine or supplements that can boost up or educate your mother immune system. For me, I consume transfer factor, and it is from 4Life.

Please send the email to my agent if you're interested - shally.4life@gmail.com. Or you can pm me, and we can set make appointment.
Thanks,

Beacon has Cyberknife, the robot machine. The only one in the country, I believe.

Subang Jaya has tomotherapy.

Mount Miriam in Penang has tomotherapy too.

Nilai has Trilogy.

All also quite good.
But I guess Subang Jaya, being a big hospital, would have better facilities
for cancer treatment. Nilai and Mount Miriam is probably not convenient for you.

Your mum's case looks quite advanced.

im sorry my friends. i dont need any supplement for my mum at this moment. will be sending my mum for proper treatment, follow doctor's advice.

btw beacon hospital and SJMC, which one is better? or any other hospitals.

Didn't you mention in your first post that you are open to all forms of input,
including food, etc ?

There are countless supplements, herbs and quite a few common drugs which you
can get at your nearby pharmacy (which your oncologist probably would not even
have heard of) which fight cancer, but since you now say you prefer only to follow
the doctors' advice, I will leave it as that.
Here's an insight, anyway.

The common antinflammatory drug, Celebrex.
Influence of celecoxib on invasiveness of human high-metastatic
nasopharyngeal carcinoma cell line CNE-2Z.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/21215211
Standard chemo for NPC is cisplatin plus 5-FU.

Note that as little as 200 mg of Celebrex a day has benefit.
Efficacy and safety of concurrent chemoradiation with weekly cisplatin ± low-dose
celecoxib in locally advanced undifferentiated nasopharyngeal carcinoma:
a phase II-III clinical trial.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/22269407/

Hi, I encourage you to be open-minded especially this is concerning your mom life span. We all also have mom and wants the best for her. Conventional cancer treatment in the hospital will be chemotherapy and it is the right path but the thing is it lead her to much side-effect. The more effective treatment is chemotherapy + excellent anti-cancer health food (lingzhi + bee pollen). It can't be only supplement alone. It gotta be both together. And with doctor's approval.

If you don't believe me, you can research about it. There are too many real life testimonies people who undergo this treatment has recovered from cancer, even terminal (last) stage of cancer. One of them is my church member's father, recovered from terminal stage brain cancer after 3 months. If you want to meet his wife, you can come to visit my church this sunday. PM me if you want to get the church address.

thank you. the reason i say not at this moment is we want to get approval from my mum's doctor first. taking supplement blindly now may not be the best idea yet.

Doctors, including oncologists, only know about, and are trained to, give drugs.

They won't know about supplements, herbs and off-label drugs which have
cancer-fighting properties.

Even before you see the oncologist, I can tell you that the standard chemo
regimen for nasopharyngeal cancer is :

Cisplatin
5-FU

Unless the oncologist is more innovative and gives you one of the tyrosine kinase
inhibitors, EGFR inhibitors, monoclonal antibodies, or the Japanese 5-FU derivative, S1.
None of my friends, and there are quite a number, who had this form of cancer
over the years, are alive. With the exception of my former tax senior's wife, who
parlty followed what I told him to give her over a decade ago.
Nasopharyngeal cancer affects predominantly Chinese, mainly for genetic reasons.

Two of them were my former company secretary and one of the bosses' bouncers.

Cancer is an extremely complex disease, with many genetic and biochemical
pathways involved. When you do research on it, you'll know what I mean.

Cancer cells are immortal. As long as you feed them, they grow forever.
That is why life extensionists, or people who are more knowledgeable about
cutting edge-supplements, go into things like this, and those who have cancer
take them, along with their doctors' chemo, radio and surgical treatment.
http://www.longecity.org/forum/topic/25952-cancer-knowledge/

http://www.longecity.org/forum/topic/26610...nd-supplements/
Note that the above threads, especially the first one, have become redundant
ever since I left the forum, but about half the posts there were mine.

My dad has HCC stage 3 and liver cirrhosis. Doctor recommended us to start with cancer drug (sorafenib). We bought it and a week later， the doctor claimed that the drug is no longer suitable for my dad. Its RM8100 for 2weeks, we are  middle income group. The boxes is opened but have not been consumed. We have doctor's prescription and receipt. What should we do with this drug? If it is sellable, we don't mind to release it at a lower price. Please advice!

Hello, I am sorry to hear that. I had not heard of the drug you mentioned so I went to search it online. If this drug is used to treat primarily only liver cancer, try to ask your doctor to ask if any of his/her patients need the drug at a lower price? Not sure if it is legal to resell the drug but there might be some people who need it but could not afford it at its normal price. All the best to you and your family.

how's your mom?

Thank you for your concern. My mum was already ok after a few months of treatments (chemo + radio) previously, all her cancerous tumours were gone. Now, she only has to go back to hospital for follow-up medical check-ups regularly.

great.... does she have extremely dry mouth now?

some side effects remained after the treatment. she never complained about dry mouth. what bother her the most are the weaker sense of taste and weaker hearing (ringing in her ears) but she has got used to all the side effects now.

Thank you for your concern. My mum was already ok after a few months of treatments (chemo + radio) previously, all her cancerous tumours were gone. Now, she only has to go back to hospital for follow-up medical check-ups regularly.

Hello, very happy to hear your mom has recovered. My mom just diagnosed with stage 3 nasal cancer which spread to lymph nodes last Wed. We have consulted a few doctors in Beacon and SJMC and they have different opinion in terms of treatment plan. May I know what was your mom treatment plan. Was it just radiation and concurrent chemotherapy only? I am kind of confused.

And which form of radiation did you choose? I know there is 3D conformal which is a very old technology with many side effect, Trubeam (IMRT) and Tomotherapy (IMRT).. These are all available in SJMC and also the Institut Kanser Negara (IKN). Our SJMC doctor did help us to refer to IKN which has the tomotherapy machine. They gave us an appointment date is 8 May 18. '

I want to know how long was the gap between your mom diagnosis and start of treatment? Obviously I want her to start treatment asap but if IKN I can choose the best treatment at the affordable cost. The Tomo machine at SJMC alone cost RM42K + RM15K for chemo, which is too heavy burden. So I am very divided whether I should wait for IKN or just go ahead at SJMC.

I would be grateful for any experience sharing.

Thank you for your concern. My mum was already ok after a few months of treatments (chemo + radio) previously, all her cancerous tumours were gone. Now, she only has to go back to hospital for follow-up medical check-ups regularly.

Sorry for the late reply and sorry to hear that. Your mum's situation is quite similar to my mum last time, stage 3 and spread to both sides of lymph nodes in her neck (3 lumps if not mistaken). We also went to Beacon and SJMC, and yes both of the hospitals are very expensive. The doctors in SJMC and Columbia Asia were kind enough to write referral letters to refer us to IKN as we did not have the money for treatments. I personally think that IKN is ok as they specialise in treating cancers only if you cannot afford the treatment in the private hospitals. My mum did chemotherapy first then radiotherapy (all in IKN) because the doctor said that her tumor was too big to start with radiotherapy. I have no idea what kind of radiation it was though. The diagnosis and scanning of her full body to check if the cancer had spread to other parts of her body took about two weeks, then about another two weeks only she started her treatment. What I can tell you now is prepare for the side effects your mum may experience during and after the treatments because the treatments will not be easy on the patients although each person will have different experiences. Ask me anything that you need to know. Check your inbox for my phone number and you may contact me through whatsapp if you really need quick reply.

hello, my dad just did had his surgery for colon cancer few months back and he now has a permanent stoma.

anyone has any experience with this? stoma bags are pretty expensive too, wonder if anyone knows where's a good place to purchase at a reasonable price. thanks!