Time again for a quick recap for those that have just tuned in:
Diagnosed with stage 4 stomach/esophageal cancer in July 2013 and offered
'palliative' treatment in Australia – a round of radiation with chemo to
shrink the tumour and stop the bleeding followed by a welcome break in
which we busily got the house ready for sale then three rounds of non-stop chemotherapy with Xeloda
over 60 odd days – by the middle of the third course my hands and feet
were extremely 'ouchy' and shedding skin and I had all the energy of a
55 year old bloke who'd been on 60 non-stop days of chemotherapy.
So, thanks to the shared experience of
Simon and Kate McRae and their discovery of
Biosceptre's work and the brilliant
Doctors Neßelhut I abandoned chemo and shuffled off to
Duderstadt in Lower Saxony, Germany to embark on a course of
immunotherapy with dendritic cells – particularly those primed to target
a 'non-functioning' receptor 'nf-P2X
7' identified by Julian Barden at Biosceptre.
Put simply, all cells carry the P2X
7 receptor which tell the
cell when and how to 'die' when its time is up. Cancer cells however
have a non-functioning version of this receptor. Bioscepter have
identified this and created a treatment which allows cells to reactivate
the receptor and cause cancer cell death. Brilliant! and it appears
this may well be a generic cancer treatment rather than being specific
to a cancer type – to date Biosceptre have identified the marker on more
than 20 cancer types. Even more brilliant!
Additionally, Dr Neßelhut and his wonderful team use a combination of
approaches to help control and eradicate the cancer cells. These include
localised hyperthermia (Oncotherm –
also now available in Sydney) combined with Newcastle Disease Virus (
NDV)
(also not yet available in Sydney) our normal cells can pretty well
shrug off NDV but cancer cells are weakened or killed by the virus.
They also add Ozone and Zometa treatments all of which have little if
any side effects. To date I have had a slight cold which may be from the
NDV or may well just have been be a slight cold.
Other prescribed medications are:
Metformin 500mg x 3 times per day
Cimetidin 400mg 2 x per day
Q-10 x 2 cap
Vitamin D3 x 5 drops
Coriolus Mushroom x 2 capsues twice per day
Since coming off chemo and having fought to get hold of some
Dexamethasone my appetite went from
zero to voracious and I gained back some 4 kilos and counting – it's a
strange world when you find yourself jealous of people's fat.
So this week the third treatment schedule looks like this:
Tuesday 12-1 Hyperthermia + Ozone therapy
Wednesday 12-1.00 Hyperthermia + NDV + Zometa
Thursday 12-1.00 Hyperthermia + Zometa
Thursday 3.00 DC Vaccine (nf-P2X
7)
This will be followed by a CT scan in about 3 weeks time
to see what, if any, effect the treatment has had. I still have to confirm where the scan will take place but it is likely that I will have an appointment with the NHS in London when we get back. The lovely GP in Wapping (who was refreshingly open to both conventional and DC therapy as legitimate) has requested an NHS appointment for me. It will be interesting to compare the approaches and treatment plans.
Right now I feel 'normal' – apart from a little swallowing discomfort at the beginning of eating which is a concern as it could represent tumour growth given the eight weeks off chemo – and people have stopped offering me their seats on tubes so happy with that!
Whatever the outcome I
do believe my journey may help along the way in proving that immunology
is a relevant and effective treatment for cancer and other diseases.
If anyone wants any other information feel free to get in touch.
