Pure TCM for Cancer Is Not Necessarily a Losing Gamble

Today a cancer patient from Shandong, treated by me for nearly a year, came for follow-up. Compared with his first visit last year, his complexion and general condition are much better; his scans show ascites and tumor markers also markedly improved.

He came to me about a year ago with cancer complicated by ascites. He had read my blog for a year, knew me well, and—after chemotherapy still could not avoid relapse. He had also seen a famous Beijing TCM cancer professor, with mediocre results. The first month here brought surprising improvement: tumor markers fell into the normal range and ascites nearly vanished. Though markers and ascites rebounded a few times afterward, each was calmed by another follow-up. He is thus very confident and has persevered, refusing all Western treatment.

I now have many patients. In quality of life and stability, this patient and another elderly lymphoma patient are the best. This man abandoned Western treatment midway; the elderly woman has stuck to pure TCM throughout. He still works normally, runs or cycles every day, and is as robust as anyone. The elderly lymphoma patient, over eighty, still lives alone and manages herself; her pure-TCM lymphoma treatment has entered its tenth year.

By contrast, most patients I have met who took Western or combined treatment are not doing well or have already passed on. I have always been conservative and hesitated to advise pure TCM, especially for younger patients, whom I usually urge toward combined treatment so as not to miss the best window.

But reality has repeatedly shown that this advice is not always right. Before further chemo- or radiotherapy, these patients, treated with my TCM, did not necessarily stop progression, but they were controlled well, progressed quite slowly, and maintained good quality of life. Once radiotherapy or chemotherapy began, most deteriorated rapidly and collapsed physically. This is not absolute—some patients did have their tumors well controlled after chemoradiation.

Treating cancer has no winning choice. If choosing pure TCM is a gamble, choosing Western medicine is also a gamble. The truth may be that pure TCM is not necessarily a losing bet. But in an age of advanced modern medicine, how many dare, like these two patients, resolutely abandon Western medicine for pure TCM? And how many families could?

I increasingly like treating all kinds of disease with pure TCM. When my own family falls ill, I habitually use simple formulas, often only three to five herbs; minor problems resolve in three doses, larger ones in five to ten. It is both cheaper and faster than Western medicine.

Actually, for a disease as big as cancer, must Western medicine really be the answer? I personally doubt it. Last year I canceled my health insurance. I reasoned that if I fell ill and could not cure myself, there were few doctors on earth who could; it would have to be an extremely intractable terminal disease. For ordinary ailments, why seek medicine at all? I once suffered asthma that made life unbearable; I studied medicine to save myself, and in the end what saved me was not any "famous doctor" but myself.

Cancer, especially advanced cancer, offers negligible hope of Western cure; pure TCM can at least ensure that a patient's final days are lived with dignity and less pain. The two examples I give were both deemed by Western medicine unlikely to survive two years; today one has fought cancer for ten years, the other for three, and both remain robust. I cannot promise to cure them, but so far I have kept them living with high quality.

The patient here today recommended me last year to a fellow cancer patient in Beijing, hoping to introduce me to him. But that well-off patient probably did not believe in TCM, and felt that entrusting his life to an unknown little doctor like me was too risky. He spent over 200,000 yuan on interventional and biological therapy and died not long afterward. The two of us reflected for a long while on fate.

I do not reject Western cancer treatment, but I am revising my attitude toward pure TCM. If a future patient insists on pure TCM for cancer, I will no longer see it as reckless, nor refuse it; the facts I have created show that pure TCM for cancer is not necessarily inadvisable.

The road ahead for these two patients is long; how far I can take them, I do not know. But so far, at least compared with their expected survival, choosing pure TCM has been a win.

Written April 10, 2014