The Dangers of "Do-or-Die" Anticancer Fighting
Some cancer patients keep blogs; for the purpose of researching cancer, I often visit their blogs. One patient I followed for a long time—although she was not my patient—I hoped to learn lessons from her treatment regimen.
When she reached the terminal stage, out of sheer despair, she wrote words like these: "Come at me with all the anticancer poisons! Fight the cancer cells inside my body!" She truthfully recorded how, in the last days of her life, she used all kinds of anticancer drugs and folk remedies to treat her cancer. Unfortunately, her approach shortened her life and made her final days especially miserable.
Recently I encountered a kidney cancer patient who was also using all sorts of methods against his kidney tumor; while seeking treatment from one doctor, he was also trying various folk remedies. These drugs stacked together really did produce an effect, and the patient's tumor shrank rapidly. But unfortunately, after using large amounts of blood-activating and stasis-resolving drugs, the tumor ruptured, causing severe bleeding—what he urinated was entirely fresh blood. Later he even developed urinary retention and had to go to the hospital for emergency treatment, with a urinary catheter inserted.
After the patient had recently been observed at home for a period, occult blood in the urine appeared again. The patient's family told me that recently, while receiving treatment, the patient had also self-administered water boiled with ganoderma (lingzhi) and sanghuang (Phellinus) fungi.
Such patients are typical of those who, in desperation, seek any doctor, fond of "do-or-die" anticancer methods; they gather information through every channel, disregard medical safety, and use multiple regimens simultaneously—extremely dangerous.
The core of medicine is safety and efficacy. Most people only pursue efficacy while ignoring safety; when serious side effects arise, they lack the experience to handle the danger. Often such patients ultimately do not die of cancer, but from improper treatment.
I also have a cervical cancer patient currently convalescing in Inner Mongolia. This patient had finally achieved a good outcome, with tumor markers controlled. But because she pays excessive attention to her own body, the slightest discomfort generates many anxieties. In Inner Mongolia she met a Mongolian medicine practitioner and hoped he could regulate her body. The Mongolian doctor judged her to have yang deficiency and gave her some very pungent, hot herbs; after taking them, the patient began to develop heat, profuse sweating, irritability, and insomnia, worsening day by day.
Her situation is typical; many cancer patients in the rehabilitation period over-attend to their bodies and absorb a great deal of health information, after which they become bewildered and easily abuse drugs. Originally in good health, they develop all sorts of problems after drug abuse that are hard to correct. Iatrogenic problems are extremely complex, and many patients die because of them.
I once admitted two young Ewing's sarcoma patients, both of whom, after their tumors were controlled, independently adopted a so-called yang-warming natural therapy of drinking large amounts of ginger decoction, and died rapidly. One male patient, after drinking ginger decoction, developed massive bleeding, was rushed to the hospital, and despite emergency rescue progressed from basically healthy to sudden death in a very short time. The other female patient, after her condition had remitted, believed the propaganda of a certain anticancer organization, joined it, and after drinking large amounts of ginger decoction her condition rapidly deteriorated, to the point she could barely get home.
Such extreme natural therapies are not harmless but highly harmful. Yet many cancer patients, imbued with a do-or-die anticancer mindset, believe such propaganda. A rational cancer patient, upon receiving certain information, will consult the literature from multiple angles, judge whether the side effects on the body are great, and judge whether the risk is worth taking. But irrational patients are not so cautious, and ultimately mostly become negative examples for medical-industry safety education.
When a patient experiences severe toxic side effects from a drug, they must stop taking it immediately and promptly consult a doctor or pharmacist; they must not, by believing the claim that these side effects are "disease-expelling reactions," cause irreparable loss.
Do not gild the lily in treating cancer. Once a treatment is effective, do not be overeager for quick results and do not act rashly. Whatever method is used to treat cancer, once effective, follow the principle of "do not change the doctor when effective"; do not lightly switch attending physicians and treatment regimens, do not abandon an already effective regimen to try a new one full of uncertainty, and do not on your own initiative take extra drugs or supplements. Because our body's capacity is limited; once it exceeds the body's tolerance limit, the drugs used will harm the body, and some harm is irreversible.