Are curcumin enemas a thing?

you can easily make them yourself by emptying curcumin capsules into an enema bottle and filling with distilled water. you could also add them to medicated enemas. we all have to be guinea pigs to see whether something can work for us.

Sometimes I think of Meds vs Alternatives like the difference between a spec built home and one that is custom built for you.

A spec house is just fine, it will meet most of your basic needs. But it will also be lacking in many areas.

The meds are designed to be address the needs of many, attacking your body indiscriminately. While they do help, they also present a whole host of negatives.

Customizing a treatment plan just for you, has all the positives, and much, much fewer of the negatives.

The biggest advantage of big pharma is time. More often than not, meds will get you to a happy place quicker than alternatives.

If you have the time (which many don't) figuring out an alternative treatment plan just for you. can have the long term benefits that drugs can never achieve.

Good analogy!

I have thought about the buying your time thing.

I'll use an analogy as well. I used to use Chapstick often. Then I noticed that my lips no longer made their own moisture. The body is super efficient. If it is getting help from an outside source it will stop using its own resources to do what needs to be done.

So the idea of using meds to buy time before finding my alternative treatment sounds great but does the meds cause the body to rely on them?

ScienceTeacherJrHigh said...
I'll use an analogy as well. I used to use Chapstick often. Then I noticed that my lips no longer made their own moisture. The body is super efficient. If it is getting help from an outside source it will stop using its own resources to do what needs to be done.

So... do you eat food or nah?

Chemotherapy is effective in many colon cancers. There are certain colorectal malignancies that do not respond to 5-fluorouracil, which is one of the most common chemotherapeutic agents used in colon cancer, so it's possible you've seen studies that discuss that issue. However, there are hundreds if not thousands of studies that show improved survival in colon cancer patients who receive chemotherapy.

ScienceTeacherJrHigh said...
Thanks for the replies. I'm curious Ki-wi how severe was your UC?

When diagnosed I was "mild to moderate" and after about 12 months it had escalated to "moderate to severe" (the absolute lowest point in my life to date) which is when I acknowledged I should try an immunomodulator (Azathioprine, ineffective) and later a biologic (Remicade). It has taken a while but I would now put my symptoms somewhere around "mild" and steadily approaching "gone".

I don't agree that belief in a god has any place in a treatment program other than as placebo but that is a different discussion for another forum.

In my case by the time I got a diagnosis I was too inflamed for a scope. They had originally found only a 2 cm patch a year prior, so in the course of one year un-medicated (although the path report clearly stated UC or Crohn's neither the GI nor my PCP prescribed meds). Granted, during this time I did little to self medicate as I was fine until a sudden painful flare. So, proceed at your own risk as UC can move fast.

I would like to pipe in for the use of Slippery Elm Bark though, as a natural alternative to mesalamine. I have found it great to nip a flare. Many also use it as an enema ingredient as well. Many threads on this site for enema recipes, particularly the elm bark. I think it would probably be wise to use the bark more often while in remission but it's difficult to gag the stuff down. Wishing you the best.

Guardian7 said...

Pluot said...

ScienceTeacherJrHigh said...
I'll use an analogy as well. I used to use Chapstick often. Then I noticed that my lips no longer made their own moisture. The body is super efficient. If it is getting help from an outside source it will stop using its own resources to do what needs to be done.

So... do you eat food or nah?

Chemotherapy is effective in many colon cancers. There are certain colorectal malignancies that do not respond to 5-fluorouracil, which is one of the most common chemotherapeutic agents used in colon cancer, so it's possible you've seen studies that discuss that issue. However, there are hundreds if not thousands of studies that show improved survival in colon cancer patients who receive chemotherapy.

This just isn't true.

I posted about this before in more detail (I'll search for the thread), but there is a fairly high re-occurrence rate for those who go through chemo for colon cancer - around 1 in 5.

Did I say that chemotherapy cures colon cancer with no chance of recurrence? No. Did I say chemotherapy improves survival rate? Yes, because it does. You are entitled to your opinion and your decisions, but it has been demonstrated, well and repeatedly, that expected survival is longer with chemotherapy in the setting of colon cancer than without it. Full stop.

Guardian7 said...
It is also virtually impossible to "get it all" through chemo, as some tumors are missed during treatments.

As I said, chemotherapy improves survival. For patients with colon cancer that has metastasized or cannot be resected, there is no such thing as a cure, but chemotherapy can help them live longer. I'm also not sure what you mean when you say that "tumors are missed during treatments" because chemotherapy is typically given systemically for colon cancer, not targeted to specific tumors.

Guardian7 said...
Misdiagnoses are also very common and a significant percent get the chemo despite not having any surefire malignancies. More than 95% of polyps are also benign.

Irrelevant to the discussion at hand. If cancers are being misdiagnosed, that's a problem of diagnosis -- it doesn't mean that chemotherapy is a bad treatment for cancer.

Guardian7 said...
Anyways, the after-effects of chemo leave most patients as shells of their former selves. The collateral damage is very significant and increases the risk of other cancers.

It's a personal decision. Chemotherapy has many well known and unpleasant side effects, although we've gotten a lot better at treating them in the recent past, especially nausea and neutropenia. However, cancer also causes terrible symptoms that significantly impact quality of life. Many patients do better with chemotherapy -- even if they are terminal with no hope of longterm survival -- because it keeps the worst symptoms of the cancer from worsening.

Guardian7 said...
In that thread, I also posted the prophylactic measures one can take to reduce the risk to essentially nothing. It begins with resistant starches, which offer as much as a 50% reduction in colon cancer rates.

Prevention is great. It's not a treatment plan for people who have cancer already, just as chemotherapy is not a treatment plan for people who don't have cancer.

Guardian7 said...
I wouldn't go on chemo if they paid me billions to take it. It's a death sentence to me. They may "treat" the cancer, but other cancers will pop up in its stead.

As I said, that's your decision. But you should make it with the knowledge that chemotherapy is not a monolith, that some regimens are tolerated better than others, and some cancers respond well to chemotherapy.

Tinfoil hats!

Step right up and get'ya TIN FOIL hats, 2 for the price of one!


"Time is the best teacher, but unfortunately, it kills all of its students."

I'm really starting to think that if everyone used MMJ compared to using many of the pharmaceutical's, they'd be much better off.

I recently applied for MMJ (as many know I already use mj and get great benefit from it) with my first meeting they discussed many different strains to help many different health issues, being able to aid inflammation is one of the strains. If that doesn't speak volumes then I don't know what would. There are natural alternatives to many health issues, alternatives don't keep you from dying, but if you get the right strain for your issues then I'd sooner go that route (which is what I'm doing) than rely on man-made drugs, just consider the side effects of man-made drugs to MMJ....no one can compare them, MMJ is leaps and bounds better than man-made drugs without the harsh (if any) side effects, biggest complaint I know of that some have with mj is paranoia and chances are that's just from using random street mj not MMJ.

I've also never known of anyone overdosing on mj (that wasn't mixed with some dangerous chemical of course, if that even happens, I don't know) but pure simple mj hasn't killed anyone, compare that to people overdosing on man-made drugs.

To me it just seems common sense, after all, people still managed long before big pharma came into play, yes I know that there have been some great things done with man-made meds but much does come with a price, especially in this day and age, gawd, the list of side effects are longer than the list of symptoms for what people are taking the man-made drugs for, that speaks volumes in itself.

I started smoking mj a few months before going on Humira, I have no idea (and neither does anyone else I'm sure) if it would have gotten me into remission (RV fistula and all) or not but with my history of being allergic or non-responsive to traditional meds used for IBD in the past has been terrible...so I wouldn't be surprised if the mj played a positive roll in my healing as well, won't ever know for sure but that doesn't mean that at some point it wouldn't have been the sole purpose, it's easy enough to argue that the Humira played a huge roll too, but look how many DON'T respond to biologics either....besides, I honestly think the whole world should just use mj, it would likely be a much nicer world if everyone did it all the time...for health issues and or leisure IMO.

Expanding on what Dikid wrote, I sometimes wonder if UC is really that different in different patients. I mean sometimes it just seems like certain UC patients have a much more aggressive form of the disease while others are more moderate but, what if it isn't? I seem to mentally note that those who ignore their disease for long periods wind up having more troubles than those who get diagnosed quickly and jump on treatmenrs more quickly.

I seem to have a much milder form of the disease than others (it didn't seem mild four years ago) but I didn't wait to get diagnosed and my regular family doc prescribed me oral Asacol before I even saw my GI for the first time. Mine was never diagnosed as any more than left sided. It seems like many who didn't get quick diagnosis and didn't get on quick treatments wind up eventually being diagnosed with Pan-colitis and sruggle with treatments. Maybe nobody would ever be diagnosed with Pan-colitis if their condition was discovered quickly and effectively treated quickly. I am a big believer that once colon damage is done that it never really completely heals, even when you reach clinical remission and IBS may even fit into this area somewhere if IBS is the result of permanent nerve damage caused by the UC inflammation in the first place.

That's why I think patients should not only take treatments seriously but maintenance plans seriously because once colon damage has occurred you will probably never be completely the same again, even in "remission". I apologize to the OP if I have been too aggressive with my responses but this is not a disease you can take lightly and I have read far too many posts on this forum over the years from those who have and have paid the price for it. In addition, when the Oncoblot test shows the beginnings of cancer have already started they are dealing with an even more pressing need to be serious about this disease than the average UC'r.