Your Wellness Options - June 2006 Newsletter

Welcome Message

Welcome to our Your Wellness Options newsletter. For those of you who have recently subscribed, I hope you enjoy the newsletter. You will find past newsletter articles published in our Alternative Health and Wellness Article Library.

On Monday I received an email from my sister-in-law on Inflammatory Breast Cancer. It appears to be a breast cancer very few people are aware of and even fewer understand (including doctors). It generally hides or is misdiagnosed until it is too late. I decided at the last minute to write an article to send along with her email. That article is included in this month's newsletter. If it helps spread the word about IBC, hopefully we may see the less than 50% five year survival rate go up.

Please feel free to forward this newsletter on to your friends and family. The more people who know about Inflammatory Breast Cancer the better.

The article I had planned to include on how to begin the detoxification process in your home will hopefully be included in next month's newsletter.

If a friend has forwarded our newsletter on to you, you may subscribe to Your Wellness Options at no cost by clicking here (or go to www.yourwellnessoptions.com/newsletter/subscribe.html). The online version of this newsletter is available at http://www.yourwellnessoptions.com/newsletter/june2006.html. Please feel free to link to us.

Enjoy the newsletter.

Have a blessed day!
LeeAnn Rahn
editor@yourwellnessoptions.com

Inflammatory Breast Cancer: Silent, Mis-Diagnosed, Deadly
by LeeAnn Rahn

What is Inflammatory Breast Cancer?

Inflammatory Breast Cancer (IBC), also referred to as Inflammatory Breast Carcinoma, is the most aggressive form of primary breast cancer. Though relatively rare (1% to 10.1% [6]), it is life threatening for those who find themselves within its grip. Of those diagnosed with Inflammatory Breast Cancer, 50% to 70% [3,4] do not live 5 years beyond diagnosis. Unfortunately, monthly lump examinations, mammograms, nor ultra sounds will protect you here.

Why? Inflammatory Breast Cancer does not generally present itself as a solid mass or lump. IBC normally forms "sheets" or "nests" of cancer within the breast, blocking the lymphatic system just under the skin, and many times spreads throughout the breast and the lymphatic system (or further) before it is ever diagnosed. The initial signs and symptoms, also, vary widely amongst those afflicted.

To make things worse, Inflammatory Breast Cancer could care less if you are in your teens or in your 90's and is many times mis-diagnosed, especially in young women who are normally at a lower risk of breast cancer. IBC has been diagnosed as young as 12 years of age, during pregnancy/lactation, and during pre-menopause, peri-menopause, and post-menopause. Diagnosis in males is rare but there are several documented cases.

Inflammatory Breast Cancer Symptoms

Inflammatory Breast Cancer symptoms can vary widely. Some afflicted with IBC will exhibit many symptoms while others may exhibit few. The most common symptoms include:

Breast Swelling - sometimes as much as a cup size in a few days.
Itching
Breast Discoloration - appears red, pink, or purple. May appear to to bruised.
Skin has ridges, thickened areas, or dimpled appearance.
Breast tenderness, pain, or unusual warmth.
Nipples are flat or inverted, with or without discharge and/or crusted skin..
Change in color or texture of areola (area around nipple).
Breast is harder or firmer than normal.
Enlarged lymph nodes under the arm or above/under collarbone.

It is important to remember Inflammatory Breast Cancer is not widely understood at this point in time. The symptoms vary widely from person to person. Symptoms may appear, disappear, and reappear again multiple times as well.

Inflammatory Breast Cancer Diagnosis

Inflammatory Breast Cancer progresses rapidly and is generally not diagnosed until it is in Stage III or Stage IV (stage IV is the most severe cancer stage and is usually associated with metastases - the spread of cancer to other locations in the body). If you have any symptoms, please see a medical practitioner immediately.

Please do not worry yourself unnecessarily though and hastily assume you have IBC. The symptoms of mastitis (a breast infection) are very similar to those of Inflammatory Breast Cancer as are symptoms of other edema's caused by lymphatic blockage. BUT, if the symptoms of mastitis, which is treated with antibiotics, or any other edema type blockages, do not clear up within a week INSIST on an MRI, biopsy, or referral to a breast cancer specialist.

Because the symptoms are very similar to a breast infection, the doctor may not even consider cancer as a likely possibility. Many mis-diagnosis (besides mastitis) have been given to women with IBC. These include spider bites, shingles, allergic reactions to detergents, irritation from bra underwires, fatty necrosis, and many others.

This is the point where you need to muster up every ounce of courage and take responsibility for your own life. Stand up to your doctor if he/she is not being cooperative or find another doctor immediately. If you do have inflammatory breast cancer, the sooner a diagnosis is made the better your chances are of living through the ordeal. If you still have symptoms after a negative biopsy or MRI and just know something is wrong, have the biopsy and MRI done again by a different doctor. Biopsies are not fool proof. If an IBC tissue sample is not take from just the right spot, your test may be negative.

Treatment of Inflammatory Breast Cancer

The standard, Western Medicine, approach to Inflammatory Breast Cancer is immediate chemotherapy or systemic therapy to reduce the swelling and bring the skin back to a healthier state. The next step is generally a mastectomy (removal of the affected breast) followed by radiation to kill any remaining cancer cells and reduce the chances of a reoccurrence in the same location. Unfortunately, even with this aggressive treatment, reoccurrence is quite common.

Before you read this next section, you need to understand I do not agree with traditional Western Medicine. Chemotherapy and radiation are both very toxic to your body and cause cancer themselves. I am sure you have heard the saying, "if the cancer doesn't kill you the chemo will".   Unfortunately, because of the rapid progression of Inflammatory Breast Cancer, most patients are treated via traditional Western Medicine. Though, many people do use non-traditional methods to cure many other types of cancer with just as good or better rates of success.

For this article, I am going to make the suggestion to use a complimentary process - A process you can do while receiving treatment via traditional Western Medicine. First and foremost, if you do not understand how pH affects your body you need to get educated. We have a four-part series on this site (www.yourwellnessoptions.com) beginning with A Different Point of View. If you are not more than familiar with pH, please read all four articles and keep an open mind. A proper pH could mean the difference between life and death.

Once you understand pH a bit better, my suggestion is you adjust your diet to include mostly alkaline foods. This will not be easy! You will be cutting out just about everything but fruits and vegetables. Alkaline blood carries more oxygen and cancer does not do well in the presence of oxygen. If you have Inflammatory Breast Cancer or any other type of illness, please discuss any change in diet with your doctor first. If your doctor dismisses you or the fact that pH and diet can have an impact on your health, it may be time to find a new doctor who is better versed on nutrition.

Next, you should make sure you are asleep by 10:00 pm. every night and sleep in total darkness. Research has shown exposure to light during sleeping hours can shut off the production of melatonin. The hormone melatonin boosts the immune system and has been shown to slow the growth of cancer tumors by as much as 80%. I guess you can say the melatonin helps the tumors sleep at night as well. These research findings shed some light on why evening/night shift workers have a 60% better chance of being diagnosed with cancer.

Diet, sleep, and now sunlight. You also need to get plenty of natural sunlight. Use common sense though - do not allow your skin to burn (no sunscreen allowed)! The UVB rays are necessary for the body's production of Vitamin D. No worries about toxicity here - your body can control the amount of Vitamin D it produces. The darker your skin, the longer you will need to be exposed to the sun to benefit. In fact, those with darker skin are much more likely to be Vitamin D deficient.

The natural Vitamin D your body produces from the UVB rays is vital to the process of turning an acidic body into an alkaline one. If it is winter time, not enough UVB will reach most regions (the further away from the equator the less UVB you will receive). During these times, I suggest a high quality cod liver oil with Vitamin D be taken. You need to be aware of your Vitamin D level though. If you are in question as to whether your body has proper levels of Vitamin D, have it checked. If possible stay away from synthetic Vitamin D, it can be very toxic at much lower levels.

I would like to end this article with a quote from the third article in our pH series Disease and pH - Acidosis Part III. "Research has proven that terminal cancer patients have an acidity level of 1,000 times more than healthy people." [1]

References
1. pH, Dr.Lam - An Insiders Guide to Natural Medicine,
   http://www.drlam.com/opinion/ph.cfm
2. Inflammatory Breast Cancer Help Website, http://www.ibchelp.org
3. New Hope for Inflammatory Breast Cancer: Rare but Fast Growing, Karen
   Berney,
     Discovery Health Channel,
   http://health.discovery.com/comvergence/breasthealth/ibc/ibc_print.html
4. Inflammatory Breast Cancer, Mayo Clinic,
   http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/inflammatory-breast-cancer/DS00632
5. Inflammatory Breast Cancer, IBC Research, www.ibcresearch.org
6. Update on the Management of Inflammatory Breast Cancer, Massimo
   Cristofanilli,
     Aman U. Buzdar, Gabriel N. Hortobagy, The Oncologist,
   http://theoncologist.alphamedpress.org/cgi/reprint/8/2/141.pdf
7. Groundbreaking research findings shows that exposure to light during
   sleep promotes breast cancer while darkness prevents growth of tumors,
     www.newstarget.com/z019426.html

Transforming Your Life From Within
by Ada Porat

The world you create around you is a direct reflection of the value that you place on yourself.

Before you can have a different life; before you can be happier, wiser, be more at peace and in quiet command of yourself, you must first be different.

Being is everything.

Everything on earth and beyond - animated or not - all forms are an expression of one great Intelligence, Creative Energy or Being. Even rock and plants have being-ness, a consciousness. All things created are unique expressions of this One Creator Being.

The being-ness or consciousness of everything that is created, expresses aspects of the Creator through its very nature. And that consciousness is not fixed. It can be transformed. Each of us is created with the power to evolve our consciousness through the exercise of free choice.

Your consciousness is in a continuous process of unfolding. It is intrinsic to everything in the Universe to evolve spontaneously in response to prevailing conditions. So you are creating your life at every given moment, whether you are aware of it or not. Just how the rest of your life unfolds, is something you can influence through your awareness and the choices you make.

The very first thing to recognize in order to transform your life is the eternal value of your nature. You are not simply a blob of bio-plasma: you are an expression of Divinity and within your very being the spark of that awareness always remains present.

When you find yourself disappointed, beaten down and overwhelmed by the forces of life, it is because you have momentarily forgotten the true origin of your Source and the magnificence of your destiny! Your intrinsic value is Divine and can never be destroyed!

This point was illustrated beautifully by a well-known speaker who started off his seminar by holding up a $20 bill. In the packed hall, he asked, "Who would like this $20?"

Hands started going up. He said, "I am going to give this bill to one of you, but first let me do this."

He proceeded to crumple the note. He then asked, "Who still wants it?" Still the hands were up in the air.

"Well," he replied, "What if I do this?" And he dropped the bill to the stage and ground it into the floor with his shoe. Then he picked it up again, all crumpled and dirty. "Now who still wants it?" Still the hands went into the air.

His demonstration drove home a very valuable lesson. No matter what he did to the money, the audience still wanted it because it did not decrease in intrinsic value. It was still worth $20.

Many times in our lives, we are dropped, crumpled, and ground into the dirt by the decisions we made and the circumstances that came our way. We may have felt damaged or worthless. But no matter what happens to you in life, you can never lose your intrinsic value!

You are an aspect of the Divine Creator embodied in a physical body, and therein is your value. Don't ever forget it! Never let yesterday's disappointments overshadow tomorrow's dreams.

The second principle to transforming your life, is to become aware of that secret place within yourself where the Divine Presence dwells. You must consciously enter that place of power within where your conscious awareness interacts with the Divine Presence. That is your place of power, the place from where your reality is created moment by moment. It contains the awareness of All That Is in this present moment. It is where your inner guidance dwells, in the Eternal Now.

It's only what you do right at this moment, right now, that carries the seed of personal change. And in the endless beauty and mystery of the Eternal Now, this seed of change is held in your Higher consciousness as your on-going reality.

If you choose something in the Eternal Now, you won't have to worry about what may await in the future: your conscious choice to live in the present moment automatically eliminates the need to strive toward some future goal. Why? Because everything you choose in the Eternal Now, remains there for you to experience whenever you are in the present moment – and this is the only time it really matters!

Being in the present moment is critical to manifestation. If you are locked into regrets over the past or living in anxiety over the future, you will have no place to ground that which you create within. Creation becomes possible when your consciousness is present in the eternal "Now" of Divine potential, and you align yourself to the unfolding of your highest potential in that space.

The third principle of transforming your life is to consider all your creations with gratitude. Are you grateful for the life you have created so far, or can you only see what is lacking in it?

Gratitude and appreciation connect us to the Divine Source of All. Just as the Creator pronounced each day’s creation as good before moving on to the next day, we need to take time to reflect over what we have created in our lives.

Why did we choose to draw specific circumstances into our lives? What do they bring to teach us? Perhaps the breakup of the relationship that we bewail as terrible, offers us the opportunity for further growth and maturing. And could it be that we created limited finances to experience the sufficiency of the Eternal Now? When viewed from a higher perspective, everything we create in our lives serves a purpose in the development of our souls.

To summarize, the process of transformation starts with the recognition of your True Nature, is activated by connecting to that Source inside your being, and is nurtured by offering gratitude and appreciation for everything you have created. Once you understand these principles, you are well on your way to transforming your life from within. Here are some additional guidelines to assist you:

Step Off The Treadmill
Dare to slow down. Even at a million miles an hour, anxious thoughts and feelings still take you nowhere. Instead, take time to be still and to reflect. If you want to find the timeless, dare to live as though you have all the time in the world. Step out of the rush and into the Eternal Now.

Take Responsibility For Your Experience
The way you feel toward the life experiences you encounter is a direct expression of who you are and what you value. If you don’t like what you are encountering, choose again from the core of your values and the awareness of your truest being, and you will find yourself drawing different outcomes.

Refuse To Compromise
Let go of any thought or action that creates conflict in the present moment for the promise of a better feeling to come. Reality is Now. There is no later! You can't find contentment by being divided. Instead of compromising yourself, choose to be whole in the Now.

Remember Your Connection To Others
Even when it feels like you're the only one in the world who struggles with the human condition, you are not! Reach out to others and learn from their experiences, draw on their support and offer them encouragement. We’re all in this together!

Become The Best You Can
Anybody can follow the crowd, which usually operates on the lowest common denominator. Make the commitment to yourself to live a life worthy of all the potential that is within you. Dig deep to discover your greatness. Give yourself permission to shine!

Let Go Of Blame
When your feet hurt because your shoes are too tight, you don't complain that someone else made you put them on. So why blame another when it's your feelings that are hurting you? If painful emotions hurt you, then let them go! You'll feel lots better.

Keep It Light
When the heart and the mind are not in agreement, we can get pulled down into the dense emotions of fear, anxiety or worry. Remember that your true nature is Divine, and that there is nothing Divine to be found by indulging in dense thoughts or emotions. Instead, allow yourself to skip along the hallways of Life with a song in your heart, and the appropriate doors will open up!

©Copyright 2006 Ada Porat.
Further information about Ada Porat and her integrative approach to body-mind-spirit healing may be found at http://www.adaporat.com or by dialing US 602-283-4628 (MST).