Anemia, Nutrition, Immune Boosters

[Lady Lauri]

  In the area of anemia, our immune in tx, etc. (I start Sept. 25th). In all my reading here, I haven't seen much on things we can do to help our blood counts, anemia, immune system, besides drugs. My sister has been off/on chemo for cancer for 7 yrs. (God Bless her! She is my strength in my battle.) and we have done many things to keep her 'built up' and she has actually never needed procrit and so on, and she is in some heavy chemo! At one point she did wheatgrass juice (I grew, juiced) and her counts actually went up, but you know Dr.'s, they told her no as it could cleanse the chemo out as well as other toxins. ( tho that did make sense as it detoxifies the body). One of the 1st things recommended for anyone on chemo through naturalist, nutrition, is juicing and drinking 2-6 ounce's of cabbage juice a day. It is huge for your immune system. It also "stimulates your natural human growth hormones at 420% each day to repair tissue with no negative effects".(the glutamine is the key and the commercially made ones won't work) I do cabbage, beets, spinach and throw in an apple to make more tasty! All great for the blood. I lack in consistency of it every day but plan to stay on it during tx.
Also for nausea, apricot nectar and coca cola syrup are great. And I do Aloe GEL and flaxseed oil with DHA (helps the brain and eyes) daily and is good for skin, hair. I started milk thistle as soon as I was diagnosed. At 1st bloodwork my VL was 812,000. The trial lady made me go off of them-for trial- and my last VL count is in the 4 millions!? Went up fast? (still learning !)
I am quit drug 'phobic' so really want to try and not need as much as possibly, tho low dose Xanax and 1-2 pain pill's a day are becoming routine for me right now! With just the hep C. :(
Anyone try any 'natural' ways to keep us 'built up'?
                            Lauri

[Lady Lauri]

Keep drilling this, it helps and 'Ms. health nut' here 'forgets' all the chemicals in them , forgets on purpose. (I have read them). Why I tried the 'organic' cigs. (oxymoron, B.S.!).
Read my post on 'smoker' thread @ craving the chemicals, not just the nic.
I can't put off tx tho, deadline on my study trial is the 25th and I pushed it to that day, (put it off till that day!)
I didn't drink much but I do smoke with EVERYTHING!
I am pulling out the 'chemical free' cigs, going to buy nic gum and at least back way off of these things. ( And I will be that God awful, preaching, nagging re-formed smoker everyone hates once I quit! Can not wait to hang a 'NO SMOKING' sign on my door :)
I DO have brains (thank you, LOL) and not an addictive type in anything else  but do believe when I've read they are harder to quit than heroin. Cigs have been the only 'monkey on my back' for years.
Kill the monkey :}
Thanks and please nag me more :) ( REALLY!)
Wishing you a feel good day.........LL

[B-bunch]

I quit when I stopped drinking. I had big withdrawals for both.  I couldn't tell if it was the booze or the cigarettes. Actually I never felt jittery or nervous AFTER I quit smoking just before.  I felt very calm after the nicotine was out of my system. I think it makes you jittery so you feel like you NEED another cigarette. So of course you light one up. The Tobacco companies have thought of everything.

Now it's up to you to be smarter than they are and NOT die of lung cancer. Remember cigarettes are  a delivery system for toxic chemicals and carcinogens

Put off starting the TX until you quit.

You must know that cigarettes have ammonia, hydrogen cyanide and another 597 ingredients in them. And believe me when you read what's in them you will feel sick. Check out this list of ingredients:
Copy and paste this address into your browser ASAP. You sound like you have some brains, use them and think about what you are doing to your liver and the rest of your internal organs.

www.http://quitsmoking.about.com/cs/nicotineinhaler/a/cigingredients.htm

[Lady Lauri]

Ironic huh? Eat organic foods, grow/juice wheatgrass, herbs, yoga and have not -YET- been able to get rid of these nasty things! Alcohol...no problems, drugs, don't want....d*m cigs....I try. A 'health nut' that smokes! I HATE the habit.Even more ironic,Asked about Chantrax (sp), new pill to quit smoking and I have an excellant hepatologist that told me "just cut down for now. Your body is about to go thru a lot so don't want you putting it thru that right now" (start tx in a week, 2b, 24 weeks, & 30 yr. habit, total nicotine addict, never addicted to anything else.) I know it won't help at all so am trying to REALLY cut back, but so hard with the nerves and jitters already in me. I read that many here smoke. HOW did you quit?      LL

[B-bunch]

Did I read correctly that you smoke cigarettes? I was surprised to read that because you write so much about your knowledge of vitamins and juices etc. Cigs will really be a problem when you are on TX. I hope you are considering quitting. You would be doing your liver a big favor. You seem very concerned about what you put into your body, so why cigarettes?
If I can quit you can.

[Lady Lauri]

sunspot, had no idea on that one, another thing to research. I'll assume the only tx for that is more drugs? Guess just some get it, some don't, luck of the draw??
nygirl, you said you did loose 20lbs. and assuming you were small to start as with me 20 lbs. would make me wayyyy too thin. I know @ vit. A, didn't know @ K and that does suck as I take a vitamin, herb, mineral liquid that I'll have to stop and your right, it'll have to be a handful of the select vit.'s every day as they all have high A, etc. They really should have more what to's and what to not's in the nutrition area along with these drugs.
susan, I've been trying boost lately already so may be buying more! not so good for keeping weight
on tho , at least some 'fuel'.
                                                                   LL

[susan400]

I have a hard time with vitamins upsetting my stomach, but the Boost drinks have loads of vitamins in them and give you the calories you need, too.  I used those on the days when I really couldn't eat much.  

Susan

[sunspot]

One of the many types of anemia is caused by low iron. The type of anemia when on tx is usually Hemolytic Anemia. It is the early death of red blood cells. Iron does not help in this case as has been stated above.

[NYgirl]

Lady Lauri be careful - NOT everybody loses weight on treatment believe it or not (although some certainly hope to of course!!!)

They told me to gain weight too but I only gainned about 4 pounds before treating, then I treated for 72 weeks.  In the first few months I lost 20 pounds and was EMACIATED. But as soon as I got past the point where my thyroid went hypo well.......I gainned them all back PLUS ten more pounds which I can now not get off me for anything because after not tasting food right for a year and a half I'm like a food addict!  Addicted to sweets so BAD!

And I'd never really been a sweets type person before and I had the iron will power that you wouldn't believe but after treatment......................it's just GONE.

I'm glad you saw about the iron problem....I don't know why all doctors don't mention it but was very glad mine did.  He also said we don't need extra vitamin A and K so we should look for a multi without those three things in it.  Which I found to be impossible and I ended up taking like 15 separate vitamins a day it was so GROSS.

After all the pills and shots we have to do a week - those vitamins almost threw me over the ledge but fortunately I could reward myself with a fudgicle or bowl of Ben & Jerry's and get over myself! ;)

[Lady Lauri]

Opp's - Last post was to Susan400! For anyone suffering brain fog! :)

[Lady Lauri]

  Chocolate I an do :) Love my coffe but can see not wanting it when nausea's And I found an article on how iron can 'aid' in replication of the virus? (as nygirl wrote above) so there goes my plans on keeping anemia at bay! I eat really good now, always have, the problem is no appetite already with the hep only and I only weigh 128 before starting tx. They'd told me to gain 10 lbs. so I have been downing the Breyers at night. Gained @ 4lbs. start tx in 12 days. Never thought I'd see the day when I'd be TRYING to gain weight, wanna get fat! :)
And I am in Ocala, Fl with 5 fruit tree's in my backyard. You ever want grapefruit (pink) , I've got grapefruit! 1 tree last year, @ 8 wheelbarrows full!
                                                  Happy Ede's to ya, Lauri

[susan400]

Lady Lauri,

You may find that your dietary tastes change a little during treatment.  It may be that the thought of spinach makes you feel 'bleaky' and the thought of a big bowl of chocolate ice cream sounds just better than anything else!   Just ask NYGirl about fudgecicles!  My thing was Ede's Double Fudge Brownie.   I also ate a lot of soup everyday with vegatables and chicken in it.  I was allowed to drink green tea-which appealed to me every afternoon.  I usually drank the decaf green tea by Celestial Seasonings.  I couldn't stomach coffee when I was treating, but I drink it now in the mornings.  I've done the juicing thing before, but during treatment the thought if it made me nauseous.  I normally like pink grapefruit (living in FL we having them plentiful), but wasn't allowed to eat them on treatment.  Anyway, this is my personal experience with diet and treatment.  Oh yea, and eating anything greasy, fried or spicy I couldn't handle.  

Susan

[Lady Lauri]

I'm sorry, I didn't explain well-I haven't done any tx yet, start the phase 3 trial of Albuferon, riba on Sept. 25th (& scared sh*tless, BTW, as all were. Sooo afraid of that 1st shot, pills :(   I am on the 'better' side of this being type 2b, having 24 weeks to do and, as you know, better % of success, etc.,while counting my blessing, still scared sheeetless! The trial lady made me go off of milkthistle for 30 days BEFORE I start tx and in that 30 days my VL got so much higher. I am still learning a lot here and really don't have a clue what that means or how, why it changed so drastically.
Are you SVR? Trying to learn about folks here as I go. What type? (assuming 1 as 72 weeks of tx.)
WHAT?? Spinach is bad???? I love spinach, thought that would be great for the blood?
Iron-replication of the virus? Wow, is there a 'hep-chemo' combo diet we should follow? (besides eat whenever your able I'm hearing.) I can be a bit obsessive also and want to do this right, get it done.
As for needing med's... I figure they are telling me to think of this chemo as ' healing drugs, help me drugs', well they other meds I will take also as 'healing, help me' drugs! :)  I don't over do anything but cigs so think I'll be okay there. do what we need to get thru it. Feel really bad for all who beat drug habits and have to stay away from them, cause they sure can help.
Thanks for any and all info.
                                                                 Lauri

[nygirl7]

Welcome to the forum, but at the same time sorry you are still here.

The one thing I worry about with things like spinach is that iron is an essential element for the virus to grow - it helps it replicate.  so even when I was dreadfully anemic...I was still afraid to take things that I knew could "help" because I was worried about the replication process at the same time.  Maybe a bit overboard but I didn't want to take anything at all that just MIGHT mess up the treatment at all and then I'd end up washing out all the chemo from my body (like I said I was a bit obsessive to say the least)  

You don't mention any time frame - how long you were on the trial, why they made you go off of it, how much later your 4 million v/l was taken...etc.  so it's kind of hard to know if it's "fast" but generally once it comes back it comes back gangbusters because it can.

And don't worry - a lot of us need the help of other meds during treatment.  You just can't let them addict you or you'll end up with a whole other set of needs and pains but otherwise...you aren't alone. I did 72 weeks and it wasn't until the last two months I thought of ordering up a bottle of percocet - what a fool!

Good luck!