Well, this is certainly a reality-changer for me. Cancer of any kind does not run in my family (except in the smokers, lung); no relatives have ever gotten breast cancer. I mention this so as to explain that I'm pretty much ignorant on the entire topic.

What she has is I guess the most common form (ductal) and it has not spread, one breast only. We don't know yet what treatment route they will take, will find out Wednesday. From my hastily gathered medical degree from Wikipedia University, it sounds like (we are hoping) lumpectomy only, and chemo? There is only one cancerous site and it is small, caught early, but there are other pre-cancerous areas. So maybe I'm being overly optimistic.

Now the questions--

She and I are both low-carbers, but between the stress and the holidays you can pretty much imagine the extent to which that is out the window (family of comfort-eaters, all of us). I know that a link between tumors and carbs/sugar is often invoked here ("tumors feed on sugar") but I've only really seen that mentioned in relation to brain tumors? Is there anything about breast cancer and lowcarb dieting (or not) that I should know?

Secondly, chemo. Zero knowledge. Have never had a friend or relative on it. Everything I know I've learned from television dramas. I'm assuming she'll be pretty sick, and I'll likely be the primary caretaker. Is there a compelling reason to stay LC (or not) during this, or is it going to be a matter of whatever she can keep down?

Last but not least--just because I have a lot of respect for this site's group-sourcing ability with regards to medical data--she was on HRT for a few years. How do we feel about the HRT/breast cancer link? My sister and I are now both trying to re-evaluate what we assumed was our own minimal risk of breast cancer.

Thanks for any data.

Prayers for your Mom. Arm yourself with info and keep a journal of all her medical visits etc. Ask questions about everything. Don't assume anything. Post often. We can help with big fat Hugssssssssss

Sorry to hear about your mom. I don't have experience in that regard, so I don't have advice for you, but I'll keep you both in my prayers. Hugs.

Aw, I'm so sorry however it might very well be a type that grows very slowly. They're finding that a lot of cancers can probably be left untreated, I'm just not sure if they know which ones.

Anyway, please look into Vitamin D3. It seems to really help cancer survival rates and helps to prevent cancer too. She really wants to make sure her 25 (OH)D levels are at least 60 ng/ml.
Look at this chart: http://www.grassrootshealth.org/_do...hart_101608.pdf

Here's' more info on D3 and cancer: http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/cancerBreast.shtml

I wish you and your Mom good fortune!


Oh hmmmm... well, the folks pushing bio-identical HRT say theirs is different than the synthetic. What type was your Mom doing? I personally don't know because they don't do studies on the bio-identical HRT, we just have to take their word for it. Not sure I do...

Nancy read my mind. I agree on the D3, and how sugar makes tumors grow...
My Mom had breast cancer and they did a lumpectomy, and the said they got it all, and she didn't have to have either radiation or Chemo.
I had a Adrenal Tumor. And had radiation after... It wasn't fun at all....But I kept eating healthy. Some days it was liquids or soft food.
I do hope your Mom keeps possitive and Hope in her heart, it really makes a difference on the recovery.

I am sorry you have to go through this, My Mom found out a few days after Thanksgiving. And her surgery was on Dec 11.
She wasn't so hopeful and was very mad, she said she wasn't going to have Christmas.

You sound possitive and you should
I do hope and will Pray for you and your Mom, Please let us know how she is, and if you need some support hugs Debbie

My mom had a lumpectomy and chemo and just recently finished her radiation treatments. She is 66 years old and type 2 diabetic and to our surprise did extremely well. Her most troubling side effects were the fatigue from the chemo. She did very well taking anti-nausea medication. I can't say it was a cake walk for her but she was very wary about accepting any treatment after the lumpectomy because they told her the margins were clean and there was no lymph node involvement but the Drs and we the family felt she should do the chemo and radiation just to be safe. She was so scared she would be bedridden and nauseous for months on end like her own mother who had died from a relapse of bc but I think they can do a lot more now do make patients more comfortable. Take care.

A friend of mine had a mastectomy several years ago. As soon as she got the diagnosis she consulted a naturopathic doctor (in addition to her primary physician) who told her several things she should be taking to boost her system and help mitigate the effects of the post-op treatments. It really helped and her reactions to the radiation and chemo were quite mild compared to others I've seen.

My best wishes to your mom, and to you! It's a very stressful time and can only be helped by sticking with low-carb.

Hugs, and prayers ...

Hello again--

Thanks very much for all the good wishes and info. I can't get to this site very often right now (just not much discretionary internet time) but I DID read all responses.

Main thing I want to mention is that while I'm terrible with supplement compliance, the D3 thing is something that really stuck with me from this site, and after doing 5k IU for a while I can honestly say this is one of the few supplements that makes me feel like I can feel the difference. I just feel better, emotional and mental resilience much better (or else this cancer thing might well have crushed me), haven't been sick in...don't remember how long, etc. This is about a year and a half on 5k. When my parents moved up here from Florida a year ago, since Mom wasn't doing well mentally at the time (like a lot of people the recession wiped them out), I had her start taking the D3 immediately also--I figured moving from Florida to a place with actual winter was going to be rough and this might help. So in other words, she's been on the D3 for quite a while now. I'll make sure it stays that way.

Nancy, not sure what kind of HRT, and I'd be surprised if she remembers, but I'll ask.

She's 63, btw.

They've scheduled three appts tomorrow: oncologist, radiologist (I may have the slightly wrong word there) and surgeon. Both my sister and I will be there and I think I'm going to take a notepad in. So by this time tomorrow I should know more about how they are actually going to proceed.

She's 'basically' in good spirits, if a little pissed off at the universe, although like any Mom she is probably hiding the worst of her reaction from me. We're to the point of making jokes about blond wigs and fake boobs, so that's good. (Obviously we are really hoping neither becomes necessary, but what can you do.)

She keeps wanting to do retail therapy, though, and I now have way too many pairs of winter boots.

Thanks again--will be back with more info when I have it.

Edit: Oh, one more question. I really don't want to google this because I can imagine the hits I will get. Mom's always cooked pretty high fat. Was there ever really any proven link between dietary fat and breast cancer? (I followed the vitamin d council link and one of the first lines was: "Certain diets help to prevent it, such as diets high in vegetables and fruit and low in fat." I know they probably have to say this, but I honestly don't know.)

5k iu of D3 might not be enough. I'm taking 50,000 iu weekly, have been for almost a year now, which averages out to 7,000 iu and my level was 60 ng/ml when I tested. So be sure to get tested and aim for 60 ng/ml at the minimum. I'd say 70 ng/ml is a good minimum for your Mom.

Update, they really do think a mastectomy is needed. The sites are spread apart, and even though only one site is actual cancer, the precancerous sites need to come out, and the result would be not much left. She is pretty devastated.

The appointments yesterday were, sadly, kind of a dog and pony show--they were missing some key tests, including her mammo films at first, and also her hormone receptor tests (which is important, because it determines whether hormone therapy is indicated). Each successive specialist seemed to have confusing, conflicting info (and both my sister and I were there, taking notes, and asking questions).

They want to do a sentinel-node biopsy to be 100% sure it hasn't spread. After that I'm still not clear on if they want to do chemo first and then surgery, or vice vera (see: dog and pony show). This biopsy is on Dec 22nd. Let me tell you, cancer definitely doesn't mean things move any faster. So I guess nothing (either surgery or chemo) will happen till January.

I guess the silver lining is that mastectomy means no radiation; and apparently they may be able to do reconstruction at the same time. And they can do this without general anesthesia now?

also found this somewhere but have lost the link:

Yeah, the latest studies on fat and breast cancer show no relevance.

If it's an estrogen sensitive type BC, she should be off anything that can raise estrogen, especially soy. If it were me I'd be trying to stay in ketosis as well.

Wyvrn's suggestions to ensure you have no surplus glucose and err on the side of ketones is absolutely correct. As M Levac has pointed out several times cancer proliferate faster if fed sugar.
Remember FASTING improves the imapact of chemo. and it's obvious why. You are starving the cancer cells by inducing ketosis.

Nancy LC has correctly also suggested that raising 25(OH)D status to above 60ng/ml will improve prognosis.
ABSOLUTELY TRUE.

It really doesn't take much intelligence to see who has the best prognosis when it come to breast cancer survival.

But don't forget that vitamin D isn't the only proven successful way of improving your odds. Omega 3 also improves survival.
Here are some examples.
Fatty fish and fish omega-3 fatty acid intakes decrease the breast cancer risk: a case-control study.
A High Omega-3 Fatty Acid Diet Mitigates Murine Pancreatic Precancer Development.
Dietary omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids suppress expression of EZH2 in breast cancer cells.
Fatty fish and fish omega-3 fatty acid intakes decrease the breast cancer risk: a case-control study.
Fatty acid facts, part II: role in the prevention of carcinogenesis, or, more fish on the dish?
Generally speaking around 1.5g of EPA + DHA is required to counter the effects of omega 6 but cutting down on the Omega 6 vegetable oils is as important as increasing the omega 3 intake. Doing both sides of the balance obviously is MOST EFFECTIVE.

Checking back in--I don't really blog and it's helpful to be able to write this down here.

This whole process moves much more slowly than I ever would have imagined--I've watched too many episodes of House, I guess. Well, and the holidays. But she is being treated at the Duke University cancer clinic, and I guess that's probably as good a place as any if you have to get cancer.

The current status is that we found out today that the sentinel node biopsy was positive, meaning the cancer has spread, or started to? In other words, it is in the nearby lymph nodes. This was a bit of a blow as they've been telling us all along that it was caught early, likely had not spread, blah blah. Even right after they did the sentinel node biopsy, the surgeon was saying "..looked totally unremarkable." Tomorrow she gets a ct scan and a bone scan as a result of the bad lymph node news. They used the 'this isn't a death sentence' phrase pretty liberally. She's in apparently fine health otherwise. So I guess I'm saying I don't believe this is going to turn out to be dire or something that has spread badly. But my intuition on this situation has been wrong several times so far.

Other info I don't think I had before: the cancer type is negative on all the hormone types except HER2, which means herceptin will be part of her chemo cocktail, which I guess she starts next week no matter what tomorrow's scans reveal.

A single mastectomy is 99% likely after the chemo. I understood that the actual cancerous area was small, but there are areas of DCIS (pre-cancerous) spread out, and it would be too hard to get everything out and have much breast left anyway.

Normally I'm an info sponge on any topic I get interested in, but I'm having a hard time making myself hit up google on this one--afraid of what I'll find out, kind of thing.

And, sorry to continue the blog style here (maybe I should dig up my old livejournal account; or god forbid, actually talk to a professional like I've been putting off for weeks), it's also looking like my *cat* may have cancer. I wish I was joking. Not a week after this all started with my Mom, found a lump on the cat's chest. Got her into the vet yesterday and they said there are cells they 'don't recognize'. Off to the pathology lab, we should know in a few days. I'm obviously in one of those bad-things-happen-in-threes life phases, I'm just waiting for someone to get in a car accident at this point. (sorry, gallows humor.) Anyway, I can't bear to tell Mom about the cat, because I don't know if it might be one of those stupid things that ends up upsetting her way more than it should.

Between stress and the holidays, have gained 4lbs. I suppose I should be happy it's not worse. I've had the talk with mom about sugar. She gets it. I've got her on 7k IU of Vitamin D a day. I need to re-read this thread and try harder to understand the OFA stuff. Then of course we'll need to figure out what kind of stuff she's going to be able to keep down on the chemo--the nurse today indicated that this one is a pretty nasty cocktail, although I don't have the details in front of me right now.

Mom's fairly vain and is PISSED about the hair loss. Heh. (I figure anger is better than depression.)

I am so sorry about whats going on with your Mom. I too lost alot of hair.. Had My Mother inlaw give me wig magazines over and over. I got mad....
Fast forward, I have Psoraisis, it came on real bad after the cancer treatment. And has continued, well on my own because the psoriasis has caused hair loss now, I have gotten 2 wigs, and let me tell u, I get so many nice compliments on the NEW color of my hair, and wow it grew fast, or some dumb bunnys that know me and see me often think its a amzing new hair cut.
So I tell your Mom, or you take her to a shop and let her try them on of course when she is feeling better.
I will be Praying for her, and you also, this is a BIG stress.....See if you can get your Mom some friends in the world of BC , it will help her and you cope better...
My Heart feels so much after reading this, I just can't get words out to write,,,,,,Please keep us Updated on your Mom and you know you can come here anytime for support of let it all out in a Long Blog, we don't mind one bit Hugs and more hugs, Debbie