I agree with you entirely, Sue.  I've also found that friends and even relatives seem to think I've turned into some kind of 'fussy eater' if I'm out with them and cannot find anywhere decent to eat...  I'd like to see how their attitudes towards food/diet would change if they'd been diagnosed with breast cancer!   Cries of 'why waste your money on expensive organic food' really p*ss me off!

I was diagnosed with bladder cancer in May 2004 and was advised to have a cystectomy (bladder removal) as although it was a TP1 tumour, it was Grade 3 agression.   Like you, I decided not to do this and followed an alternative therapy route as well as having cystoscopies every 3 months.   I am on a no dairy (goat's butter and cheese only), no red meat (only chicken and fish), no sugar, no yeast (only soda bread), no alcohol, tea or coffee (only water), a little fruit and LOTS of veg.  I juice veg each morning and have received lots of healing.   I have been clear for 10 months now but have an inflamed, irritated and slightly swollen bladder from the treatment directly into the bladder and the many cystoscopies so my healer and my Dr at The Chiron Clinic in London are dealing with this.  Expensive, but I still have all my organs intact!  

Good luck.  I find some people are really helpful with the diet but others have told me that 'I am being precious and it won't do me any harm to have a piece of choc cake etc. etc.'  I have learnt to have a very strong will power!!

Diana King

Hello Sue,

I am very happy that you have decided to bring us through with you to allow us to give you support.  I find it very frustrating that just because you want to eat healthy and have to go to extreme measures just to do so.  To get natural breads, non dairy products, food cooked properly and always being labelled as the most expensive buyer when dining out.  It is hard going against the norm and it is only through communication like this that we can find support.  This is also very educational for people and I don't think I can express myself without sounding ridiculous.  Thank you once again.

Debra Gehring

Hello

Have just read your account, diagnosis etc of breast cancer.  Last year I had a mastectomy and removal of lymph on the left side, it was grade 3 aggressive and I had 9/9 cancerous lymph nodes.  I underwent chemo, which really knocked me and my white blood cells were frequently 0.00, it was a nightmare.  However, I have finished all treatment now, and as I went to the Bristol clinic I have also tried to change my diet, I was always (25years) a vegetarian except more recently eating fish, but I am now not eating dairy produce, which is hard as I used to love cheese!  I eat apricot kernals about 10 per day, I'm not sure how many to eat, and take a few supplements including coliolus mushroom and Q10 and try and do at least one juice a day but it's very time consuming.  I have been taking tamoxifen for 11 months and am worried that it's affecting my eyesight as it seems to be getting worse and they feel v grainy, I would like to stop taking it.  Anyway, I think it's important to make your own decisions and had my cancer not been so advanced I may well have done what you have done.  It's hard to follow a good diet sometimes, it makes you realise how bad our diet is in the west generally.  Good luck to you my thoughts are with you!!!

Thanks to everyone for their comments - and their experiences which I find very interesting and inspiring.  Please Linda - read more about tamoxifen - as it really is a toxic drug in itself and why doctors prescribe it I do not know. There is a supplement I take called Indole 3 carbinol that is much more useful and is featured on my website. Please take the time to read it and I would highly recommend that instead as it works in a similar way to tamoxifen but without the side effects.  If I can put the link here for linda:

http://www.naturalhealthbenefits.com/I3C-for-health.html

Good luck to you as well - and please check out taking something other than Tamoxifen with your doctor as it is already affecting your eyes.

I have just been reading all the comments, it is wonderful you are all trying the healthy route.  Just one question why do I not see that any of you have tried EFT? go to the site and find a master - this could change your lives.

I have written a page dedicated to the whole field of body and mind medicine here, of which EFT is one of the therapies.  I have actually tried hypnotherapy and guided imagery so I  know it works! It helped enormously when I was very ill a few years ago.

http://www.naturalhealthbenefits.com/health-and-mindbody.html

Dear Sue,

please keep posting. You're helping my sanity.

It is so hard to convince family & friends that you aren't completely cracked up if you stop taking the drugs and want to live healthily. After one serious bout of what was diagnosed as ulcerative colitis, which hospitalized me, then 10 years in remission and on drugs without any other treatment (i.e . dietary advice) only the looming fear of colon cancer or removal of sections of my gut, I finally came off the colitis drugs.

Coming off the drugs was accidental - I had started producing blood test results which showed my iron levels were low. GP prescribed iron tablets caused abdominal pain, which got worse as each blood test result came back saying I needed more iron. Off the tablets, the pain subsided. When I picked up the third dose of iron tablets from the chemist and they had me doubled up in pain, I knew I needed an alternative approach.

In desperation I found a local chiropracter who practices applied kinesiology. His tests revealed low magnesium levels and that the iron tablets and those for colitis were actually part of the problem. I also had an intolerance to sugar and reactions to our carpets (we moved house recently). Getting rid of the colitis tablets has only been the start of a pretty weird journey. I've had to rebuild my mineral levels and am working on sorting out my PH level as well as having my back tweaked after years of abuse. Being off the colitis tablets has seen my guts react negatively to all sorts of foods - mainly those with sugar, dairy and lots of additives and preservatives.

It's been a lot of ups and downs so far. We have a family history of thrush type problems, so I'm trying to stick with the programme so I can help my toddler. My husband is just about coping with it all. Six months later, I still have to fend off well-meaning family who think that a piece of cake (or three) won't do any harm. After all it's a treat isn't it?

HI THERE

I just wanted to tell anyone who is ill of the of the wonderful benifits to my brother of firstly colonics and then secondly Andreas Moritz's amazing liver cleanse,  ( HE GOT THOUSANDS OF STONES OUT )he also is on a restrictive diet, he has gone from a dying man ( bladder cancer , cronic bowel problems thrush in all his organs to name but a few ) to having his life back and feeling better than ever, this has all been undertaken under the watchful eye of an amazing woman called Gloria Gilbere she herself was ill and understands the problems.

She has many books which I bought my brother when he was so ill and finaly he picked one up and started to read about his toxic body and through many telephone consultations to Canada, has now got his life back and more.

I am just about to start the liver cleanses myself for migraine, I have already had 10 colonics and the difference is amazing, my brother has had over 50!

He for years attended doctors in Harley Street and around the world spending fortunes only to discover that if you are ill you are toxic, get your colon and your liver cleaned out and you become well again. I seriously urge anyone ill to read these two authors books. It has taken years of research to find the best treatment for all our family, and these are the ones that work.

PS. we all also had all amalgam fillings out and my sister who had been married for years and no children has now got two georgeous babies.

Candida thrives on amalgam and depletes the body of magnesium

Hi - I just wanted to leave a note for Yvonne Lewis - but also to say that I find your story really inspiring Sue.

I am studying ulcerative colitis as part of a project I'm doing for college (I'm training to be a homeopath).  I am amazed that dietary advice does not form a major part of conventional treatment for this disease.....what you eat has got to affect your gut surely?  

Anyway, in my research I've come across something called the 'elimination diet' or the 'Specific Carbohydrate Diet' which seems to produce dramatic results in people suffering from Inflammatory Bowel Disease.

You may already have heard of it Yvonne, if so, I apologise for wasting your time, but if not,  you could look at www.breakingtheviciouscycle.org site as a starting point.  I do not have personal experience of this diet but am impressed by all the testimonials of people who have regained their health through it and by the logic and the science behind it.

Good Luck

Carmel

Hi - eating 'differently' is not easy but well worthwhile.  4 years ago I succumbed to severe M.E. as a result of systemic candida lowering my immune system (too many antibiotics!).  I was housebound for months as so ill, then in a wheelchair and have worked with Erica White (nutritionist) since then.  Suffice it to say I am now 95% recovered, working full-time and in my final year of counselling training (seeing 6 clients a week at present).  'Normal 'people are astounded as to how much I fit into my week.  I'm still on a restricted diet and really strict about it as I know how ill I can be - it's no problem most of the time - other people haven't a clue what 'just one piece of cake' can do!  Check out www.nutritionhelp.com for further information on the plan I follow.  All good wishes Sue and everyone else - good health is priceless.  Gill

hi it has been really interesting reading all your coments jus to know there are other concious eaters out there and that im not such a freak, lol. i have three small children and choose not to feed them dairy, meat, msg, aspartame, in fact any form of processed food but gosh its so hard and im sure people feel my children are deprived in some way because whenever we go somewhere they have their own lunch boxs made up, sometimes my 9yr old tells people shes allergic so she doesnt feel so embarassed because she cant eat wat her friends do . i lost a very dear friend this year to cancer for three years i tried to encourage her to take the natural route unfortunately she chose pharmacutical and shes now gone it breaks my heart so please all you wonderful strong people that have chosen to be strong and determined about yourself and your health keep going you will see the benefits. i only have to look at my children to see this is worth people wispering behind my back, becausei believe we will be here for a very long time. thanx for reading my comments good health and happiness to all.

Sue, your blog is inspiring, for those of us in good health too. I'm sure that with Krsna's grace you will make a full recovery.

If you think finding suitable healthy food is difficult in London and Bristol is difficult, try being vegetarian in rural France! I went this summer, and ended up with a very sore tongue, which my natural therapist, Philip Weeks, diagnosed as resulting from a cheese overdose. Honestly, apart from the food we cooked ourselves, there was *nothing* to eat except pizza.

I see you aren't a vegetarian, but the UK is probably the best place in the world to eat out for vegetarians, vegans or those on some kind of wholefood diet like yourself. We have the highest proportion of vegetarians outside India and the third world (partly thanks to Hare Krishna preaching), so 99% of restaurants provide a vegetarian alternative, and there are vegetarian/wholefood restaurants and cafes everywhere, athough finding them does require local knowledge or an Internet search. If you are in Bristol again, there is an award-winning vegetarian wholefood restaurant on St Marks Rd in Easton, about 2 miles out from the centre, and there are probably hundreds of good vegetarian restaurants in London.

Since I was diagnosed over 3 and a half years ago I have since found plenty of places to eat - it was just that one time I remember as it was only a few months past my diagnosis and there was honestly nowhere around that particular area of London that was not a fast food restaurant - and you know how it is when you fancy a meal - only to be denied it! I've been up to London several times since then and discovered mediterranian cafes and restaurants in a few places.  I have not been back to Bristol since (its not my favourite place!) but if I ever do - I will try the restaurant you recommended - thank you for that.