Treating cancer means keeping cancer cells from reproducing. The problem is that treatment also interferes with the reproduction of normal cells, such as those that line the stomach, mouth and other mucosa. During my chemotherapy (and for months afterward), I had to do without most spices--no salsa, no ginger snaps, nothing hot or spicy. I couldn't clean my mouth properly: mouthwash wouldn't work because alcohol and astringents were painful, and eventually regular toothpaste became unbearable. Mouth cleaning was nightmarish even with a prescription oral gel (Gelclair®) designed to soothe such irritation.
I discovered a mouthwash, though, that allowed me to keep my mouth clean without irritating the mucous membranes: it's called Biotene®--a little expensive, but it is available at Wal-Mart for a little more than five bucks a bottle. It's alcohol free, and uses enzymes for cleaning. Another use for Biotene is when you have to eat away from home and brushing is impractical. The self-labeled "World's Best Toothpick," BrushPicks®, a widely available plastic toothpick, can be used fairly inconspicuously along with the Biotene.
One side effect of chemotherapy that never gets mentioned is gum recession, which can create dental complications. It is unlikely that insurance will cover "dental-related" problems because, to the insurance companies, "dental" and "medical" are two different universes. The divide between the medical and the dental professions has long amazed me. We now know that your "medical" health is intimately related to your "dental" health. Gum disease, for example, is a risk factor for heart disease due to the induction of C-reactive protein by gum inflammation. (One of the biggest surprises for me when I experienced cancer treatment first-hand was that doctors do not routinely screen patients for dental problems. Simple logic would dictate that something as simple as an abscessed tooth could cause a life-threatening during chemotherapy, and the older the patient is, the more likely such a possibility would be, yet I never had a doctor say one word about my dental condition.) Dental hygiene is always important, but it is most crucial when your immune system is depressed during chemotherapy.
Cancer treatment may also inhibit the body's production of digestive enzymes. I took supplemental digestive enzymes to make sure that what I ate got properly assimilated. I can't say that any one brand is better than another; I chose one that had multiple enzymes. Probiotics ("friendly" bacteria) should be supplemented also; you don't have to worry as much about pathogenic bacteria when friendly bacteria are flourishing. You should, of course, consult your physician about any such choice or other medical decision.
DEALING WITH SKIN PROBLEMS
If you are getting radiation treatment, you may discover that skin in the affected area is subject to inflammation and infection. In my case, no one substance seemed to be effective against all the conditions that arose. I often used a different topical ointment every couple of hours. The single most effective substance for keeping anything infectious at bay seemed to be silver sulfathiazine, a prescription item.
If you are getting radiation treatment, you may discover that skin in the affected area is subject to inflammation and infection. In my case, no one substance seemed to be effective against all the conditions that arose, and I often used a different topical ointment or medicine every couple of hours. The single most effective substance for keeping anything infectious at bay was silver sulfathiazine, a prescription item. Lantiseptic® is a doctor-recommended prescription ointment that is mostly lanolin and is also amazingly effective; it is slightly antiseptic.
Calmoseptine® is good and is available over the counter. It's a little hard to find, but is not too expensive. I had to special order it from a pharmacist. I also used pure aloe vera gel, as well as over the counter ointments containing vitamins E, A, and/or D. The most obvious such preparations are hypoallergenic infant formulas. Wal-Mart has a house brand A&D ointment that I like, not just because of its price, but because it contains cod liver oil and carrot oil, which means that it contains micro quantities of nutrients other than the simple vitamins. Annoyingly enough, though, it does contain added fragrance. I also sometimes squeezed vitamin E out of capsules and applied it directly to the affected area.
I have used a natural oil called tamanu oil from Vanuatu on various wounds in the past. An article in HerbalGram, the official magazine of the Herb Research Foundation, states "Tamanu oil has been used traditionally by Pacific Islanders for thousands of years as a topical skin remedy....They also use the seeds and leaves for soothing sores, bites, blisters, dry or scaly skin, scrapes and sunburn, as well as to reduce foot and body odor....The oil is used externally by Polynesian women to promote healthy, smooth skin. They also use it on their babies to prevent diaper rash." Tamanu oil has a lot of anecdotal recommendation for treatment of skin wounds and even anal fissures, and is claimed to possess antimicrobial properties, but published scientific studies are lacking. It may not be a panacea, but it is quite soothing.
My favorite product for the treatment of wounds and radiation burns is something called Vigilon® "primary wound dressing." Vigilon is a gel-like formulation held together by a plastic webbing. You cut a piece to fit, then apply the gooey side to the wound area. It can be applied with or without medicating ointments. Vigilon is extremely effective at relieving skin pain for an extended period of time. It feels cool and refreshing, and helps wounds heal by keeping the wound moist enough and by absorbing any exudates. It is a little bit of a hassle to use because it is bulky and has to be taped to the body, but, now having used it, I cannot imagine a medicine cabinet without Vigilon.
Radiation burns are no different than regular burns: simply running water over the burned area can be torture, and the soaps and shampoos that you once used now cause agony. I found that Aveeno® Body Wash was effective and refreshing. The Aveeno product is hypoallergenic, and the least irritating of any that I tried. I recommend it highly.
PROTECTING AGAINST INFECTIONS
Your biggest worry during cancer treatment will probably be what doctors refer to as “opportunistic” infections. Of course, infections are by definition opportunistic: bacteria and fungi strike at any weakness in your immune system. Your immune system depends on normal cell reproductive processes to function and is therefore weakened by most cancer treatment.
Most patients overlook common sources of infection, like their own toothbrushes. You can infect yourself with something that has been hanging around on your toothbrush from weeks ago (!!), so what I did was regularly soak all dental care products in a mild bleach solution (at least once a week.) You might also consider that other personal care products, like nail clippers, can be potential sources of infection (or reinfection), especially if others in your household use them.
You would be surprised how many bacteria, including dangerous coliform species, survive trips through the washing machine. (The bacteria that caused the recent spinach recall were coliform; although they are omnipresent in the colon, some species can be deadly, especially to the immune-depressed. You may recall the deaths caused by contaminated hamburger meat that seem to occur every couple of years or so; those, too, are caused by e. coli.)
What I did was to buy a good antiseptic disinfectant to add to every load of laundry. Sam’s Club has a good deal, a lemon disinfectant made by ProForce®; it comes in gallon sizes and only costs a few dollars. It contains 3.8% of various alkyl or alkyl/aryl ammonium chlorides, i.e., about 40 times stronger than the Lysol®-type sprays. I sprayed all environmental surfaces, not just those in the bathroom and kitchen, with the same disinfectant, and I still use it today.
It pays to be a little paranoid about hygiene when your immune system is extra-susceptible. Don’t share utensils, and avoid public restrooms. If you see someone sneezing, run in the other direction. At home, you have to change your normal washing habits. Don't wash your towels--especially the dishtowels and dish cloths--just once or twice a week: change them daily. It is better if you use separate hand towels than others in your household.
Studies have repeatedly shown that when you flush a toilet, the act of flushing creates a small amount of mist that contains bacteria and gets in every corner of the room. It is not visible to the naked eye, but is evident to a microbiologist. The stronger the flush action, the more gets in the air. Considering that fecal matter contains an incredible percentage of bacteria (as much as 30% of the dry weight), I would recommend always putting the seat down before flushing. In fact, I keep a spray bottle containing Pro-Force next to the toilet, and I put a couple of squirts into the bowl before flushing. Don't infect yourself with your own bacteria!
Do not use sponges: sponges are filthier than diapers. Boiling a sponge in water may not help either.
FOOD PREPARATION & CONSUMPTION
In the kitchen, clean ALL fruits and vegetables with soapy water. They have been exposed to whoever picked them in the fields, whoever stocked them at the store, as well as the hands of other shoppers. You don't need to pay extra to get a special cleaning solution for fruits and vegetables; there's no law against using a cheap but effective mixture of detergent (not soap) and water, maybe with a few drops of bleach.
YES, SALADS ARE NORMALLY "HEALTHY"--
BUT DON'T EAT AT A SALAD BAR
Do not buy pre-cut fruit or vegetable items. If you want, say, some watermelon or honeydew, buy the whole fruit. Do NOT buy precut sliced fruit unless it is canned or otherwise pasteurized. When you buy a melon, first clean it with soap and water. Then, when you slice it, the knife blade is not going to smear bacteria across the fruit like what happens when the store preslices it. I can't imagine a typical grocery store cleaning a melon with soap and water before they slice it for sale.
Do NOT buy luncheon meat or cheese from the deli section if they have to slice it for you. Even if you are the first customer of the day and they are using a freshly cleaned meat slicer, the meat or cheese itself you are getting sliced could be contaminated from a previous day (when it was in the then-dirty meat slicer.)
IN FACT, AVOID EATING OUT AT ALL
I cannot overemphasize this. If you live in a large metropolitan area, at least one of your local TV stations likely has a weekly report on restaurant health inspections. Think about why health inspections exist before you decide to eat out, especially at inexpensive restaurants. High prices are no guarantee of sparkling cleanliness, but logic would dictate that there must be some correlation. If you're like me, though, your economic circumstances are now limited. Not to be able to afford fast food may be a blessing in disguise, not just because fast food is less nutritious than home-cooked, but because of the possibility of contamination. If one of your TV stations has "blue ribbon awards" for restaurant cleanliness, like Channel 13 here, you might consider that when choosing where to eat--if you must eat out.
No matter how honest and hardworking the employees are at a fast food place, and I'm sure most of them are, you have to consider that, even if they actually wanted to be working at all, most of them would probably rather be doing something else and making more money than minimum wage. They don't necessarily understand (or want to follow) every single step in the procedure that a particular establishment uses to ensure that the products it sells are safe and pure. If an employee thinks nobody is looking, do you imagine that he or she is going to follow every procedure correctly? It's more likely that the employee will skip a step because it's easier. Look carefully at the lettuce on your fast-food hamburgers: I have often seen pieces that were slimy or were otherwise unappetizing, and which you would never have served your family. Yet fast food workers don't think twice about serving it to you.
Most fast food corporations have specific policy directives to deal with situations such as an employee dropping food on the floor or otherwise accidentally contaminating it. The food cannot be served; it must be thrown out. Managers are directed to tell employees that, no matter what, if something like that happens, they must not serve the item and that discarding it will not be held against the employee.
Imagine this, though: suppose you are an employee at a fast food place, it is the lunchtime rush, there are dozens of customers already waiting for whatever food you've finished preparing, but the food just landed on the floor. If customers cannot see you because you are out of their sight, wouldn't be easy to pick the food up off the floor? Do you think that a typical employee is actually going to believe that the company won’t penalize him or her if the food gets discarded? Which is more likely: that the worker will try to cover up his mishap, such as by putting new buns on hamburgers that had dropped--or that the employee will admit to the incident and force the manager to announce to the customers that they will have to wait another 15 or 30 minutes before their orders can be reprocessed? What do YOU think? You have to consider that there exists a "they'll-never-know-the-difference" mentality.
CONSIDER THE MENTALITY YOU ARE DEALING WITH
Not only do we not all think alike, but some of the people you see every day are more radical in their thinking than you may realize. Some people don't believe in the germ theory of infectious disease, for example. I have met such people; this is common in other parts of the world. There exist people born and raised here in the USA who honestly believe that diseases are a punishment from God, or that disease is caused by witchcraft or the devil. If a person doesn't believe that germs cause infectious diseases, he or she has no rationale for washing his or her hands or taking any other precautions--and probably doesn't.
ANOTHER RISK FACTOR:
PEOPLE WHO BELIEVE IN FATE
You might also consider that a significant number of the people you deal with every day--even seemingly well-educated people--believe in fate or predestination. In other words, they believe that they have limited or no influence over the outcome of events. Anyone with such a belief pattern obviously cannot believe that free will influences day to day reality--what will be, will be, they say. If someone believes that he or she is fated to die in a car crash, for example, then you are not going to be able to convince that person that fastening his or her seat belt would be of any use. You are not likely to convince such people that washing their hands could prevent a deadly infection; after all, if they believe they are not fated to get an infection, then they believe that they won't get one regardless. If their carelessness causes you to become infected, it won't be due to their actions, it'll be because you were fated to get infected--or so they believe.
I was shocked recently when I saw people giving bites of food to their children and then using the same spoons that had just been in their children's mouths for scraping the leftovers into storage containers, along with using those same microbially contaminated spoons to prepare plates for later consumption by others not in their family. These are God-fearing Christians who have all the technological marvels of the 21st century in their house--yet they seem to be oblivious to elementary food handling precautions--here in America.
MANDATORY PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTS FOR FOOD SERVICE WORKERS?
Another factor to consider that should keep you from eating out is that companies don't give psychological tests to people who are supplying your fast food. I once knew a person who, while working at a very large fast food chain, and angry at its manager, put a scab from his fever blister (herpes sore) into a lunch he had prepared for the manager, or so he bragged (can you imagine the mentality of someone who would not only do that but would brag about it to boot?) Once when I was driving a taxi, I had a customer tell me about how one of her relatives had dealt with a drive-through customer who had dared to complain about a previous hamburger being too dry: he spit in the customer's next hamburger; that made it nice and moist.
If you pay attention to the news, you will notice occasional food-spiking stories such as waiters or fast food employees spicing up orders (even that of lawmen!) with an overload of chili or hot sauce (which can result in assault charges.) Recently, Burger King® was sued because an employee had allegedly put pot into the food of two police officers. I know that the statistical probability of such occurrences may seem to be low, but if you accept the iceberg theory of crime (i.e., that only about 10% of it ever comes to light), then you have to realize that a lot more is going on than what we find out. The point is that you are taking your life into your own hands if you eat out when your immune system is compromised.
FAST FOOD IS NOT "EVIL."
I EAT IT TOO, BUT....
Let me emphasize that I am not an enemy of "fast" food per se or of eating out. I am an enemy of trans-fat, though, which, as far as I am concerned, is a poison. The high sodium levels and low overall nutritional levels of most processed foods are of equal concern. KFC® recently took the trans-fats out of their fried chicken and I was one of the first in line to get the now-safe (except for the high sodium) "original recipe." I do wring the grease out on a paper towel first (it takes 2 towels for each piece). I will not touch Popeye's® until they remove the trans-fats. Since my immune system is now back to normal, I figure it can handle an occasional fast-food burger.
AIR DUCTS AND AIR CONDITIONING:
BREEDING GROUNDS FOR PATHOGENS
Pathogens hide and breed in the air ducts of your home. Your air conditioning/heating system may be putting you at risk. You may remember outbreaks of deadly Legionnaire’s disease and the difficulty investigators first had in trying to figure out its origin. The hiding place for the bacterium legionella pneumophila turned out to be air conditioning systems.
You may have seen ads by companies that do steam cleaning of ductwork and assumed that the scary pictures they show of the filthy ducts are exaggerations. I'm sure some exaggeration occurs, but the problem is very real. If you want to protect yourself, get a high quality air filtration system. I have found uncleanable mold on the inside of my own window air conditioning units, where it was hiding on inaccessible Styrofoam (yes, they use Styrofoam to decrease weight these days.) See pictures of that mold by visiting our main web site.
CARPETS: THE MODERN WAY TO KEEP YOUR HOUSE FILTHY
They may look nice and clean, but carpets, like sponges, are filthier than diapers. Your police department’s CSI department could probably find the DNA of your carpet's installer in your carpet, regardless of how many times it has been vacuumed. Before the expansion of the middle class into suburbia after WWII, carpets were not as common, and were more the province of the rich (think "filthy rich"--literally.) Houses for the most part had either tile or hardwood floors, which are easy to keep almost antiseptically clean if necessary. Since the rich had carpets, having carpets became a status symbol, so now carpets are almost universal here. The impossibility of keeping a carpet clean is probably one of the causes of the dramatic increase in childhood allergies over the last few decades.
Another instance of how the wealthy inadvertently do themselves in is in buying thick, plushy towels and washcloths. The thicker a piece of cloth is, the more difficult it is to get it clean. Think of what the cross section of the cloth looks like: the thicker the cloth is, the more difficult it will be for water to circulate and remove impurities when it is in the washer.
