David is a CPA and usually is MIA during tax season.

Thanks. Speaking of such, I have until tomorrow

Has anyone tried Rick Simpson oil? I've tried emailing Rick, but never got a response in an effort to find a responsible resource for the product.

My Mom has been diagnosed with yet another cancer of the tongue requiring a completion glossectomy of the remnant tongue or aggressive chemo; not good options given her age and condition. There are plenty of places out there trying to sell me hemp oil, but I'm not comfortable buying it based on my research (oil with all sorts of questionable byproducts/chemicals in them). Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. I've read compelling stories about RSO and I'd like to try to obtain it. Thanks.

The only scientifically proven ways to kill oral cancer is thru surgery (to remove the cancerous cells) or radiation with or without chemo (to zap and poison the cancer). There are NO other ways to eliminate this awful disease. We all would love to have other less invasive options but as of now they simply do not exist. Anyone claiming to have a "secret way to cure cancer" is flat out lying and trying to make money off other people's misfortunes. Save yourself and your mother's $$$ and health by following up with CCCs or other reputable medical facilities.



PS... The OCF forum is not the place to bring up unproven alternative treatments. Adjunctive therapies are very different from alternative treatments. Adjunctive therapies are things like manuka honey which helps patients not replaces conventional treatments. We strongly encourage alternative treatment types of conversations to happen other places than the OCF public forum. Part of our list of board rules is devoted to explaining this in more detail. Questions? Please PM me.

You're welcome to your opinion. I've been battling this dreadful disease with my parents since 2003. I've also conferred with Oncologists at world class teaching hospitals - they actually support cannabis use in my Mom's case. I don't leave any stone unturned, that quality is in my DNA. Research has taken place at Israeli hospitals and is currently underway at a university in California. In addition, the NIH continues to explore the possible uses of THC, CBD, and other cannabinoids for medical treatment. Moreover, there is enough anecdotal evidence that suggests it may help my Mom with her condition. Am I desperate? Absolutely. Is there a downside in comparison to your so called proven techniques? Given my Mom's situation, nope. The proven techniques that you speak of have not cured my Mom's problems; please read my profile, I'm not a newbie. In fact, the radiation that she received in '03, according to her docs at the hospital where it was administered, most likely caused her tongue cancer. I won't take any more space on the forum, but I'm somewhat offended by your response. You have not walked in my shoes, you have no idea what type of research I have done and I simply posted, requesting information, on an existing thread.

DavidCPA began this discussion long ago and Phoenix Tears and RSO are virtually the same dicsussion. When all conventional options have been exhausted, these discussions are what take place. I am in heart failure, kidney failure, lung failure and brain failure. Conventional treatment abandoned me and sent me home to die back in 2009. I don't bring it up here more out of respect for Brian and OCF.

Didier, message me or email me and we can start this dialogue separately. Forcing people to die after exhausting treatment options isn't something I will ever choose, for me or for anyone. Much of what I have tried is now being used at places like MSK and MDA. I consider them leaders in this war.

didier,

Just supporting Ed's statement on OCF policy about the point where current scientifically proven medical protocols are gone.

OCF operates within the umbrella of science. Anything outside this is labeled alternative, outside the umbrella, and simply does not exist.

The reality is all things within the umbrella were previously outside until proven. So something that did not exist now does because it was proven.

I'm certain there other ways to treat cancers now labelled "alternative" and after being vetted through science will then be true.

I think Christine does a good job of making this point but adding this additional point along with Ed's perspective would better set the context for the range of treatments.

Personally, I strongly believe there are chemicals in pot that relieve pain and aid sleeping, and promote eating. Since it has not been scientifically accepted it can not be true and not recommended.

It does work and it does alter state. Why do driving laws prohibit driving while smoking pot - because it is true, just not medically proven as yet due to stupid political agenda. This is a specific instance when science will do its vetting and proving and indeed then pot will be prescribed by medical doctors.

Until that day, OCF will not recommend or support or recognize or allow posts stating take pot for pain or eating. Whether it is adjunctive or alternative is just BS. If it works then use it.

Second point. I would NEVER EVER support someone who has not fully exhausted all medically proven curative or palliative therapies to consider pot, NEVER EVER. But once that line has been crossed, any and all possibilities are fair game to me.

Ed is living proof that some "alternative" options work. Thankfully, "not proven" in this case is TRUE - he lives!

This started as a one line - I support Ed but the post made me think more deeply about where science starts and ends and the context where that lies along the possibilities of the universe. Science finds a way to document a subset of possibilities as true.

Do whatever will help you out. You can PM me also but I rather have the discussion posted. Maybe we have the discussion as adjunctive for increasing appetite; I think that would meet OCF guidelines.

didier has been with us on the forums for a long time. I never got the sense in past posts that there was a tendency to favor alternatives over conventional, nor to advocate for them.

I think that everyone has stated this pretty clearly. We all have to make choices, and live with where we end up taking our ideas for better or worse. There is some positive work being done on cannabis, and there is also some questionable data from many years ago. On other forums and private blogs it has been talked about in more extreme terms, as "the" cure that no institution is willing to give up radiation and chemo to switch to. Various reasons are always given but for the most part they all circle back to the medical establishment making money. Conspiracy lives everywhere. The data is no human study heavy, but petri dish and mouse model driven, and we are not mice. We have cured a few cancers in mice through mechanisms that do not transfer to the human experience.

OCF's policies are pretty straight forward, but in this case I would say we are stepping into a gray area given the research of the last 3 years in particular. Nothing I've read makes me feel like THC or any other active ingredient in cannabis is the second coming, and going to replace anything in our current armamentarium of tools. There are great things in immunotherapy that I am very excited about and have seen great data from like the PDL-1 studies that were the hit of the ASCO meeting this year and still in clinical trials, which it sounds like this patient would qualify to be part of. But that's just me. Even those - with some pretty strong new data - are not going to replace what we currently use. But I can see those immune signaling pathway disruptors and similar monoclonal antibodies going mainstream as collateral treatments in the very near future.

I certainly, and OCF as an organization, will withhold judgment until there is some really hard data, peer reviewed and published, on the active chemicals in cannabis in head and neck cancers. There has been some NIH funding for looking more scientifically at it, and we'll see where that goes. In the meantime I would not argue with using it for things like appetite stimulation etc. where THC ability to deplete blood sugars to the point of being made hungry is both anecdotally and scientifically well established.

Ed has some serious experience here, and he has offered to take this conversation private which I would encourage. I also see no biological harms from use of this AFTER conventional therapies, which have a strong positive track record, have been used, and I think there is a consensus in the treatment community of lack of harm in doing so. Sadly this is all still a political football in so many ways.

So please discuss this amount yourselves off the boards, and it seems like it is about time for OCF to put a "current state of what we know" page up, though it will have a lot of maybe's and mights in it, and I will need to find the right doctors to help us craft it.

Thank you all for keeping this discussion civil and respectful.

Thanks for the clarification and getting us all on the same page. As far as me, personally, I will tell 100.0% of the people that cross paths with me that NOTHING kills squamous cell carcinoma EXCEPT radiation cumulative dose of = or > 50 Gy of ionizing radiation, provided the tumor has tested + for the HPV oncogene, otherwise 70 Gy. Studies have shown certain chemotherapy agents have increased the probability of a more favorable outcome.

I offer this because one thing that is MOST important is exposure, getting the word out and letting all of us know what is going on in cancer world, collectively. We need to have the "elevator speeches" prepared at all times, one for the disease, one for our uniqueness. 10-15 second, sum it all up. Brian, would you please add, subtract or otherwise modify the message, if you will? I want to think we are carrying the same message, always.

As far as this discussion, honestly, there are no human studies of significance or reliance to say anything is going to absolutely do anything. Know this and find testamonials. Seek those people out and learn the similarities to what you are dealing with. Assume there are a limited number of pssobilities. This message is intended for those that have run out of options. My approach at that point is to help calm the soul, while finding anything that may hold a glimmer of hope. That means comfort with the goal of finding anything that has worked for any cancer. Then study that cancer, the symptoms, the treatment, etc., looking for similarities. It takes time and patience and you may know nothing more. But you did something. You do that till you don't want to any more.

This is why I study everything in terms of comfort care and pain relief. From how the symptom is manifested in the brain, nerves affected, etc. I don't bring at stuff here for a very specific reason. It is voodoo from a hippie magazine. I'm being extremely sarcastic in a friendly way, but there are NO scientific studies that even prove much of anything beyond nutrition. If anyone has run out of options, I will gladly share things via email, but not here. I won't dillute what has been done here.

Brian and Uptown,

I agree with what you have both said. Often people turn to alternative treatments and then when those don't work, they go back to the standard treatments. By then, it may be too late for some and precious time has been wasted.