Posted by Chrissyp (Auckland, NZ) on 08/14/2014
Hi everyone, has anyone had an experience of applying turmeric topically in the form of a paste onto a dog's oral cancer tumours?
My 12 year old sheltie was diagnosed 2 weeks ago with oral melanoma and as surgery is too extensive for his age, my holistic/conventional vet has put him on a Swiss homeopathic Gallium Heel and 4 other cancer homeopathics (one is Sempervivum).
I've been researching a lot about turmeric as a cancer killer and decided since we could access the tumours easily to give it a try - I'm mixing up a paste of organic turmeric powder and a bit of rice bran oil and filtered water and we're packing the area with it. I think we're getting it deep into the area where it's not getting licked off between the gum and one of the tumours. At first we were using manuka honey mixed with the turmeric but that seemed too sticky to apply and of course he licked it off straight away, and I was worried that the honey might be feeding the cancer too much (not sure about that?) so switched to a plainer sugar-free paste to be sure.
We are seeing results after two weeks although the tumours are doing strange things - the biggest one used to look like a red swollen flap underneath his tooth on his gum - we call it his spongy gum tumour - and that has shrunk a lot to the point where his mouth is closing normally again. The smaller tumour which initially appeared to be a gumboil type lump is now large, swollen and a bit angry looking with dark patches and looks like it has blood in it. Not sure what will happen with that - hopefully it'll burst and then shrink away but at least the spongy gum tumour is better. I've read a bit about other people's dog's tumours getting worse before they burst or shrink away - hoping this is the case with our dog. His spirits are very good and we really believe the turmeric is helping his arthritis too - he's able to jump up onto the couch better. Just feeling desperate to reverse this cancer - he deserves a long happy retirement after what was a hard life before he was rescued.
I've looked up dosages for dogs and hope we are giving the right sort of amounts - I think each application uses about a teaspoon of paste a time and it's going on twice a day or 3 times a day. He's a large sheltie - about 40 lbs and a little on the fat side...if anyone has any advice or thoughts or experiences I'd be most grateful to hear. Thanks so much for letting me post this, Chrissy :)