5 Natural Remedies for Coping with the Side Effects of Chemotherapy

Tea to combat chemo toxicity and other energy killers

Supplies your body with essential nutrients to help with energy, removing toxins, body stressors, chemo. I make this if I am feeling exhausted or just having a bad day. Made it also during chemo. It really helps with toxins. I haven't put Schizandra berries in it yet but make it with all the rest of the herbal ingredients.

Blend equal parts of ingredients:

• Schizandra berries
• Rooibos Chai blend
• Hibiscus blossoms
• Nettle leaves
• Goji berries
• Ginger root
• Lemongrass
• Red clover blossoms
• Licorice root
• Orange peel

To make 16 oz of herbal tea blend

1. Bring 16 oz of spring or filtered water to a boil

2. Place 4 TBSP of herbal mixture into covered tea pot or canning jar

3. Pour freshly boiled water over herbs: steep covered for 6-8 minutes

4. Strain out herbs and let tea cool to room temp

I did think about doing that but have no idea if it would be too much of a good thing, ya know. I do let the shampoo mix sit while I finish washing in the shower then rinse head to toe. So, about 15-20 min's (until the hot water runs out).

Why not spray the liquid zinc directly to your scalp? If you wash your hair fast, the shampoo will just be washed away. Spray it onto your scalp.

Do I assume you wash your hair first with the shampoo then dry it and then massage the liquid zinc into or onto the scalp?

Yes, please report back.

It was a slow go but now I have upped the zinc in shampoo to 3 TBSP (now that I know it isn't dangerous, ha. I am very respectful of things and go slow).

My daughter also has hair loss from cv19 back in Nov. She is doing this now and also having acupuncture therapy hoping it will help.

I lost a lot of hair due to Covid, which is finally not falling out anymore. I am going to try this, and will report back any positive results!

18 months since last chemo.

Hey Betty...Sounds great. I am curious about the time frame. How long was it from the time you had the chemo, to when you started adding the zinc, to when you began to see hair growth again?

Yes, I concentrate on massaging it in right on the bald spot on top of my head first. I am thinking to increase the zinc to see if I can get more results faster. Maybe 3 TBSP added. We shall see. Right now I have fly away new growth that will not lay down. Ya, I am proud to have it. Been having to part my hair on the side for two years. Tried everything under the sun in commercial bottles and things, no results. It was an experiment that turned out slow slow but working.

Betty, Thank you for the details. So 4 1/2 to 5 mg of zinc per ounce of shampoo. If you are using a 1/4 ounce of shampoo per wash, that's just a little over 1 mg of zinc per shampoo , but you are applying it directly to the target area, so perhaps it is a significant amount in that case. Art

I only wash my hair every 3rd day. It has taken 2 bottles worth of this mixture to show results (so, about 90 days to start seeing it).

Hi Art, shampoo I am using Maui Moisture brand, Smooth Repair Vanilla Bean, 15 oz bottle. The zinc is metagenics brand Zinc Drink and I used 1 1/2 TBSP.

Betty,

How much zinc did you use in mg to ounces of shampoo to be effective for your hair regrowth? Which brands of products or specific links to those products? Thank you!

Art

I experimented with adding liquid zinc to my shampoo due to hair thinning from chemo. It works! Finally regrowing hair. And, had a nevus on my scalp for several years. It is gone. Guessing the zinc got rid of it?

Taste buds after chemotherapy:

To get your taste buds back, try sucking on a lemon. My brother was just told this by an oncologist and he said after a year, he finally has his taste back!!

Lynn, the hard, middle piece of a pineapple has bromelain. We suck on that (too hard to chew and swallow).

Please can someone tell me where I can obtain bromelain 6500 gdu? I can't find it anywhere. I can find 3000 gdu. Could I just use twice the amount of that? Or does it not work that way? I'm trying to help someone close to me who has damage from chemo. I saw Ted makes his own bromelain 10% with that and glycine.

When you get chemo it kills off your white blood cells. Your doctor should regularly measure your wife's white blood cells and give her Neulasta or some other drug to keep her white blood cell counts in normal range. If your wife's white blood cell counts (esp. her neutrophils, type of white blood cell) are low you can easily get her very sick! Go to the doctor with her, she should get regular blood tests and her doctor monitor her so she doesn't get neutroponic fever or other bad side effects of chemo-->low white blood cell count. She will be okay, just be safe!

How much colloidal silver would one drink per day to combat nausea from chemo side effects?

My friend had part of his colon taken out recently from cancer. He started chemo after his first treatment. He lost his appetite, had diarrhea so he tried colloidal silver to drink which made his stomach stop hurting. He started back eating and he doesn't have diarrhea for now. Amazing.

5 yrs ago now, a friend who had lymphoma and tried many holistic remedies, finally decided to have chemo; she was told by her holistic dr:

Before the chemo, fast for 2-3 days, which causes all the normal cells of the body to slow way down but not the cancer cells, so they suck up much more of the chemo than the rest of the cells.

I should add, she is doing fine now, healthy and very active. She felt that the fasting technique really helped her suffer very little bad effect from the toxic chemotherapy. She had wanted to achieve a cure with natural methods (she did many things over a couple of years, including many Vitamin C IVs) but kept losing weight and was finally advised by her holistic doctor to go ahead and do the chemotherapy.

According to these abstracts, melatonin maybe helpful in increasing platelet count as well as other deficits related to chemotherapy:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9066251
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11399574
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11862501

Art

Selma: For starters try a whole food multivitamin/mineral w/ enzymes supplement for overall support. Add these three super foods to your diet: 1) Raw (as a supplement) or cooked Liver. 2) Blackstrap Molasses. 3) Bee Pollen. The herb Astragalus has a positive affinity to the bone marrow thus improving stem cell function.

I posted a whle ago on this..I would like to add AHCC to my recommendations...try the brand with Bioperine..(will help to absorb it better)... go to iHerb and do a seacrch and read the commnents on the different products...

I've tried AHCC and feel it does boost the immune system...unfortunately it is pricey.

I have a low platelet count from chemo. What vitamins or food could help?

I want to thank all of you for your input. My husband is on his 7th round of chemo and has had minimal side effects so far. His blood numbers are getting to the 'edge' and we want to continue to be active in his care and you have helped! God bless!

Try Magic Mouthwash. My father used it during his treatments and it really helped. I think there are some homemade recipes around or her Dr. could give her some.

My wife is having Sore throat after the 3rd day of chemo. And she's feeling kinda feverish too. Temperature currently fine. I myself has a mild flu and am wondering if I'm the one passing to her. Am worried and dont even dare to sleep beside her. I just wanna see if anybody has any idea on what to do. Please help:(

I've been doing chemo since August of 2011. Before that, I had been eating organic, vegetarian, and kosher for years.

I knew that eating vegetarian, organic, and kosher may not provide me with all I needed to physically deal with going through chemo, so I started rotating out what I would eat.

Every other day, I would eat a portion size of red meat about the size of the palm of my hand, maybe three to four ounces, along with whatever I felt like I could eat that would stay down.

On the day after the red meat day, I would make the attempt to eat about the same amount of white meat--fish, a few ounces of a pork chop, or chicken in a casserole or something like chicken and dumplings.

On the seventh day of the week, whenever it it, I'd pretty much eat whatever I wanted.

This was something I came up with on my own and I was fortunate enough to have doctors who have the mentality of if I feel like eating something and I think it will stay down, eat whatever the hell I want, so I did. I actually gained six pounds during chemo, which the nurses thought was great.

Of course I drank and still am drinking a lot of juice and water, along with eating fruits and vegetables. Some with small seeds can be irritating to the stomach, so that is contingent upon how someone's stomach is doing.

All of that said, I have yet to miss a chemo because of my counts being low or off. I have not had my white counts drop, I have not had my red counts, nor my plasma drop, either. I have not caught every germ coming and going, nor have I had my skin look anything but normal. Sometimes folks doing chemo can have their skin take on an unusual shade of color for them because the chemo affects their blood.

Anyway, I hope that helps someone out there looking to find out more information about how to eat during chemo.

PLEASE NOTE: I am not a nutritionist nor a healthcare professional, I am a wife and mom who has been going through chemo for her2 breast cancer. I breastfed all three of my children at least a year, no genetic predisposition for breast cancer because it doesn't run in the family, non-smoker, non-drinker, and no hormone therapy of any kind, no birth control pills, no hormone replacement therapy, no explanation other than I wound up with breast cancer.

Treatments given so far has been one dose of TCH, herceptin, herceptin/taxol, bilateral mastectomy, currently starting CMF and then herceptin for a year.

One of the oral anti-nausea meds gives me vicious hiccups. A teaspoonful of creamy peanut butter works wonders to cure them.

Gavin, it is important to not forget take Vit-E, 400-800 (mixed natural) to protect the extremely sensitive polyunsaturated fats. And if you want complete protection the E needs some Selenium and some CoQ10 will work right along with all the aforementioned thus GREATLY increasing one's healing potential, especially in cases like cancer and chemo.

my 2 cent addendum.

The latest on Leukemia is that there is a substance in fish oil that activates the gene in the cancer cell to commit suicide. It also stops the hair falling out if you're having chemo. So the more fish oil the better.

My daughter is going through Chemo for Leukemia and we have found some things people may find useful. Note that in Australia children with Cancer are forced into having whatever your Oncologist recommends, we did not submit easily. If you use my recommendations be confident that either the drug has done its job or that your Alternative Remedies are powerful enough. All treatments come with risk and sometimes all will fail, you must educate yourself, I post this for information only, it is what we have done and would do again.

Activated Charcoal, we gave her this 2 hours after treatment to take away the remaining drug and this ensured no side effects from even the most toxic drugs. AC also works for Nausea, overdose and as a compress(see AC posts) a great way to alleviate pain and detox the liver or kidneys.

TBL12, crushed Sea Cucumber essentially, it supported her Bloods, she returned perfect blood results even after very severe treatments. Our Oncologist even admits she was amazing but without acknowedging our home treatment. When we ran out of TBL12 her blood results fell and she lacked some of her normal energy but still nowhere near as bad as all the other Leukemia kids. I would use this personally for any form of Blood Disease as my primary treatment, it has simply been amazing.

Spirulina / Chlorella, both are shown to reverse all sorts of conditions, packed with Vitamins and Minerals, they are literally the perfect food. We put it into capsules but can be mixed with juice, take as much as you can afford. Hundreds of Scientific papers support them.

My last words would be, relax, Juice Organic Fruit and Veges(do not use conventially grown anything, we noticed the difference) get in contact with old friends and family.

Good Luck to anyone who has Cancer, I hope this helps.

Astragalus may be a good choice...however do some research to know whether you should take it during or after chemo to rebuild your immune system.

Also Castor Oil packs on the abdomen. Do some research.

Mushrooms formulas with Cordyceps & Reishi can help as well.

Best to you!

Unfortunately, I'm going through chemo and wanted to know if there are any natural remedies for keeping my red and white blood cells at a normal level during the treatments.

This was a letter in which we were talking about my 20 year old and how she became toxic on all her drugs, and my friend sent me this that she had found out many years ago!

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......about your daughter sometimes being "toxic" from all the drugs she has to take. Long ago I went to a wonderful seminar about natural healing. It was taught by a bunch of knowledgeable people in many fields & I learned an important de-tox treatment for people that have been on strong drugs like chemo. This might help your daughter when she gets toxic. It could help to rid her body of some of the drugs:

HERE'S THE SIMPLE RECIPE:

Take one pound of non-iodine TABLE SALT & one pound of BAKING SODA & put these into a hot bath & stir well. Have your daughter get in to the bath tub then keep giving her cups of Hot Raspberry Leaf tea to drink (to help her sweat).

You can add honey or sugar if she likes the tea better sweetened.

Have her stay soaking in the bath for AT LEAST 20 minutes, adding hot water if needed.

This Salt/Soda bath works by sucking some of the toxins out of your system through your skin because the concentration of salt is stronger OUTSIDE your body (in the bath) than INSIDE the body.

The lady who told me about this said there was a florescent green layer of film on top of the bath water after a friend of hers had chemo. Proving that it can suck out toxins.