4 most important factors in extending life for advanced kidney cancer patients

Beat renal cell carcinoma!

4 most important factors in extending life for advanced kidney cancer patients

2 August 2009 359 views 2 Comments protect ur eyes

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Because of the lack of early warning signs, 25% of patients are diagnosed while at stage 4 of the disease and when this happens the 5 years survive rate is barely 10% . However this is definitely not the time to give up, because there are many important factors can help you to extend your life and improve life quality, there are many examples of kidney cancer patients who live with tumor for a very long-term, and you can be one of them. Here are the four most important factors you should know.

Best treatment plan for YOU

First of all, the most important factor is seeking a best treatment plan for you, a suitable treatment plan can make a great contribution in extending life and improving life quality. Renal cell carcinoma treatment varies from patient to patient, and there are many limitations in treatment of advanced kidney cancer, caused by spread of cancer or symptoms of late stage cancer. For example, my father could not have surgery because his inferior caval vein is surrounded by cancer cells, surgery can be very risky, or patients cannot fight the side-effects of chemotherapy, radiotherapy or targeted therapy by their poor general health state. So patients need a treatment plan which is most suitable for them. (about treatment options)

Seeking a second treatment plan is always necessary, this may provide you with more information and help you feel more confident about the treatment plan you have chosen.

Diet and Nutrition during and after treatment

Diet is a very important factor in kidney cancer treatment. “Let your medicine be your food and your food be your medicine.” said Hippocrates. In other words, eating right will keep your body in good condition. Cancer patients find it even more important to eat right – during treatment, their dietary intake can literally become a matter of life and death. Surgery, radiation therapy, chemotherapy and targeted therapy are the most common treatments of kidney cancer. Unfortunately, many of the body’s healthy cells are also damaged or destroyed during these treatments, the body is working extremely hard: fighting the cancer cells, and attending to the damage to healthy cells caused by the therapy by repairing and replacing already-damaged cells.

renal cell cancer diet There are many matters you need to be careful about kidney cancer patients’ diet, such as keep away from food with high purine, high fat, no smoking and no alcohol. If you can find a dietitian, he/she may help you to draw up a diet plan, or you can find many recipes of Chinese traditional food therapy on our site, and you can search Google to find more diet information for kidney cancer patients, such as what you can and cannot eat. You should be more careful if you have other disease, such as diabetes, high blood pressure. A right diet plan can provide enough nutrition, energy and increase patients’ immunity, help them to fight against cancer and side-effect of treatments, extending patients’ life and improve life quality.

Many Chinese herb can enhance the benefits of Western medicine treatment, such as Chinese wolfberry, coix seed, Lingzhi (glossy ganoderma). In China, many late stage cancer patients choose traditional Chinese medicine in case of Western medicine could not really provide any help, or choose traditional Chinese medicine as a adjuvant therapy, and there are many successful cases.(true story about taking TCM)

Attitude and Hope

One’s attitude and willpower can bring lots of miracles. Most people have already heard about the value of a positive attitude, taking charge of your treatment, and so forth. Here is a real-life example, a friend of my mum was diagnosed kidney cancer in 2003, and the doctor said she may not survive another Year. Her daughter was 18 years high school student, she said:”I can’t die, my daughter is going to a great university, I have to see that.” After her daughter accepted by a top university, again she said:”I can’t die, I have to be alive, I want to see my daughter get a good job and get married with a good man.” It’s been 6 year since she was diagnosed renal cell carcinoma stage 4. She is still alive, and she is not only taking care of herself but do some housework at home. It is truly a miracle. But positive attitude and having hopes are definitely not just believe you will get well, it’s not that simple. Maybe you can temporarily have a positive attitude, but your fears and anxiety come back before your routine follow-up, like scan or other tests. What you need is a completely change of your mind, and get all of the gain from the mind-body approach with none of the blame! See an article of Steve Dunn, Attitude with an Attitude!

Exercise to stay active

Cancer patients can reap great benefits from doing proper exercise. Exercise is not just moving your body, it’s more like a living attitude, it provides benefit to both physical and mental health. Based on your treatment, proper amount of exercise can further decrease the chance of cancer recurrence and increase the survive rate. Here are some numbers, compare to those rectum cancer patients who exercise less than 3 hours per week, patients who exercise mild exercise more than 3 hours per week have a 7.9% higher survive rate. However patients who have exercise habit before they were diagnosed cancer, have no correlation with this higher survive rate. This proved that patients should not lose confidence after diagnosis, more exercise can help you keep your mind-set healthy, strengthen your confidence to fight against cancer.

The principle is having a right amount of exercise according to your capability, and start from mild exercise. Exercise is a enjoyable process, not a mission, arouse your interest in exercising, find a company and encourage each other to raise your enthusiasm. Exercise and cancer.

QiGong is a system of deep breathing exercises,what we talk about here is called Guolin QiGong founded by Ms. Guolin,who survived cancer for over 34 years, which is a particular kind of QiGong aim to treat cancers.

The situations of kidney cancer patients are always changing, but you should never forgot these four most important factors, no matter what situation you are in, have a deep breath and marshal your thought,you will always find the way.