This is not a recommendation or prescription.
This may or may not apply to someone’s pet. Your veterinarian’s advice is superior to this information. The following is offered as a piece of information about how a case is being treated successfully for lymphoma, for under $300/month and without observable or experienced side effect.
Patient ‘Delilah’ passed the 5 month mark without side-effect. Then she came out of remission and was euthanized. This isn’t a cure. However, her survival was several MONTHS longer than with Prednisone alone. Colchicine is an rna-microtubule-antagonist and is $70 a month for a large dog. This is less than a tenth of the cost of chemotherapy with corporate Veterinary practices.
“Lymphoma and lymphosarcoma are invariably terminal for dogs. However, various kinds of “chemotherapy“ can extend life sometimes more than a year. But even after all of that, they will perish from lymphoma. Sometimes, sensationally, and catastrophically. That, all by itself can make an owner regret having done chemotherapy not to mention the expense over time.
Still, there are ways to combat lymphoma using prednisone.
Prednisone typically gets a remission of anywhere from a month to up to six months by itself.
The side effects of prednisone are appetite increase and increased thirst.
The stomach must be protected from the effects of the steroid so that the dog may remain comfortable. This is as simple as giving Prilosec or Famotidine. Or both.
It turns out, that by adding other medications you can augment to the performance of prednisone and extend that time.
In veterinary medicine some of the better protocols are based on things like L asperaginase and Cytoxan cyclophosphamide, which are outrageously expensive at this point and do have some side effects and require a degree of monitoring. And this is where I diverge from main stream veterinary medicine.
Dimethyl sulfoxide has been looked at over the years as a possible aid for cancer. Science has been aware for sometime that DMSO seems to target cancer cells. That is unexplained. But after administration, the DMSO ends up in highest concentrations in the vicinity of cancer cells. Now they are tagging DMSO with chemotherapeutic‘s then, the DMSO takes the chemotherapy directly to the tumor. OK. I filed that away.
For the sake of completeness I would add that DMSO can be administered intravenously, subcutaneously if extremely diluted, topically, and there are research studies showing it can be taken orally and may make a difference that way. What we have found the best, is administering it subcutaneously, highly diluted.
The DMSO can be administered at home, by an industrious owner, or we can do it. It is done every 7 to 10 days. Not for nothing, we tend to synchronize the DMSO infusion within two hours of the next drug.
There is an old drug that has been around for quite some time that performs functions very similar to chemotherapy, only, at a fraction of the price. It’s called colchicine.
We normally use that for Shar-Pei hocks. They get an inflammatory condition in their hocks that can be managed with colchicine. I am taking advantage of the fact that it interferes with messenger RNA microtubule or formation to slow down or hold back the development of resistance to prednisone by the lymphoma. There are no physical side effects to the pet by taking colchicine. It is not a nauseating drug and it is comparatively very safe.
Linus Pauling wrote a lot about vitamin C, ascorbic acid, and its impact on cancers. He believed that certain kinds of cancer could actually be “cured“ by vitamin C therapy. Whether that is true or not we don’t care, we are giving large amounts of vitamin C (up to 2 g twice a day), because it is inexpensive and free of side effects. Maybe it does fight cancer?
So that’s what we’re doing:
1. Vitamin C at very high dose. Orally.
2. DMSO as a subcutaneous infusion.
3. Colchecine once a day.
4. Prednisone at 1/2 mg per pound twice a day for a week and then 1/2 mg per pound per day long term.
5. Antibiotics (almost any) to prevent infection while the pet is immuno suppressed.
6. Medicine to bind or decrease stomach acid while on prednisone.
Because that is the treatment we are using I do not put the owners to the expense of repeated bloodwork and monitoring for signs of cancer and other systems. The work up prior to this is minimal, because it is a “last resort” protocol.
It carries a very low expense, compared to western corporate veterinary medicine chemotherapy and diagnostics.
Like all other chemotherapies for this cancer, it is inevitably destined for failure, the question is: When?”
