Hi
I am currently on my last round of chemo for secondary mets to liver. I have had a really good response and now any mets are microscopic. I have been looking into taking some supplements and in particular have read lots about mushroom capsules being beneficial to boost immune system. Just wondered if anyone takes any form of mushroom capsules or any all alternative therapies?
Hi Pippers,
If you have estrogen positive breast cancer, I’ve heard shiitake mushrooms in particular are great as they mop up any excess estrogen in your body. Avoid lentils, Brazil nuts and anything soya as they promote estrogen.
As for ‘alternative’ medicines my mum has been taking CBD, CBG and THC oils. She has her first scan the end of January since her treatment has began. Although there has been a gap of 6 weeks as we get our supply from abroad and they have been confiscated which is very upsetting, stressful and disappointing. But we’ve ordered more as it aids with sleep, anxiety, appetite and pain relief. The THC element is supposed to shrink the cancer. We’ll see!
She also takes more ‘approved’ methods in Ribociclib, Letrozole and Denosumab.
I hope this helps!
Hi Pippers,
I experimented with taking mushroom supplements earlier in the year when I was first diagnosed with secondaries. There is a fair bit of clinical research that evidence benefits of mushrooms and there is some evidence that reiki, **bleep**ake, maitake and one other I can’t remember the name of, that particularly help the immune system to fight cancer. I was also really interested in the ability of the mushroom supplements to help me clear my “brain fog”. Interestingly I did find some research that showed some evidence that mushrooms helped with this too!
What I noticed when I took them is that you have to take a fairly big dose for them to have any effect for the brain fog. I tried buying generic mushroom blends and taking those and I didn’t notice any difference. I then bought some really expensive, high strength organic mushroom supplements and after the first day there seemed to be a significant difference in my mental clarity. I noticed I defintely felt more alert and on the days I didn’t take them, felt a bit “foggy” again. I compared the strength to the generic brand I’d bought earlier, which contained around 77mg of mushroom per capsule compared to 150-333mg per capsule for the organic ones. Massive difference.
I took them for a while but at the time I was taking them, my mets progressed so in the end I decided to come off them while I switched to new treatment, as I didn’t want to risk anything interfering with my meds.
I did some more research and there was something I came across which said breast cancer patients should be cautious when taking mushroom supplements as there is a possiblity that the mushrooms can also cause upregulation of oestrogen (or something like that) in certain circumstances. If you’re interested I’ll see if I can find the link to the research article for you. However, I think the general consensus of the research was that they are mostly helpful. I couldn’t find any other research aside from that one paper that highlighted caution in oestrogen related cancers. Its probably worth doing some reading up on and chatting to your Oncologist about it.
I decided to stay off the mushroom supplements as a) they were expensive and b) I wanted to do a good run on my new treatment before introducing any new supplements. I might introduce them again at some point though as I did feel they were of some benefit when I was taking the high strength ones.