When is FATIGUE or TIREDNESS considered a SICKNESS?

Everybody has met fatigue periods but what happens when fatigue becomes so intense that our daily activities are affected, that we still feel tired all the time despite rest or that we simply feel 'lazy'?

This sort of severe and disabling fatigue affects a lot of people all over the world. It is not uncommon patients go through great extent to seek help including consulting doctors for severe fatigue.

However when fatigue is intense, when it lasts and affects quality of life, it should be treated because the root of many diseases is due to lack of energy, thus disrupting the normal functioning of our body.

We do get tired, but when is it considered normal or abnormal tiredness? Am I suffering from 'disabling fatigue'?

We suffer from tiredness when we exerts a big physical or mental effort: the body lacks energy and muscle pain appears. Likewise, we find it difficult to concentration after an emotional stress or overwork. However, this tiredness disappears in few days with good rest and refreshing sleep.

Abnormal or disabling fatigue is when the extreme tiredness we experience has no apparent reasons. It has these characteristics:

• It is not directly related to a specific effort or to an increase in activity
• It is prolonged
• It appears after an illness
• It affects normal daily activity
• It impairs quality of life

Am I suffering from 'disabling fatigue'?

Symptoms related to disabling fatigue have diverse origins that we can classify into 2 categories:

• Physical symptoms: lack of energy, lack of strength, difficulty to carry out daily tasks, alteration in cardiac rhythm, including at rest.

• Psychological symptoms: decrease in attention, learning difficulties, tiredness feeling, demotivated, feeling down, sleeping disorders.

What are the causes of 'disabling fatigue'?

• Medical cause:
• Acute infections: due to a virus (e.g.  flu or hepatitis), bacteria (e.g : tuberculosis), parasite (e.g. malaria) or fungus (e.g. ringworm). 50% of all cases of disabling fatigue are caused by infections.
• Chronic diseases (long term diseases) : diabetes, neurological diseases, cardiovascular diseases, anemia (iron deficiency), cancers etc.
• Post-surgery or post-general anaesthesia
• Hormonal imbalance: during menstruation, menopause
• Physical cause:
• Excessive physical exertion
• Over vigorous sports activity
• Psychological cause:
• Change of life (divorce, relocation, trauma)
• Psychological shock

How the muscles are affected by 'disabling fatigue'?

• Muscles stop working normally and instead of eliminating waste, they accumulate it.
• Consequences are muscular fatigue and cramps.
• If there is no action taken to eliminate waste due to muscular activities, the muscle saturates and an intense and chronic fatigue settles.

How to we treat disabling fatigue?

• Rest is necessary but not sufficient on its own for recovery.
• It is essential you consult your doctor to identify and treat causes of fatigue (infection, chronic disease…) but also to take care of the consequences and eliminate the toxic waste accumulated in the muscles.
• A combination therapy aiming at improving OXYGENATION, BLOOD CIRCULATION, NUTRITIONAL THERAPY and DETOXIFICATION would be able ideal to assist the body to heal completely.
• Come schedule an appointment at DamaiMedic Klinik dan Surgeri, Kota Kinabalu to resolve your disabling fatigue effectively.

CANCER CARE MANAGEMENT

Cancer is a dreaded life threatening disease that is affecting more and more people lately. There are some factors contributing to cancers namely, genetic predisposition, environment, diet, lifestyle and habits, infections and some other unknown causes.

Most patients would go for conventional cancer treatment at the hospital that offers chemotherapy, surgery or radiotherapy. And these are the recognized medical therapies that are covered by medical insurance. Despite the advances in medical therapy, the fact remains that the 5 year survival rates for most cancers have not improved significantly over the past 50 years. I must agree that chemotherapy, surgery and radiotherapy has saved, helped and benefited many patients. Therefore whenever appropriate, I would encourage patients to go for such treatment if such treatment would help improve survival rate and enhance quality of life. To advise against such possibility is simply wrong.

However, there are many patients who has succumbed to such treatment. I shall not go into why chemotherapy, surgery or radiotherapy has failed to help patients especially in advanced Stage 4 cancers. Suffice to say that conventional cancer therapy has it successes and failures just like any other medical therapies. To claim that any medical therapy has succeeded 100% all the time for all patients is nothing short of charlatanism.

In this age where information technology is so assessible, patients are able to google for any information they want, just like how you have arrived here reading this blog. Of course there will be conflicting opinions on any subject on the internet. It is important for patients to make medical decisions with medical professionals for their own safety. Do not believe blindly everything you read on the internet. Do your own research. Talk to your doctor, then make a decision.

In my practice, I have encountered 3 categories of cancer patients who has made a decision not to go for conventional cancer treatment namely surgery, chemotherapy or radiotherapy.

The first group of patients are those who are diagnosed with advanced Stage 4 cancers where conventional cancer therapy would be futile. These are the patients who are 'given' 3 months or 6 months to live by the oncologist. They are asked to go home and make preparations for their imminent death. So I was sometimes involved in the palliative management of these patients in terms of providing whatever medical assistance necessary in terms of pain management, wound care, bed sores, feeding tubes, nutritional support and etc. so as to provide comfort and minimize pain as much as possible. The aim here is to improve quality of life whenever possible and not cure.

The second group of patients are those who have started chemotherapy or radiotherapy and half way through the treatment protocol, were unable and unwilling to continue further because of the side-effects. When such patients come to see me at this point, as a primary care physician, it is my obligation to encourage patients to continue their treatment at the oncology centre if the evidence is showing that their cancers are improving significantly. I would appreciate much when my highly esteemed oncologist colleagues would give me a medical note with the plan to strategize the return of these patients back to the hospital to continue treatment. Quite often, I have patients who do not have any idea what they are having and what treatment they are going through in the hospital. All they cared about is that the treatment is unbearable and felt that they are not getting better. In fact it is making them worse and they do not wish to continue knowing fully that they themselves are accountable for the decision. At the end of the day, it is up to the patients to decide what is the best for themselves.

The third group of patients are those who had completed surgery, chemotherapy and/or radiotherapy and are declared 'cancer free'. And so they are told that they can eat anything they wanted because they are cured. Unexpectedly, they were shocked with the discovery of cancer relapse not long after completing treatment. As though that is not disappointing enough, the cancer has spread and became Stage 4. The first thought that comes to the patient's mind is, "How could this be?! I have gone through so much suffering and side-effects and thought I was cured." There are patients who are offered more chemotherapy which they adamantly refuse. Usually those who refuse would have realized by now that a Stage 4 cancer relapse has little hope for cure. Treatment is now aimed at maintaining quality of life as much as possible.

All the 3 categories of patients have valid reasons to refuse conventional therapy. The question is what options do they have? I could see their desperation and helplessness at this point when they become vulnerable to all suggestions of 'cure'. They would come to me and seek for opinion about some direct sales supplements or diet introduced by their friends and relatives. They would come for reassurance about the safety of herbs that they are taking from traditional healers. They would bring to my clinic some gadgets claiming to shrink cancer cells in the most extra-ordinary way. I realized that these patients are doing all sort of things suggested by all sorts or people. It is so disorganized and so confusing to the patient and the doctor.

The doctor can either rubbish off everything that seems foreign and unexplainable and continues unperturbed in his comfort zone. I seemed to attract these patients not because I am any better than my colleagues. I simply gave them my precious time to listen to their sufferings, hopes and fears. This is the least that I could do without being judgmental about the supplements or herbs that they consumed and the routine Qi gong that they practiced or the bio-electric chair/bed that they sleep on or the Bioresonance treatment course that they have committed. I am contented to see them preoccupied with something that they perceive as useful. My part as a medical practitioner is to provide an objective assessment of improvement or deterioration clinically. Their energy level, appetite, weight, pain level, quality of sleep, bowel and urinary habits, range of movements, mobility and mood are assessed clinically. An objective feedback is given to them to gauge if what they are doing on their own as an alternative to cancer treatment has a positive or negative effect. And because there is nothing more that my esteemed oncologist could offer this group of patient, the least that I could do is to 'pour cold water' on their effort to get well, no matter how hopeless it may seem. If there is anything that could be done for them from the conventional cancer treatment point of view, please let me know. If it really helps my patient, I would be a very willing partner to advocate to my patients to do what is right and helpful for my patient's reversal and remission form end stage cancer.

Otherwise what harm does it do to patients by advising them to eat right, improve oxygenation, improve blood circulation and assist body detoxification systems eg. liver and bowel detox. Patients should be given the choice and not condemned when opting for alternative therapy when conventional therapy failed.

Chemotherapy is war (killing) against the cancer cells, Changing the extracellular surrounding of the cancer cells restores its non-cancerous state!

Extracellular Matrix Regulates Gene Expression & Cancer

The surrounding environment of the cancer cell matters? Click to watch.

Gene mutations are part of the process of cancer, but mutations alone are not enough to cause cancer to take hold and spread, thus threatening people’s lives through domination of precious life resources (nutrition) as well as precious real estate where other healthy cells live. Genes do become damaged and sustain mutations in some cells and not others during people’s lifetimes. An oncogene—a gene that causes tumors in animals and uncontrolled growth in cells in culture—cannot in and of itself change cells from normal to cancerous. It is the cells’ surroundings, known as its microenvironment, that contribute in some way to how cancer has occurred.

Cancer involves an interaction between rogue cells and surrounding tissue. This is the clear message that Dr. Mina Bissell, who is the director of life sciences at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab in California (LBNL), and she is now sharing this with the world. The interactions between cancer cells and their micro and macroenvironments create a context that promotes tumor growth and protects them from immune attack or, on the other hand, prevent tumors from making any kind of beachhead so they cannot take hold or spread themselves around. Cancer cells routinely form in most people’s bodies but that does not mean they are going to succeed in capturing their host’s valuable resources so they can invade (inland so to speak) as they win their war and take our life.

What this means is that the surrounding cells and the surrounding extracellular matrix interact to shape cancer cell behaviors such as polarity, migration and proliferation. The microenvironment includes a complex scaffolding on which cells grow and develop, called the extracellular matrix. The microenvironment is what actually surrounds a cell. The extracellular matrix (microenvironment) has been shown to regulate gene expression so it has more to do with the state of cancer than the cancer cells themselves.

“If tissue architecture and context are part of the message, then tumor cells with abnormal genomes should be capable of becoming ‘normal’” if grown in a healthy microenvironment. Dr. Bissell and her students tested that hypothesis with some malignant cells, growing them on a healthy scaffolding. And yes, they were able to revert the malignant phenotype to a normal one. They could even inject the cells into mice where they didn’t cause tumors, unlike malignant cells, which would cause cancer. This, says Bissell, indicates that there is another way to look at cancer—that cancer genes are regulated by the environment around them.

Dr. Bissell’s basic idea is that cancer cells cannot turn into a lethal tumor without the cooperation of other cells nearby. It is not just the other surrounding cells but also the interstitial environment, which of course would include pH and nutrient levels being supplied by the blood. That may be why autopsies repeatedly find that most people who die of causes other than cancer have at least some tiny tumors in their bodies that had gone unnoticed. According to current thinking, the tumors were kept in check, causing no harm.

“Think of it as this kid in a bad neighborhood,” said Dr. Susan Love, a breast cancer surgeon and president of the Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation. “You can take the kid out of the neighborhood and put him in a different environment and he will behave totally differently.” She added, “It’s exciting. What it means, if all this environmental stuff is right, is that we should be able to reverse cancer without having to kill cells. This could open up a whole new way of thinking about cancer that would be much less assaultive.”

Dr. Bissell is now hailed as a hero, with an award named after her. “You have created a paradigm shift,” the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology wrote in a letter announcing that she had won its 2008 Excellence in Science award.

Dr. D. W. Smithers, then at Royal Marsden Hospital in London, argued that cancer was not a disease caused by a rogue cell that divides and multiplies until it destroys its host. “Cancer is no more a disease of cells than a traffic jam is a disease of cars,” Dr. Smithers wrote. “A lifetime of study of the internal-combustion engine would not help anyone understand our traffic problems.”

The death rate has barely budged for most cancers, and the gene mutation strategy so far has been a failure—a senseless one that has been used to reinforce the insane and very deadly form of medicine contemporary oncologists practice. Dr. David Agus, a conventional oncologist, agrees that cancer treatments have a shortsighted focus on individual cells.

Cells that are in harmony move and work together to create and work toward the conditions necessary for overall health. We can turn to physics and remember what happens to a bunch of grandfather clocks on the wall. They can all be swinging in wide opposition to each other but come back a while later and they will all be swinging together. Our cells are like that, all the many trillions of them. There is coherence to the entire colony of cells until what we call cancer occurs and then that coherence begins to break down.

Chemotherapy Provokes More Not Less Cancer

Chemotherapy can cause damage to healthy cells, which triggers them to secrete a protein that sustains tumor growth and makes cancer more resistance to any further treatment. We are beginning to see clinical evidence across the board show that what happens to healthy cells during cancer treatment determines much if not the entire outcome of treatment.

“Cancer cells inside the body live in a very complex environment or neighborhood. Where the tumor cell resides and who its neighbors are influence its response and resistance to therapy,” said senior author Dr. Peter S. Nelson, a member of the Hutchinson Cancer Center’s Human Biology Division. “Our findings indicate that the tumor microenvironment also can influence the success or failure of these more precise therapies.” In other words, the same cancer cell, when exposed to different “neighborhoods,” may have very different responses to treatment.

Researchers at the center tested the effects of a type of chemotherapy on tissue collected from men with prostate cancer, and found “evidence of DNA damage” in healthy cells after treatment, the scientists wrote in Nature Medicine in August of 2012.

The scientists found that healthy cells damaged by chemotherapy secreted more of a protein called WNT16B, which boosts cancer cell survival. The researchers observed up to 30-fold increases in WNT production! “The increase in WNT16B was completely unexpected,” said Dr. Nelson. The protein was taken up by tumour cells neighboring the damaged cells. “WNT16B, when secreted, would interact with nearby tumor cells and cause them to grow, invade, and importantly, resist subsequent therapy,” said Nelson.

Rates of tumor cell reproduction have been shown to accelerate between chemotherapy treatments. “Our results indicate that damage responses in benign cells… may directly contribute to enhanced tumor growth kinetics,” wrote the team. The researchers said they confirmed their findings with breast and ovarian cancer tumors.

Dr. Nelson describes the normal insanity/methods of chemotherapy saying, “In the laboratory we can ‘cure’ most any cancer simply by giving very high doses of toxic therapies to cancer cells in a petri dish. However, in people, these high doses would not only kill the cancer cells but also normal cells and the host.” Therefore, treatments for common solid tumors are given in smaller doses and in cycles, or intervals, to allow the normal cells to recover. This approach may not eradicate all of the tumor cells, and those that survive can evolve to become resistant to subsequent rounds of anti-cancer therapy.

What mainstream researchers are failing to find is that we can approach cancer treatment from a completely different and opposite angle to chemotherapy. Instead of trying to kill the cancer and harm the surrounding cells we imprison the cancer in a solid wall of healthy cells, thus that area being strengthened as opposed to being weakened by treatments. We create the conditions where we first limit the ability to grow and then send in some cruise missiles that directly target the cancer cells, choking the life out of them with waves of increased alkalinity and oxygen.

Magnesium and Your Health

Magnesium is an essential mineral for staying healthy and is required for more than 300 biochemical reactions in the body. Multiple health benefits of magnesium include transmission of nerve impulses, body temperature regulation, detoxification, energy production, and the formation of healthy bones and teeth.

Health specialists have always emphasized the importance of including adequate amounts of vitamins and minerals in our daily diet. Zinc, calcium, and magnesium are three of the most important minerals essential for good health. Magnesium aids in the absorption of calcium by the body, while zinc actively supports the body’s immune system.

Women of all ages benefit immensely from the intake of magnesium. Besides keeping osteoporosis at bay, magnesium health benefits in women include relief from symptoms of menopause and premenstrual syndrome (PMS). It also minimizes the risk of premature labor.

The other crucial health benefits of magnesium include protein synthesis, relief from bronchospasm (constricted airways) in the lungs, and improvement of parathyroid function. It boosts the bio-availability of vitamin B6 and cholesterol, improves muscle functioning, and prevents osteoporosis, insomnia, constipation, heart attacks, hypertension, constipation, migraines, kidney stones, and gallstones.

Good dietary sources of magnesium include nuts (especially almonds), whole grains, wheat germ, fish, and green leafy vegetables. As with most nutrients, daily needs for magnesium cannot be met from food alone which is why magnesium dietary supplements are recommended as well.

The top five health benefits of magnesium are:

1. Magnesium may reverse osteoporosis
Multiple research studies conducted have suggested that calcium supplemented with magnesium improves bone mineral density. Magnesium deficiency alters calcium metabolism and the hormones that regulate calcium, resulting in osteoporosis. Intake of recommended levels of magnesium is important because it averts osteoporosis.

2. Magnesium prevents cardiovascular diseases
One of the most important benefits of magnesium is that it is associated with lowering the risk of coronary heart diseases. Dietary surveys have suggested that sufficient magnesium intake may reduce the chance of having a stroke. Magnesium deficiency increases the risk of abnormal heart rhythms, which increases the risk of complications after a heart attack. Therefore, consuming recommended amounts of magnesium dietary supplements may be beneficial to the cardiovascular system.
3. Magnesium regulates high blood pressure (Hypertension)
Magnesium plays a key role in regulating blood pressure naturally. Magnesium supplements and a diet including plenty of fruits and vegetables, which are good sources of potassium and magnesium, are consistently associated with lowering blood pressure.

4. Magnesium treats diabetes
Studies show that individuals with a magnesium deficiency have a risk of developing type-2 diabetes and severe diabetic retinopathy. Magnesium aids in carbohydrate metabolism and influences the release and activity of insulin, thereby controlling blood glucose levels. It has been proven that for every 100 milligrams of increase in magnesium daily intake, there was a 15 percent decrease in the risk of developing type-2 diabetes.

5. Magnesium treats migraines, insomnia, and depression
The numerous magnesium health benefits also include the treatment of migraines, insomnia, and symptoms of depression. Magnesium is also known to cure severe forms of psychiatric dysfunctions including panic attacks, stress, anxiety, and undue agitations. Magnesium supplements considerably reduce the severity of such attacks and may also help in reducing the rate of recurrence.
For more information on the health benefits of Magnesium, do check out the link below:

Therapeutic Use of Magnesium
Magnesium Bicarbonate Alkaline Water

Rational? Think Again.

If you had an aquarium and the fishes were sick, the veterinarian would not say 'show me the fish'. He would say, 'Give me a cup of the water and I'll tell you what's wrong with the fish!'

Rational? Think again...

Why then would you take medicine for so many degenerative disorders without identifying and eliminating what is degenerating it? So many diseases has so many fancy names but the underlying cause is INFLAMMATION!

Have you ever asked why and what is causing the inflammation? 

Every time you saw a house burning, firemen were always there also. The correlation between a burning house and the presence of firemen is statistically significant. Do you then make a conclusion that firemen causes house fire? 

Irrational? Think again...

Why cholesterol gets the blame for causing heart attack and stroke by virtue of causing blockage of the blood vessels? It does not make sense if you think of the house on fire as the disease and the cholesterol as the firemen. I pity cholesterol for being the scapegoat. If cholesterol is so dangerous why is it that...

• cholesterol is found in every cell membrane.
• when the baby was born, a cheese-like whitish substance call 'vernix caseosa' covers the baby. This substance is full of cholesterol.
• when a woman is pregnant, her cholesterol levels increase by 25 to 50%. 

If Cholesterol is a health enemy that needs to be controlled with medicine, why then God made the liver to produce cholesterol? If you don't believe in God and prefers to call it Nature, would natural selection of the 'fittest' by evolution allows the propagation of this 'defective gene' that makes cholesterol?

If the kitchen in your house breaks down, you can still cook at your back yard if you want. If the TV in your living room spoils, you can still watch TV in your bed room. But if the toilet in your house is permanently damaged, then you've got to move! The most unpopular organ, the colon happens to be a very important organ to keep the body functioning properly. The human colon is 5 feet long, how much stool in that 5 feet long colon do you pass out each day? 

Rational? Think again...

The human gastrointestinal tract constitutes 70% of the body's total immune system. The surface area of the digestive tract is estimated to be similar to the surface area of a football field. With such a large exposure, the immune system must work hard to prevent pathogens from entering into blood and lymph. 80% of the bacteria that lives in our gut is also helping us to keep our gut immune system functioning normally.

Every time you complete a course of antibiotics, you actually killed many 'good' and 'bad' intestinal bacteria at the same time. That is why many antibiotics comes with the warning of causing diarrhea. 

Every time a child is given an antibiotic unnecessarily, the child's gut flora diminishes and many parents notice that their children are prone to skin allergy, asthma and allergic rhinitis. And they wonder why this happens to their children despite raising them obsessively in an almost-sterile environment. 

Our Children Need More Probiotics, Not Antibiotics For A Better Immune System

If you have a thief in your house, you can bomb the house or inject a poison in a mosquito and put the mosquito in the house. Both will get rid of the thief. But in the latter, you still get to keep the house.

Rational? Think again...

90% of adult cancer is environmental and lifestyle related (Pharm Res. 2008 Sep; 25(9): 2097–2116). But many chose to kill those cancer cells by just cutting (surgery), burning (radiotherapy) or poisoning (chemotherapy) with significant collateral damage to the healthy cells. Cancer patients do die from cancer treatment and not from the the cancer(Br J Cancer. 2006 Dec 18; 95(12): 1632–1636). 

A more holistic approach to cancer is needed. The holistic treatment caters for the treatment of the Body, Mind and Spirit of the patient.Treating the patient as a whole being. Total diet modification, lifestyle resetting, change of mindset, detoxification, chelation therapy, anti-oxidant supplementation are all significant aspects of INTEGRATIVE ONCOLOGY.