DISCLAIMER: I am not a physician giving medical advice. This is my personal experience.
Yay, thank you Soylent!!!
My thermography results have improved! I attribute this to Soylent and nothing else but Soylent. Soylent is the only difference between this latest scan and my last one from five months ago!The Lego Batman Movie (2017)
Some background: as the daughter/granddaughter/niece of breast cancer patients, I had been getting mammograms at my doctors’ urging since age 35. Due to my “high risk” status, it was presented to me as if I had no choice.
That always bothered me, because mammograms did not help my Mom. She was vigilant about annual exams but they missed her lump. She found it herself. By the time she found it, it was huge. The surgeon removed a 6-inch diameter round tumor that the mammogram missed only a very short time before.
Furthermore, when my mom’s cancer returned and showed up on other tests eleven years later, her annual mammograms missed that too. She was told that the cancer had been festering for years but the mammograms never caught it.
The mammograms were very painful and invasive. The indignity of having my breasts crushed against a machine and sore for days was awful. I hated them. After the last two, I cried for days. It was truly aggravating and demeaning hearing “well no one likes them, but you have to get them”. Says who?! Last time I checked, I was the patient.
I also tired of hearing that improvements had been made to improve their accuracy. I didn’t care. It was the pain of the process that I couldn’t abide. Anyone who knows me, knows, I don’t suffer physical pain any more gladly than I suffer fools. When I had menstrual pain, I got rid of it. Forever. Asthma? Gone. Allergies? Thanks to Soylent, buh-bye!
One day I was complaining to my chiropractor, who wondered about me putting myself through the pain of mammography when his wife and all female relatives got thermography instead. He said all you do is stand there topless while your picture is taken. It detects heat, which may indicate concern or not. He suggested I check it out, and bless his heart for that!
(For an in-depth explanation of how thermography works, please Google it. If you ask your standard western medicine doctor about it, odds are against them even having heard of it much less knowing anything about it.)
I began going for thermography every six months, as per the risk/concerns shown by the heat-detecting images. My scan in the later half of 2013 was of slight concern and warranted continued 6-month evaluations. I was not a bad risk, i.e., “hurry up and go get an MRI” (alternative to a mammogram), but the scans seemed to be getting slightly worse each time, and the last one I got in February of this year was the worst scan yet.
Each breast is rated from 1 to 5, one-two being normal, 3-4 suggesting elevated risk, and five being immediate danger. My Feb. rating was right breast TH4+ (“abnormal”), left breast TH3 (“borderline”). I began consuming Soylent at the end of April, about 80% of my diet. Now my current thermography results are…drumroll please:
Right breast TH2; left breast TH2+! Hot damn! Well, literally not as hot. I’ve cooled down; this is great news!
The report expressed “significant improvement” and for the first time, I am being advised to return in 12 months, not 6! Thank you thermography team! Thank you Rob, and all your backers, for Soylent! Thank you inventor of thermography! Thank you Universe for responding to my pleas for an alternative to painful mammograms! Thank you Jonathan! Thanks to my Mom, for still going strong 18+ years post-mastectomy when her oncologist insisted she should have died a loooong time ago!
No thanks to the doctors who tried and failed to convince me I’d be dead from cancer in my 30s (I’m 41 now) unless I had my breasts prophylactically removed, based on my family history.
This is not to claim that my risk of breast cancer is permanently negated. I don’t think anyone with living cells can legitimately claim that, about any cancer. I’m also not directing anyone else to avoid mammograms, just because I do. I do a lot of things that others couldn’t/wouldn’t/shouldn’t do. I’m speaking strictly for myself in that Soylent is helping me hugely with peace of mind, a higher quality of life, and improved breast test results.
Thanks again!
Congratulations!
Thanks! We’re both incredibly happy to see such an outstanding positive change in her results. =)
I love a happy thermography story. But, I have to offer caution. Cutting down on estrogen in your diet will definitely make your thermogram look better. This is a good thing. But thermography can not actually detect all early cancers nor can it tell a medical professional where in the breast the cancer is located.
The art of mammography – and it is an art – has changed. I would suggest that your radiology center was a very poor one. If your breasts hurt for two days after your mammogram, you had a bad tech and went to a bad center. A good tech at a good center with an excellent machine can perform a mammogram with minimal discomfort.
And yes, mammograms will not find every cancer. But, the new 3D machines are amazing. Women at high risk who have dense breast tissue (probably why your mom’s cancer was not found) should always have a breast ultrasound along with their mammograms.
And then there is the cost difference – a screening mammogram is covered 100% by most insurances if you are 40 years old or above. The thermograms in my area are now up to about $200 and insurance is not going to help. I had to give up on getting them due to the cost.
I was diagnosed with breast cancer when I was 42. A mammogram found it at the earliest stage. A thermogram might not have found it because it was not an actual tumor. I wish I had known to have a thermogram in order to compare to the mammogram before I had my surgery.
Thermography is a wonderful tool. But it is even more wonderful when used in conjunction with an annual mammogram and ultrasound. I now work at one of the best radiology centers in my area. I’ve learned a lot about what makes up a good mammogram and what causes a bad one. I suggest you find a good radiology center! Ours is owned and run by a woman radiologist – that makes a big difference!
Thanks for sharing your story. I’m thrilled to hear that your cancer was detected early!
I want to respond to your comments as I’m afraid some of my post was misconstrued and I don’t understand some of your response.
I didn’t reduce estrogen in my diet. Not sure where you got that from. Soylent has enabled far more vigorous physical exercise, which has led to increased muscle and less fat (I had these tested so it isn’t just visual). Estrogen hides in fat. The less fat, the fewer hiding places for estrogen. That’s the way it’s been explained to me. I’m not a physician or a biologist so I’m sure it’s more complex than that, but it’s serviceable to me as long I feel better and my scans are cleaner.
Again, I didn’t say that thermography detects all early cancers or tells anyone where it is located. Thermography indicates concern. I didn’t say that it detects cancer. I want to avoid cancer in the first place. If the scan is suspicious, the patient is referred out for an MRI, which would show the presence of cancer and where it is located. No test universally shows everything; there’s always a certain percentage of error. Of course it’s up to the patient to pursue the MRI or ultrasound or mammogram or even doing nothing if they choose.
“If your breasts hurt for two days after your mammogram, you had a bad tech and went to a bad center.”
I certainly agree that it (Kaiser) was bad, but it was not an isolated incident. I had several mammograms over the years and they were all like that, with a different tech each time. Kaiser is the only place where I’ve had mammograms, as that’s the insurance I had. In talking with other women, their breasts also hurt terribly for some time afterwards.
That doesn’t say much for mammograms if an ultrasound is called for as well. How about skipping both those and going straight for an MRI? What good is the mammogram?
If you have to pay for an ultrasound, what’s the benefit of the mammogram being covered?
I no longer have health insurance so everything we pay for medical is on us 100%. The thermograms I get are $200 each time and that’s considerable, but we’re no longer spending money on health insurance premiums. That was about $6,000 per year for both of us.
In any case, insurance coverage or lack thereof does not figure into such decisions for me. Kaiser refused to check me for the presence of aneurysms, as I only had one parent die from one, and they required the death of two parents to justify paying for a test. So we went elsewhere and paid about $500 for an MRI of my head. It was clean, and if I’d waited for insurance to cover it, I’d never know. My Lasik wasn’t covered, nor were my contact lenses, so I went elsewhere and invested $3,000 for it (despite making only $15/hr at that time and being neck deep in student loans). I was 20/600 before so it was worth it — glasses weren’t enough, and my plan only paid a portion for them anyway. I have a health condition that Kaiser refused to help me with for years, deeming it cosmetic even though it causes me physical pain, for which I am currently shopping around for an excellent doctor. (My Kaiser doctors even encouraged me to “shop it somewhere else”!)
Bottom line, insurance exists to not pay. That’s their job. They’ll pay for as little as they can get away with. If it gives people warm fuzzies that something’s covered, even if it isn’t the most effective, that’s enough for many people, but not for us. Even if it means incurring debt, we are interested in what we want, not what insurance will cover.
Um… are you saying that thermograms only find actual tumors? That isn’t so. They detect heat. Overheated areas are of concern, even if it’s only cells and not tumors. The point is to know that heat and inflammation are building up and do something about it before cancer forms. (That is, if you believe inflammation is linked to cancer, and not everyone does.) Being proactive instead of only reactive is not something Western medicine accommodates well, given how many things aren’t covered by health insurance.
And that’s supposed to be good??!
All of the Kaiser techs who have performed my mammograms have been female. (I know a tech isn’t the same as an owner/operator, but those are the people with whom the patient comes into contact.) There’s nothing kinder about a woman yanking your breast and painfully squeezing it against glass than if a guy were doing it. In fact, I think there was sadism behind it. All the bull about “no one likes this, but it’s for your own good” is utter drivel. What was I, a kid getting a spanking?! They actually seemed to get satisfaction from hurting me.
I can’t speak for the center you work at as I’ve never been there, but it’s been my experience that being a patient/customer in a henhouse can be hell. Women alarmingly tend to think that they can speak for, and even act on behalf of, other women whom they don’t even know just because they have similar genitalia. I’ve encountered many who don’t even understand that I’m a separate entity, not their appendage. I wouldn’t write off a facility on the basis of the owner having a vagina, but just FYI, no one will ever get anywhere banging the sisterhood drum with me.
Again, thanks for your input and for reading my post.