Cancer

Cancer Sufferers Please note: Websites such as ours and many others are valuable resources to learn a little more about what you can do to support yourself and what therapies are available but PLEASE take the information you gain with you and get professional guidance. Seek several professional opinions. Information gained on websites is always of a general nature and not specific to your unique condition.

Friends of Cancer Sufferers

If you are searching for answers for your friend again the best you can do is to encourage your friend to seek out multiple professional advice. Cancer sufferers are generally barraged with well meaning friends equipped with solutions often for Cancers that are completely different to your unique situation. It can be confusing and confronting for the sufferer. Encourage them to make well educated decisions and then support them in whatever path they choose to take with no judgement

Because of the seriousness of this disease we make no general suggestions on this site regarding Cancer treatment.

Cancer is a chronic disease that may occur anywhere in the body, beginning with a malignant tumour which may be either a carcinoma or a sarcoma.  Carcinomas arise in the lining of the skin and internal organs.  Sarcomas arise from solid tissues such as muscle, bone, lymph glands, blood vessels, and other connective tissues.  Both are invasive – a cell becomes cancerous, divides, and forms an abnormal mass which grows until the healthy cells are outnumbered.  The mass then spreads into adjacent tissues and structures, often destroying them.  Secondary cancers occur if an invading cancer grows through the wall of a blood vessel so that the blood then carries cancerous cells to other parts of the body.  A tumour of low malignancy may take months or years to cause problems, whereas a high-malignancy tumour may have spread widely before the sufferer is aware of it.

Symptoms

• It is impossible to enumerate all the symptoms of all cancers here, but awareness of signs that a change has occurred is important.  They may have a harmless explanation, but include: 
• Unusual bleeding or discharge, especially from the vagina or rectum
• A lump or thickening in the breast or elsewhere
• A wound that does not heal
• Persistent change in bowel habits
• Persistent hoarseness or coughing
• Persistent indigestion or difficulty in swallowing
• Change in the size or shape of a wart or mole
• Persistent unexplained weight loss
• Nagging pain in the chest

Our Herbalist Lynne Max is available for consultation in Armadale. Victoria. Phone 1300732094

Here are a few helpful links:

The Cancer Council Australia

The Cancer Council Victoria

National Breast and Ovarian Cancer Centre

The Peter MacCallum Centre

Lions Australian prostate cancer web site

Lung Cancer.Org

Cervical Cancer

Colon Cancer

Skin Cancer

Bone Cancer

American Cancer Society