How can I help my Dad who is dying from prostate cancer?
I would also like to know what alternative medicine options are available that may be of help.
Cancer - 11 Answers
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1 :
make sure the hospital does everything they can tell him its going to be fine and support him
2 :
(I'm sorry about your Dad...that's a tough situation for anybody to go through...) If he's dying... That means that it is inoperable...have they tried Chemo? Try this link... http://www.cancercenter.com/prostate-cancer.cfm
3 :
What treatments has your dad had already/ And, how do you know he is dying of prostate cancer? I'm not being just curious -I have prostate cancer myself but all I have had is the established radiation treatments.
4 :
I'm no doctor, so I am not qualified to deliver medical advice. However from experience I can tell you that the best thing you can do for your dad right now is be with him.Time is precious, don't let it waste away.
5 :
You could seek out an herbalist for additional information, However when dealing with this type of progressive cancer Radiation Therapy was most effective for my father. Prostate Cancer does not mean a death sentence today. My dad was diagnosed with having prostate cancer last summer and was lucky enough to not have it in his lymph nodes or bones. The oncologist and radiologist will explain to you the best method of treatment for your dad. Prostate cancer is a cancer that most men do not die of if it is caught early on. Your question does not tell me his progression or his stage of the cancer, so i hope the info i am giving to you is helpful. If the cancer is localized to the prostate itself, chances are he will beat this cancer and not die of it. He will also need hormone shots even after the treatment is over. My dad will be getting Lupron shots every couple of months over the next couple of years. My dad did the radiation treatment because that was his best option. Everyone is different and every case is different. For example, He is 72, diabetic and has had a previous heart attack, so removal of the prostate was not an option. The route of therapy is really determined by the doctors of course with the family and patients approval. Hope this helped you. In the beginning of all of this when my dad was first diagnosed, he was at a high level 9.8 , meaning the score chart they go by when first detecting cancer . The range is from 0-10, meaning 9.8 was just about as high as it could be. I though my dad was going to die also. We had 3 different consultations before chosing the facility, the doctors and the treatment methods. I suggest to you if you are just starting out on this road to get as many consultations, ask as many questions as you can. Knowledge is power. If you know he is dying of this disease then all you can do is support him, visit with him as often as possible and make him as comfortable as you can. Also respect and fullfill his wishes. God Bless.
6 :
Hi Treatment: To begin with, the patient should forgo all solid foods and subsist on water only for two or three days. The intake of water should be as plentiful as possible. Nothing should be added to the water except a little lemon juice, if desired. The water may be taken cold or hot and it should be taken every hour or so when awake. This will greatly increase the flow of urine. An enema may be taken once a day during fasting to clear the lower bowel of accumulations After a thorough cleansing of the bowels, hot and cold applications may be used directly on the prostate gland and its surrounding parts. The heat relieves the tissues and a brief cold immersion tones them up. The patient should take alternate hot and cold hip baths. These are of great value in relieving pain and reducing congestion. The hot bath should be taken first for 10 minutes, followed by a cold bath for one minute daily. After the short fast, the patient should adopt an all-fruit diet for three days. The fruits should include apples, pears, oranges, grape-fruit, grapes, sweet limes, mangoes, melons and all other juicy fruits. This will help to clear toxins from the body and will also enable excess fat to be reduced to some extent. The exclusive fruit diet should be followed by a diet, consisting of two meals of fruits and one of cooked vegetables for further seven days. The vegetable meal should be taken in the evening and should consist of all kinds of cooked vegetables, preferably steam cooked. Thereafter, the patient may adopt a well-balanced diet of three basic food groups, namely (i) seeds, nuts and grains, (ii) vegetables and (iii) fruits. The short lemon juice fast followed by an all-fruit diet and a further period on fruits and vegetables may be repeated after two or three months if necessary depending on the progress being made. Pumpkin seeds have been found to be an effective home remedy for prostate problems and many patients have been helped by their use. These seeds are rich in unsaturated fatty acids which are essential to the health of the prostate. Heavy starches,sweet stimulants and highly seasoned foods are entirely forbidden, as they cause direct irritation on the prostate gland and bladder. The diet should also exclude spices, condiments, salt in excess, sauces, red meats, cheese, asparagus, watercress, greasy or fried foods, alcohol, tobacco and too much tea or coffee. The patient should avoid hurried meals and must chew his food thoroughly and slowly. Water should be taken between meals and not at mealtime. The patient should avoid sexual irregularities in eating and drinking, long periods of sitting and vigorous exercise. He should guard against constipation by taking plenty of fruits, bran and nuts. All efforts should be made to tone up the general condition of the body. With a general improvement in health, the condition will be greatly relieved. Surgery should be resorted to only if the condition does not improve even after the dietary treatment and other measures outlined here. I hope you may find some helpful.
7 :
Sorry about ur dad. If he's already dying, I guess, not much might be done for him. You ensure to start testing early i.e. after age 40.
8 :
I too am sorry to hear about your Dad. You did not mention if he has had any previous treatments for prostate cancer. Assuming he did (and they failed), he can consider participating in a clinical trial. Here is a link that talks about them: http://www.prostate-cancer.org/research/research.html These are often experimental therapies that have not been used before, so there is no data to determine if they can really help. There also may be some risk as these trials are often conducted to assess the safety and efficacy of a treatment. You might also want to check with the American Cancer Society and US TOO to see what resources are available for men who are in what's called "the end stage" of their disease (which means they are dying). It's not easy to watch someone you love battle this disease, but I think your Dad is lucky to have someone as caring as you in his life. I hope you will take advantage of every precious moment you have with him.
9 :
I am very sorry to hear about this the best thing you can do is make sure he feel as little pain as possible try and be with him in your spare time and shre stories of old times. check with you doctor wat treatments are available or what pain killers are best for him. Hope all goes well...
10 :
Sometimes the best thing to do is just be there for him and let him go in peace. If he is at the point where you say he is dying, it's probably too late to do much of anything. Let him talk, as much as he can/wants, and listen to what he has to say. Talk about what is going on in your life. Don't spend to much time dwelling on death unless he wants to. I've been looking at music therapy and it can do a lot to ease pain and anxiety and such. If you play something that is portable, you could bring it in and play for him for awhile. Things he wants to hear. This may be really hard for you to deal with, but you will be glad you did it. You have my sympathy and empathy, since I've been through it.
11 :
First Stop bad habits ---Some one may ask us “Is there any new tablet or herb which will cure cancer�. The answer we have to give depends on the educational level of the questioner. ---If the questioner is an ordinary ,uneducated person then what we should say to him is “There is no new tablet or herb which will cure cancer. Some people are trying to make money by claiming that they have a new tablet or herb which will cure cancer. If you go behind such claims ,you will lose your money .You will get a best treatment of allopathic medicine if you contact an M.B.B.S. or an M.D. degree holder .If you stop allopathic treatment believing that a herb will cure you ,you may lose your life as well as your money. Allopathic treatment has studied about different types of cancer ,and it is having different types of good medicines for different types of cancers. Most of the medicines can effectively control most of the cancers ,if treated at the beginning of the disease. In allopathic medicine ,there are even chemotherapy, surgery ,radiation methods to handle cancer. Many of the patients who followed the directions of the allopathic doctors, are living a happy life now .Hence you should contact an allopathic doctor immediately ,without wasting your time for giving an occasion for cancer to grow merrily ---If the questioner is well educated person having few allopathic MBBS doctors in his relatives and friends circle , then the approach should be more elegant than the approach for ordinary illiterate people. The first step for the educated people is ,they should contact their relatives or friends who are allopathic MBBS doctors .There by , they can get a complete picture of cancer. They will naturally start taking medicine according to allopathic medical science. Now ,the question arises, will the patient be able to follow all the precautions and restrictions told by the allopathic doctors Most probably ,the patient will fail to grasp one or two points of restrictions or rules of health told by the doctor. Even if the patient has understood all the precautions told by the doctor, he may not have mind control to follow all those suggestions of doctors. When a person is having cancer ,it will make more important for the close relatives of the patient to follow all the safety measures so far discovered by allopathic medical science, since they are having similar genetic factors as that of the cancer patient , inside their body .Even if you reject the genetic similarity point in the relatives of cancer patients, we know that in the present days there are hundreds of proven causes of cancer around us which may bring cancer to us even though we do not have relatives with cancer.(Off course ,we know that a proven cause cancer will not bring cancer to everyone ,it will bring cancer to only those who have genetic variation ) Now the question is who has to spread the messages of medical science about the proven causes of cancer and preventive methods I think ,you and I can start an organization /group of people around the world ,even through internet media ,to make the people understand easily ,all the discoveries made so far regarding the preventive measures/methods for cancer .Do you think that all cancer patients who were smoking or drinking stopped it after getting cancer I do not think so .Few have not yet stopped. I and you can help them to overcome their bad habits which lead them to cancer & other diseases. --- Now the next step. When a cancer patient is treated by allopathic medicine ,if the patient had delayed to begin the treatment ,the treatment may not become effective. Negligence from the part of patient to follow the precautions told by doctor will also contribute to the failure of treatment. Whatever may be the reason, if the treatment is not giving expected success, then ,there is no alternative for the allopathic doctor to give the patient the latest medicines which are not yet prescribed to the public. Now the question is do all the doctors in the world know all such test drugs If the relatives of a cancer patient from a poor country wants to know about the possibility of survival of patient for whom all other medicines failed to work ,you and I ,through our organization can inform to such people of poor countries that ‘there is still light of hope ,darkness need not be feared , total darkness is still far away’. We can inform to patients about such test drugs and about the allopathic hospitals which are treating patients who did not respond to regular medicines , with test drugs. ----Now the next step .For patients who cannot afford such treatments what should be done. ----Now the next step. For patients who are educated and are having doctors in their friends and relatives circle ,if the present allopathic treatment is not working for them, what should they do .Since they are having doctors in their friends circle ,they need not fear about quacks. They will not stop present treatment from allopat
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