Full Spectrum Cancer Care
If you're facing dog cancer and you feel overwhelmed, there's a good reason for that: it's overwhelming. There is a lot of information to sort through and understand, and it's not always easy to get it from veterinarians. Full Spectrum Cancer Care is an approach pioneered by Dr. Demian Dressler, author of The Dog Cancer Survival Guide, that includes conventional approaches like surgery, chemotherapy and radiation, but also many other strategies from other medical traditions that have been shown to have value for dogs with cancer.
The following articles were written by The Dog Cancer Vet Team to introduce you to some of the most important aspects of his method of understanding and treating dog cancer. We hope you find them helpful.
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What is a scar revision?
When a veterinarian or oncologist diagnoses canine cancer, often a surgery is done to remove the cancer cells. Surgery remains one of the cornerstones of cancer treatment in dogs. With surgery, if all things go very well, your veterinary surgeon may be able to completely remove the cancer. This may mean a cure is reached,…
Read MoreA Big Picture Viewpoint
The recent earthquakes and tsunamis in Japan can teach us a lot. I live on Maui. We had a little tsunami damage here from the same quake that has created the horror show in Japan. Now we face the potential of radiation exposure, depending on how the nuclear leak turns out. This is nothing compared…
Read MoreKidney Supplements For Dog Cancer
Cancer of the kidneys can be very hard, both for you and for your dog. This is actually a rare cancer, so I hope some information here can help. Let’s look at this topic. To understand what happens with cancers of the dog kidney, it is important to understand what the kidneys normally do. Just…
Read MoreHow Do I know The Right Course of Treatment, part 2
In the last post we looked at the information you need to gather about surgery, chemotherapy and radiation for your dog when deciding on a treatment plan. But as you know, the choices do not stop there. As a Guardian you also need to decide what to do. Since you are your dog’s primary advocate,…
Read MoreHow Do I know The Right Course of Treatment
The decisions surrounding dog cancer treatment can be complicated. This is not only because of the treatments themselves. Surgery, chemotherapy and radiation have multiple steps. Diet and supplements are not necessarily strait forward either. Steps to change a dog’s brain chemistry to a cancer fighting state take some doing as well. Boosting life quality needs…
Read MoreA Silver Lining in Dog Cancer
This is a blog about dog cancer. As such, you are probably here looking for some advice. Something useful to help this dire predicament you are in with your loved dog. Most often I will write about some outside the box approach to treating your dog’s disease. Maybe a new therapy that is coming up,…
Read MoreChemosensitizers
We need longer life expectancies in dogs with cancer. When guardians hear the statistics about dog cancer survival, they are often shocked at how grim things sound. And to be honest, they are grim. For this reason, we need to start looking “outside the box” of existing conventional cancer care. This was one of the…
Read MoreAn Overview of What Else Can I Do?
The most common question I receive is: My dog has cancer. What else can I do? Well, this is a very short question that needs a very long answer. I will do my best to give the big categories here. First, get the data you need. A real guardian needs information to make aware decisions. …
Read MoreWhy Rescue Chemotherapy Is Not As Good
Cancer cells are really quite amazing, but not in a good way. They have these little pumps in their outer wall (the cell membrane). They go by a couple of different names, but the easiest one to remember is MDR. MDR stands for Multi-Drug Resistance. The reason these pumps are so amazingly bad is that…
Read MoreSurgery and “Blood Thinning” Drugs and Supplements
The approach in The Dog Cancer Survival Guide, as well as my own personal philosophy concerning problem-solving, is to use what works, regardless of the packaging material. In other words, it makes no difference if the recommendation comes from a conventional (allopathic) vet, or an “alternative” vet, as long as it works, is safe and…
Read MoreTo Chemo or Not To Chemo?
One of the little known facts about veterinary medicine is that chemotherapy does not cure cancer in dogs, with few exceptions (except transmissible venereal tumor or the very rare lympho or something). I believe that many people are unaware of this fact. So we are left with a treatment modality that has a goal of…
Read MoreFight Cancer With Local Chemotherapy
Many dog lovers hear grim survival statistics after receiving a dog cancer diagnosis, and it is extremely overwhelming. So much so that they go on a search for new and innovative ways to get better odds, longer survival times, and better life quality. Well, the same thing happened to me! Why settle for stats that…
Read MoreSigns of Dog Lymph Node Cancer
Many find a bump or a lump on their canine companion at home. The first question is usually, “what is this?” Sometimes the second question is, “Is it a gland or a lymph node?” These are good questions. The reason is that glands, or lymph nodes, become swollen for different reasons. Like in people, infection…
Read MoreBut Cancer Treatment at My Dog’s Age?
So many guardians post comments on this blog, asking questions that have to do with age and cancer treatment. Let’s look at this topic today. I have an old dog. What is the right choice for cancer treatment? This central question usually can boil down to whether the life quality negative of the treatment is…
Read MoreDifferent Pain, Different Drugs
In some ways physicians have it easy. An MD can ask a human patient, “Are you in pain?” It’s a bit tougher for us animal lovers. Interestingly, we are in the same boat as pediatricians in this way. We have to go by signs, feelings, intuition in some cases. And sometimes the truth is that…
Read MoreTreatment Plan Analysis in Real Life
Yesterday, a 13 year old Rottweiler came in to the hospital. She had been limping, and there was a swelling in her front leg, down on the forearm. It was firm and slightly warm to the touch. The area was about 4 inches long. We took X-rays of the sore leg. The films showed a…
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