HH-BLOG: Recently, a blog was published on this site that referred to research and publications that severely put into question the value of chemotherapy. Furthermore, the findings are based on solid statistical data. Does this mean that you are against chemo? Or that you would counsel your clients against its use?DR. SHIKHA: “No. There is no such blanket answer to a rather complex issue. First of all, if you read the article carefully you will find that even Professor Abel’s data prove a substantial level of success for some cancers, such as different types of lymphomas and leukemia…
HH-BLOG: Yes, this is clearly stated, but the main point seems to be that in advanced organ cancers chemo does not work.
DR. SHIKHA: “That may be so, but facts will be not always be understood or believed. People are not guided by statistics, but by emotions and beliefs. Which is why secondly, the suggestions that I as a doctor can make and that are also useful to the patient, paradoxically very much depend on the patient’s own views or opinions, and also on the family input, as well as the input from his or her other doctors. Not all criteria that determine the choices that we make are objective and rational. The human mind is filled with emotional and conceptual filters, and these filters or preconceived ideas very much come to bear on the decisions that we make. As a physician I cannot make suggestions to a patient that totally go against his or her beliefs. It would be unwise. Besides, it wouldn’t succeed.”
HH-BLOG: So, if someone who believes in chemo comes to you and asks you for advice as to how his cancer should be treated, you would not try and point out to him that he’d better change his mind?
DR. SHIKHA: “I will point out the facts, as far as I know and see them. I will also answer questions as truthfully as I can. The rest is up to the patient.”
HH-BLOG: Why the low-key approach?
DR. SHIKHA: “Because the various forms of alternative cancer treatments or any alternative form of medicine in general, can only work with the patient’s full cooperation. The patient is not just the recipient. The patient is actively involved. Life styles may need to be adjusted; schedules definitely will need to be followed. It is not a matter of receiving a miracle infusion and then being instantaneously cured. Unfortunately, no such cure alls exist, not in the form of chemotherapy and not in any other form of medicine. In other words, I cannot overpower the patient, or force my own insights on him and then expect that he will cooperate. It is the patient who needs to make the first step. He needs to understand that he is about to enter a process that requires his active participation. Then we have a workable basis. But even then success is not a given.”
HH-BLOG: Why only a possibility, and not a certainty? I have read quite a few testimonials, actually whole books about alternative cancer treatments and they make the entire thing sound like clockwork. Follow the protocol and be cured. Like that.
DR. SHIKHA: “These claims need not be false. It is also true that certain protocols, when followed to the letter, although they cannot guarantee success, they nevertheless will make success very likely. However, who says that a patient will follow the protocol exactly the way it is suggested. People are people, and therefore unpredictable.”
HH-BLOG: So once someone has made the choice to follow an alternative approach out of their own free will, what can interfere?
DR. SHIKHA: “Lack of confidence, fear, other peoples’, especially relatives’ forceful opinions... Let me tell you a story from another doctor’s practice to illustrate my point. That particular doctor had a patient with cancer of the jaw. It was an untreated, or virgin cancer. Nothing had been done yet. The doctor suggested a rigorous schedule of ozone therapy sessions for a 3-week period, to be repeated two months later. It was suggested that the entire process would probably take two to three years of treatment periods, with time decreasing in frequency. After the first three weeks the patient was elated. When she had her cancer checked, the remission was almost complete. Only a tiny residue was left. Two months went by then three, but the patient did not come back. After four months the doctor decided to give her a call only to find out that in the meantime on the insistence of her son, the patient had had half of her jaw surgically removed, “because ozone did not work”. But such was not the case. Ozone works by cleaning up the environment in the body. It does not attack the cancer. It removes the factors that allow cancer to grow, and it does so over time through repeated treatments. It cannot be expected to work instantaneously. So, although all of these facts had been pointed out in far greater detail than we can manage to do so here, the patient, by giving in to someone else’s uniformed opinions, forfeited her chance for a gradual healing without unpleasant side-effects. These things happen all the time, and in most cases the treatment failure is NOT due to the doctor using an alternative approach (in the case the doctor knows what he is doing, because there are also quacks!), the failure is due to lack of follow-up, lack of determination, lack of consistency, lack of confidence in one's own choices - whatever you wish to call it.
HH-BLOG: This is why you are treading lightly and why do not try and convince people either of the inferiority of chemotherapy or the superiority of your own treatment methods.
DR. SHIKHA: “I am practicing integrative medicine, which means that according to my view, chemotherapy IS a viable treatment approach, despite all its flaws - especially for those who believe in it. All a doctor can do is point out the facts according to the information at her disposal. And if I have a patient sitting in front of me who does not seem to be willing to take much initiative in his or her own healing process, well in that case as I said, ‘As a physician I cannot make suggestions to a patient that totally go against his or her beliefs’. Anyway, who can determine what is right or wrong for anyone else?...”