As you may or may not know, in March we wrote a blog on Tara, the 20-year-old who was fighting for her life after being diagnosed with Ewing’s Sarcoma. Tara had an initial surgery to remove the mass and started her battle with this disease by using strictly alternative methods and eating a completely raw, organic diet. However, she has been forced to employ more traditional methods due to her tumor coming back and growing quite large.
Despite her unfortunate circumstances, Tara has been keeping an optimistic outlook on life and still has high ambitions with school, becoming self-sufficient, and traveling to Mexico for her brother’s upcoming wedding. As her medical treatments have come with an outrageous price tag, Tara and her mom created a line of natural products called Honey Hill Naturals, which consists of sprays, hand soaps, and lip balms to help finance her recovery. More products are to be added soon and you can also get a #TARASTRONG bracelet on their product page.
Check out her natural goods below:
Fine Mist Spray- $9
(choose Lavender, Lemon, or Clove’s Spray)
Honey Oatmeal Hand Soap- $3
(made with vegetable-based goats milk, organic honey, & organic oats)
Not only will you have some fantastic (and natural!) products, but you will also be supporting an amazing, beautifully-spirited young woman who is trying her hardest to find the positive in her situation. It is so often that so many of us take for granted in our lives what others would give anything to have, even if it just means having a normal day. We cannot always put ourselves in another’s shoes in order to truly sympathize, but we can do our best to make sure those shoes are nice and comfy for the bumpy road ahead. Tara, we are sending you countless thoughts and prayers and will be supporting you endlessly on your journey.
If you have a moment, please check out Tara’s blog and also consider dropping off a donation that she can readily use for her treatment.
As always, Answers for Angels appreciates your support in supporting others.
As October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, there is a lot of push for women to go get mammograms in order to detect any signs of breast cancer. There’s an estimated 200,000 new cases of breast cancer every year in the United States. One in eight women will take on this disease and it is the leading cause of death in women from ages 40 to 55. Therefore, it’s not an issue to be taken lightly.
Taking care of yourself and taking precautionary measures in preserving your health are things that should be done, but have you ever questioned if the methods in which you do so could actually be hazardous to your health?
Studies in the past few years have shown that techniques such as mammograms might actually increase your risk of getting cancer. One mammogram can potentially give you as much radiation as 1,000 chest X-rays. 1,000! A Premenopausal breast is even more sensitive to this radiation and each rad of exposure can increase breast cancer risk by 1%. A decade of screening increases your risk to 10%, and some radiologists fear that it’s even more than that. In other words, by getting checked with mammograms annually starting at the age of 40, by 50 you are at least 10% more likely to get the disease that you are attempting to avoid. That means 37 million women are increasing their breast cancer risk every single year.
Important points to note about mammograms and detecting breast cancer:
If you don’t have breast cancer when you receive a mammogram, you increase your risk every time you check again.
If you don’t have breast cancer when you receive a mammogram but receive a false positive, you increase your risk even more with repeat, unnecessary screenings.
If you do have breast cancer when you receive a mammogram, the compression of the machine can actually spread those cancerous cells.
If you do have breast cancer when you receive a mammogram, it might not save you anyway.
A study from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark suggested that those who had received mammogram screening only had a 1% reduction in risk of death as opposed to women who had not received screenings, whose risk was 2%. When you consider that you are increasing your risk 10% by just going to these screenings over the years, it starts to become apparent that you may, in fact, being doing much more harm than good.
So, are there other, safer alternatives to breast cancer screening? The answer is: of course.
Breast Thermography is a 15 minute, non-invasive method of testing one’s physiology in order to detect indications of early stage breast disease. It is a technique that was first introduced in 1956 and approved by the FDA in 1982. Thanks to technology advancement over the years, it is becoming a more reliable tool for detecting breast cancer. This procedure uses high resolution, digital, infrared cameras to detect heat patterns that may be indicative of breast abnormalities. The imaging can show very minute changes and patterns in temperature related to blood flow that might be related to the progression of tumors.
One study at the University Hospital for Tumors showed that Breast Thermography was even more sensitive and detected more changes than Mammography. Out of 26 patients, 31 changes were detected by mammograms while 37 were detected by Breast thermograms.
A standard Breast Thermography procedure goes a little something like this:
Complete a breast health history form
Meet with staff to go over procedure
15-minute wait to allow your body to reach a steady temperature
Positioned in front of imaging system to capture your imaging results
Meet with Thermologist to go over results
The findings can be rated in the below categories:
TH 1- Normal uniform non-vascular
TH 2- Normal uniform vascular
TH 3- Equivocal (questionable)
TH 4- Abnormal
TH 5- Severely Abnormal
It is important that you discuss the findings thoroughly with your Thermologist so that you understand what your results mean. You can also use the results to determine what your next best course of action is. At any rate, and even if you have to get a mammogram as a follow up, it is still safer to get 10 Thermology screenings prior to that mammogram, instead of increasing your risk of breast cancer 1% with every mammogram screening that you have instead.
Your body is a temple and should be treated as such. Ask yourself if traditional, conventional methods are worth putting your health at risk.
This October, protect yourself the healthy way! Look into Breast Thermology clinics near you.
Kolaric D, Herceg Z, Nola IA, Ramljak V, Kulis T, Holjevac JK, Deutsch JA, Antonini S. “Ruder Bosković” Institute, Centre for Informatics and Computing, Zagreb, Croatia. Published June 2013. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23941007. Accessed September 14, 2016.
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