How do you judge success or failure of an event? By the number of products sold? Or by the one life that you touch?

That was the question I asked myself after participating in a Women’s Expo in a small town this weekend. I sold six of my books, Stop the Needless Suffering, The Complete Woman’s Guide to Balancing Your Hormones Naturally, with promises of selling two more. It was a two hour drive and seven hours of my time. Six ladies were in my first breakout session, and one man and one woman were in my afternoon session.

One of the ladies in my morning session asked me if I would talk with her daughter who was working a booth across the hall from me at the Expo…for breast cancer prevention. The irony of that fact was soon to be revealed.

The mother had had a mastectomy for breast cancer. The cancer was estrogen receptor-positive. Please understand the significance of this fact prior to hearing the rest of the story regarding her daughter.

Unlike normal breast cells, cancer cells arising in the breast do not always have receptors for estrogen.

Breast cancers that DO have estrogen receptors are said to be “estrogen receptor-positive,” while those breast cancers that DO NOT possess estrogen receptors are called “estrogen receptor-negative.” In women with estrogen receptor-positive cancers, cancer cell growth is under the control of estrogen.

This woman’s daughter was 40 years old and had recently had a complete hysterectomy. The doctor ordered no saliva testing to assess her baseline hormone levels following surgery. He simply ordered triest for her to use daily postoperatively. Triest is the combination of the three main estrogens: estrone, estradiol, and estriol.

It is well established that there is a significant hereditary tendency for breast cancer. The mother was estrogen receptor-positive for breast cancer. The daughter is taking three different kinds of estrogen – “unopposed” by progesterone.

The doctor told the daughter she “didn’t need progesterone” because she had had a hysterectomy – a common misunderstanding among the traditional medical community. In fact, if you read the work of Dr. John Lee, M.D., you will see that he believed prescribing women “unopposed estrogen” to be a case of medical malpractice.

This lady was grossly overweight. Obesity is a risk factor for breast cancer. The commonly held theory is that fat cells are estrogen producing. Estrogen makes fat cells bigger. It is a vicious cycle. All this going on in a daughter whose mother is estrogen receptor-positive.

Let’s summarize what is going on here:

1. The mother has a history of breast cancer, estrogen receptor-positive.
2. Breast cancer is hereditary.
3. The daughter is taking triest, a combination of three estrogens following her hysterectomy.
4. The daughter has had no baseline testing to determine her hormone levels.
5. The daughter is receiving no progesterone.
6. The daughter is grossly overweight.
7. The daughter is working a booth for breast cancer prevention, totally unaware of her own significant risk factors.

All of the above constitutes a train wreck just waiting to happen.

Education is the key. Please help me to increase awareness. Please become your own health care advocate so that you can protect yourself as well as help to educate the lay and medical community.

Your life and the lives of those you love depend upon it.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 1st, 2010 at 9:23 am and is filed under Breast Cancer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.