Minutus

Would you say Cancer is an Acute or Chronic disease!!!
Rochelle
Registered Homeopath
EFT(Advanced) Practitioner
www.southporthomeopathy.co.uk

It IS an interesting question.
Clearly cancer emerges from deep miasmatic and constitutional roots. This background produces many chronic symptoms short of actual malignancy, and these symptoms are treated appropriately as chronic disease.
The emergence of an actual cancer from this miamatic background, however, constitutes an acute emergency. it rapidly produces a state from which cure is virtually impossible by any means -- the die is quickly cast, in most cases. Given this fact, one would have to consider active cancer as a dangerous acute exacerbation of an underlying miasmatic state and act accordingly until that particular disease process has totally subsided. Another way of looking at it is that cancer often kills by producing truly acute emergencies, e.g. hemorrhages, emboli, obstructions, organ failures, effusions. Treating the active state of cancer prior to the arrival of these acute end stages also has a certain homeoprophylactic aspect. There are certain remedies that constitute a sort of "genus epidemicus" for cancers in various organs (e.g., Conium, Phosphorus, Lycopodium, Hydrastis, Carbo animalis, Thuja, Pulsatilla, Iodium, Calc-f....), and these remedies, applied exactly as Belladonna was in scarlet fever or Veratrum in typhoid, looking at the disease and its modalities, is a viable treatment approach initially in response to the emergency of a cancer diagnosis.
Responding to the imminently life threatening nature of malignant disease in a way similar to that in which one responds to the imminent threat to life of an acute disease or a serious acute exacerbation seems appropriate and often is effective.
Rosemary

Rosemary C Hyde PhD wrote:
This background produces many chronic symptoms short of actual
malignancy, and these symptoms are treated appropriately as chronic
disease.
however, constitutes an acute emergency.>

But not an acute disease.
It is an acute (as in severe) flare-up in a chronic disease.

English is a confusing language. Acute has more than one definition:
Where we differentiate between acute and chronic disease there's no
question cancer is a chronic one, as in this usage acute means something
initiated immediately as opposed to something of long *duration* which
is the opposite and called chronic - so in this usage of "acute", the
word has an *immediacy* connotation (and not a severity connotation.)

But we also use acute to denote something intense and severe. Hence an
intense flare-up in cancer can be called an acute flare-up - but it is a
separate use of the word acute than the above usage - and an acute
flare-up does not make cancer an acute disease. That would be confusing
two separate uses of the word.

Namaste,
IRene
--
Irene de Villiers, B.Sc AASCA MCSSA D.I.Hom/D.Vet.Hom.
P.O. Box 4703 Spokane WA 99220.
www.angelfire.com/fl/furryboots/clickhere.html (Veterinary Homeopath.)
"Man who say it cannot be done should not interrupt one doing it."

rochelle wrote:

Chronic - why would you call it acute?

Acute is something that happens right away and is usually self-limiting
(whether the individual survives it or not) - like a cut on a finger or
a snake bite or a cold or the flu or an electric shock.

Chronic is something long-term - something that stays with the
individual over time - generally takes time to develop - usually
involving a damaged immune system as a predisposing factor - for example
diabetes, atopy, asthma, cancer, AIDS, Leukaemia, FIP, kidney
disease, Crohns, etc etc.

I do not know any "instant" and self-limiting cancers:-)

Namaste,
IRene
--
Irene de Villiers, B.Sc AASCA MCSSA D.I.Hom/D.Vet.Hom.
P.O. Box 4703 Spokane WA 99220.
www.angelfire.com/fl/furryboots/clickhere.html (Veterinary Homeopath.)
"Man who say it cannot be done should not interrupt one doing it."

Irene wrote


Some occasionally disperse, disappear of their own accord without
intervention, but then maybe they have been misdiagnosed.

Rochelle
Registered Homeopath
EFT(Advanced) Practitioner
www.southporthomeopathy.co.uk

Self-limiting, and "ends in either recovery or death."
People do sometimes recover spontaneously, which seem to argue against
it being fully "chronic" (tho not against it being an "acute
exacerbation of the chronic state"...??)
pretty much of a catch-all term. Well, at least a "catch-lots" term.
Many different types, courses, and (contributing) causes...

I wonder whether some types have a more frequent rate of spontaneous
remission--anyone know?

If someone develops cancer because of heavy exposure to a strong
carcinogen, that would seem less "chronic" and more "toxic"??

Rochelle--what's the train of thought leading to this interesting
question?
Shannon

Simply that one of my BIH students whose Assignment I am marking used Cancer as an example of a Chronic Disease!!!! It got me thinking - always a bad idea
Rochelle
Registered Homeopath
EFT(Advanced) Practitioner
www.southporthomeopathy.co.uk

--- In minutus@yahoogroups.com, "rochelle" wrote:

hello, this is my personal view regarding the question wheather
cancer is the acute or chronic disease---------

ok first of i would say it's chronic why because not pt' suffering
from more then 3 months no - not at all just follow organon and try
to correlate with present day knowledge of each bio-science faculty,
so cancer a kind hidden illnes which just like aids causing internal
say eacting of each cell and thus diminished day by day activity of
each cell firest then tissue then organ and lastly body so hormoney
is disturbed, and all this under miasm which are inheritance and
acquired so, know more explanation is requrired.

Robert & Shannon Nelson wrote:

Not so.
Just because acute implies self-limiting does NOT automatically mean
that chronic excludes it, even though it is not the usual thing seen.
Chronic conditions are more easily differentiated from acute by their
involving the entire organism, such as with a skewed immune system - and
whatever may be on top of that.
A skewed immune system affects the entire system, not just some local
area. Recovery from that does not make it any less a chronic condition
as opposed to an acute one.

To get cancer, an individual first has to have a susceptible immune
system (that's a chronic condition already) and then has to ALSO have a
carcionogen, and then ALSO has to develop cancer as a result of that
combination being present, and then ALSO has to fail to destroy the
cancer cells with the usual immune system defences. It's a whole
systemic process.
This is a chronic (long-term) process and is unlike say a broken arm -
which happens quickly (=acutely).
I don't think so. I think it's a straight-forward answer that cancer is
always a chronic disease..... It has ALL the criteria - it develops
over time in a systemic fashion and in a way that affects the entire
organism (requiring a skewed immune system, which is a body-wide system)
- and usually sticks around long-term (and does not usually resolve
without homeopathy or other appropriate assistance.)

Well, at least a "catch-lots"

All chronic however. All involve the entire system and include a skewed
immune system.
There's a difference between remission and cure:-)
Cure involves restoration fo full health including a NON-skewed immune
system.
Remission only involves a lack of cancer cell signs and symptoms - and
does not need the underlying chrionic issue of the skewed immune system
to be back to health.

Cancer is not really the main disease so much as an after-effect of the
disease. It is one effect that can occur after a diseased immune system
is in place. The diseased immune system is the true chronic issue.
There are a lot of named "diseases" that can occur once the immune
system is skewed - but chronic disease is already present (IMO) as soon
as the susceptibility due to skewed immune system either to TH-2 or TH-1
or any other major cytokine imbalance - is present.
Once that is so, then it is pretty much a matter of chance and
environment and other external and constitutional issues as to WHICH
chronic disease will show up with symptoms.
It can still only happen if the immune system is too damaged to handle
the onslaught or gets damaged trying.
That makes it chronic.
With a fully functioning immune system, there is no cancer - a damaged
immune system is a prerequisite and is a systemic dis-ease.
It's not the carcinogen that causes the cancer - it's the
*combination* of damaged immune system and carcinogen.

If there was merely a toxin involved, and no immune system or other
body-wide involvement - that could be an acute case of toxicity, and one
can handle it acutely with an antidote or acute remedy - it would not
be something that damaged the body as a whole, leaving it damaged - as
in chronic issues where the immune system remains damaged and
non-functional.

After a case of poisoning (acute case) or other acute case - if it is
not handled appropriately to undo the toxin BEFORE it can do systemic
damage - then you WILL see a chronic case develop from an acute one, and
will need to handle it accordingly.

That is how I see it.

NAmaste,
IRene
--
Irene de Villiers, B.Sc AASCA MCSSA D.I.Hom/D.Vet.Hom.
P.O. Box 4703 Spokane WA 99220.
www.angelfire.com/fl/furryboots/clickhere.html (Veterinary Homeopath.)
"Man who say it cannot be done should not interrupt one doing it."

Thanks Irene,
Sounds very reasonable to me! Thanks for the distinctions.
Shannon