Helpful science for cancer patients
I went down the rabbit hole, and I'm winning one part of the battle because of it
When I first started learning about the treatment cycle to follow surgery, I was struck by how little I knew - and that scared me as much as anything else. I’ve known family members go through cancer treatment before, so I’ve seen how hard it is. In my case, the oncology team wanted to hit me hard and fast with a combined cycle of radiation therapy and chemo therapy. Brutal, but they believed I was fit enough to take it, and it gave the best chance of happy outcomes, so I agreed.
I was growing frustrated at being able to play no active part in determining my future though. I’ve no medical training, but “trust the process” just wasn’t active enough for me, I needed to play some part in determining my outcomes. I’ve always been an extrovert, and the idea of total lockdown for yet another year deeply concerned me. This was going to be a mental battle already. I wondered if there might be something I could do here to combat the compromised immune system likely to go with these treatments. The conclusion was simple:
A conversation with my good friend Grant was a turning point here. An old friend from my recruiting days, he’d relocated to the US and now specialises in building research teams for life science firms. He alerted me to Perplexity, one of the new breed of AI tools. It’s a search engine, but unlike Google which is gamed by anyone with a product to sell or a bad news headline that drives clicks, this one focusses far more on clinical trials, research papers and academia. I needed to stay away from fear and worse case, and find real actions I could take. Perplexity’s AI summaries gave me a head start, and the way it sourced each summary back to hard research gave me confidence.
First up, Damon who I wrote about previously has credited the Wim Hof Method (WHM) as a huge aid in his earlier victory. I wasn’t convinced Ice Baths were for me, but the guy has beaten brain tumours not once but twice, and I certainly wasn’t going to ignore that. Using Perplexity to see other science might add, I became convinced that my white blood cell count could be boosted, and as a core part of immunity I had every reason to go for that. Taking a cold blast on the end of every shower seemed like the least challenging way of trying this.
With weekly blood tests, I saw results soon enough. From what I’m reading, a healthy White Blood Count (WBC) range is 4.5 to 11.0 × 109/L. As at this week, I’m at 5.4 It’s at the lower end, but still in range. However I also understand Radiotherapy may actually provide a boost there as it creates inflammation which can also drive WBC up. It’s impossible to separate the two effects out and know for sure, but according to my medics, I’m doing better than expected on that front and I should “keep doing whatever you’re doing”.
For the red blood count, (RBC) the WHM again provided some clues. Radio fatigue meant no superhuman endurance efforts were on the cards, but it gave me a research idea and again Perplexity delivered papers that backed the theory. I’m aware of the confirmation bias here, but I’m not rich in options. Athletes have known for years that high altitude performance is harder - and that training there can improve abilities.
The reason it’s harder is that oxygen is less available, so muscles have less fuel. Training at those altitudes improves performance because when your body senses it’s low on Oxygen, the stress triggers the release of the hormone erythropoietin. This tells your body to make more red blood cells to deliver more oxygen - exactly that I was looking for. I figured out I could mirror this at home, with hypoxic breathing exercises. Exhale fully, and hold - try it. It’s harder to hold than when your lungs are full. That’s hypoxia.
My daily routine now includes at least two good exhale and breath holds to trigger this hormone. A healthy RBC is in the range 4.5 - 5.5 10*12/L. I’m currently at 4.69 - once again, at the lower end of where it would ideally be, but still in the healthy range, not a concern.
As a final bonus, those cold blasts on the end of every shower? Plenty of research there on how such action helps to combat depression and anxiety. Yeah, that’s a help anyone on this journey will also benefit from.
The required disclaimer - I’m just a stubborn asshole with access to some good friends and the internet. This stuff is working for me now, and my medical team have told me to keep at it. They also warned me not to overdo it! Every patient is different though, so do please talk to your specialists before trying anything, and make sure they’re fully signed off with any action you take. None of this seems risky to me, but again - I’m no medical professional.