In this encore episode, Dr. Deb speaks with Dr. Jan about how to navigate your worst nightmare the diagnosis of cancer. How do you advocate for yourself and blend the best of both worlds medicine has to offer both conventional and traditional? This is a must listen to episode as the two best friends share their expertise.
Do not miss these:
[6:55] The failing of the medical system in surveillance care in women after entering menopause
[11:53] The importance of PAP when changing sexual partners even at an older age, where this information is being missed
[13:23] High rise of STD in people over 60
[16:14] The creation of estrogen from having excess body fat
[19:38] The importance of detox due to environmental estrogen
[21:19] Dr. Jan’s diagnosis of a rare form of uterine cancer and the lack of progress in its treatment
[30:28] The use of integrative medicine in conjunction with conventional in treating the cancer
[35:11] The problems with the “Standard of Care” and the cost of treatment
[45:15] The role of integrative oncologist
[48:56] Sources to find research on specific cancer types
[54:01] Health effects of a proper diet on cancer
Transcription of Episode 100 – Hope is Always on Your SideDr. Debra Muth 0:00
I’m super excited to announce that today is our 100th episode. Yes, we have been on the air for about two years, it’ll be the start of our third year in May. And I am so excited that we’re still here. And we’re still able to share information and knowledge and bring you up to date, medical and alternative tips and skills and experts that you can learn from, to help your life grow, be happier, be healthier, and be everything you want it to be. Now I had a lot of options on what to do to make this episode. so special. And what I decided to do was to dedicate this episode to my best friend, Dr. Jan Siebert. I interviewed Dr. Jan last year, and she talked to us about her ovarian cancer diagnosis, and what she was going through and how to help women so that they didn’t have to go through something as something similar to what she was going through. Dr. Jan is no longer with us as we share this 100th episode today. And it breaks my heart because she was the most dearest woman in my life. She was my, my, my person, right? She was my bestie. And we lost her in 2020. The cancer succumbed her and, and I miss her every single day of my life. And so it was really precious for me to decide to give her this special spot, because I never want her to be forgotten. And I never want women to be forgotten. Our health is so important. And so many times were discounted for how we feel and what we’re going through and what our intuition tells us is happening. And we’re put off by this the structure of our healthcare system, saying you don’t need that pap smear. You had a hysterectomy, you don’t need that pap smear for three years. You don’t need that pelvic exam because you had that hysterectomy. And it is these kinds of decisions that are being made that are doing a disservice to women. And women are experiencing aggressive, severe rare cancers as a result of how we’re treating them and how we’re providing care to them. And Dr. Jan and I have had this conversation numerous times had she had that pap she did her exam, but was told she didn’t need that pap smear. Had she done that pap the year before. Could that have saved her life?
Debra Muth 3:27
Could that cancer had been detected sooner than it was? And it could have saved her life? And we’ll never know the answer to that question. All we can do is wonder and I don’t ever want another woman to wonder or have to go through what Dr. Jan did and therefore I am dedicating this 100th Episode Two Dr. Jan Siebert, my dearest friend, who I will miss for eternity. And I hope this story touches you. And I hope you hear something in this story to give you hope, guidance, love and perspective on taking care of yourself as a woman.
Debra Muth 4:20
Welcome to Let’s talk wellness. Now I’m your host, Dr. Deb. This is where we talk about everything wellness, and learn to defy aging and live our lives on our own terms.
Debra Muth 4:35
Hi everybody and welcome to Let’s Talk Wellness live now. I am with my very best friend, Dr. Siebert. Today I’m super excited for her to be sharing her story with us today. So she is a naturopath from Oregon and California and has been in practice for I want to say about 15 years correct me if I’m wrong. Absolutely correct. Yes. Right. So Dr. Jan is here to tell her story today. So we are going to talk about cancer and her story as a naturopath, how she was diagnosed, what happened and more so importantly, what her experiences been on not only the conventional side of cancer, but some of her integrative side as well. She has some things she really wants to share with us today about the unfortunate situation of cancer and where it’s gone in the last 25 years and, and unfortunately, how little we’ve actually progressed. Now you guys know that I’ve talked about her before, and she is a huge mechanism of action person. She loves to dig deep when she finds things. And she wants to know intricately how these things work. So this part of her journey in her life has really challenged her to dig deep and figure out what exactly is going on, not only in her cancer, but potentially other people as well. So welcome to the show. Dr. Jan, I’m so happy to have you.
Dr. Jan Seibert 6:03
Well, you know, we go back since 2003. Yes. 2004 2004 when I started my residency out in Wisconsin, and it’s been just such a great development of things that we’ve learned together along the way from Lyme to chronic disease. And now unfortunately, the cancer I don’t know if people out there are aware that this month is uterine cancer awareness month, and we lose more women over the age of 50 to this disease, then we you know, that then should be lost. It’s a marginalized disease, you don’t hear anybody walking around saying, Hey, you know, I’ve got, you know, walk for uterine cancer, or ovarian cancer, ovarian is a little bit more popular, but not so much as uterine. Where we fail in our medical system is to do surveillance on women, after they end up entering menopause, because you can still get a lining in your uterus that can expand over the years. And like with myself, not know it until it’s too late, where you have a diagnosis of cancer.
Dr. Debra Muth 7:17
Yeah, I think you’re so right. That is, is the biggest problem is surveillance. You know, insurance doesn’t want to pay for an ultrasound, unless you have postmenopausal bleeding, which ladies, for you that don’t understand that’s bleeding of any kind of spot, a drop a drip anything after you’ve gone an entire year without a period. And unfortunately, by the time we see that, that linings already been there a long time and you’ve been developing that cells, and nobody wants to pay for an ultrasound in between that time before that happens to just see what’s going on. And I don’t know, to Jan, if you’ve seen this, but I’ve seen this more frequently, where people who do get an ultrasound, they’ll say, well, it’s a normal postmenopausal lining, and it’s really not it’s really thick, right? Someone’s on hormones or not, they’ll say it’s normal for being on hormones. But that thick lining still isn’t normal for a while,
Dr. Jan Seibert 8:15
you know, I used to work in the public health area for a short time when I was in the system. I did a lot of different hats, so to speak. And one of the things that we see is there’s a screening for mammograms every year over 50. And now, you know, we’re taking a look at containing healthcare costs, which is really important as we have the aging baby boomers, making up the majority of you know, the the costs of chronic illness. So this surveillance is no different for women with breast issues with with you know, serving women with breast on a regular basis, then ovarian or uterine I mean, it’s an ultrasound. And it’s very simple to do in my opinion, and this is I’m just going to go right out with it at the age of 50. We need to start to surveil all women with uteruses with an ultrasound as a benchmark. And then if that lining is more than five millimeters thick, they need to be surveilled again within six months at that time. And if that comes out clear, or if it’s thicker, then there needs to be some more in depth study of that individual. And this should be done on a regular basis. In companies and countries like South Korea, it’s very common for women who are over 50 to go in, they have an ultrasound of their breast and their uterus. And then they go ahead and do the manual exam or the or the use the the mammogram so they know what they’re looking for. I mean, this is taking too many people too many people by surprise, and it’s usually the average age is around 60. It’s more prevalent in the African American population. It’s least seen in Latinos and Asian women.
Dr. Debra Muth 10:14
Yeah, I agree. You know, if we’re truly looking at prevention as a means to save dollars in our healthcare system, this is an inexpensive tool. I mean, we’re talking 300 bucks if insurance coverage, I mean, dollars $300 versus several $100,000 down the road, if you develop uterine cancer, it’s a drop in the bucket if we did this every other year for women.
Dr. Jan Seibert 10:39
And here’s the other tragedy of this. I mean, I went in for a pap and pelvic I had a pap smear in 2018 I was talking to my, my PCP and she said, Well, you’re not due for this. And I said, Well, I want it, you know, I want to have this done. And she’s like, okay, but that was never done during my exam. There was some confusion there. And I was when I left there, I thought a pap was done. And it never was. So you know, this new legislation about three years surveilling? I mean, it’s ridiculous, things change. And, you know, I’m a perfect example of it. I mean, I live that naturopathic life. Everything I was supposed to do, you know, keeping age management and watching calorie restriction and, you know, just intermittent fasting and using the right supplements and the best supplements, you know, that have been clinically trialed. And, you know, this had come out of left field with one drop, April 1 2019. I knew something was wrong, because I didn’t even use estrogen. That’s the irony of it. No estrogen.
Dr. Debra Muth 11:53
Yeah. And I think that’s where people get confused. I want to talk back about the PAP too, because that is such a great point. You know, nobody tells women that if you have a sexual partner change, you should be going back to paps every year until you have clean paps again. So you know, there’s so many women in their 50s and 60s re-entering the dating life after marriages that 15-20 years go by, and nobody talks to them about STDs or pap or HPV or why cervical cancer occurs, and nobody tells them or even asked them, have you had a partner change?
Dr. Jan Seibert 12:31
Well, you know, it’s it’s critical. I remember in my residency in Wisconsin, I was working with an African American woman, nobody bothered to ask her, I was doing a pap smear on her. And, you know, I asked her, you know, do you have a sexual partner, she was in her mid 70s. And she’s like, honey, all the time, was like, Holy Jesus. And she came back with a with a positive malignant cervical dysplasia. And, you know, if I didn’t, if I didn’t offer to do that pap smear at this public health setup of surveillance that we were doing for inner city folks in Milwaukee, you know, she would have been dead.
Dr. Debra Muth 13:14
Yeah. And, you know, nobody talks about the fact that the the rise of STDs is happening in nursing homes.
Dr. Jan Seibert 13:23
Right there sometimes called the villages where my brother and sister lived down in Florida. It’s the number one STD capital for people over 60. You know, I mean, they have so many, you know, young, vibrant. I mean, remember, it was free love in the 70s. And all that the kids are gone. You can’t get pregnant. It’s free love again. Well,
Dr. Debra Muth 13:47
it sure is. And we’re not talking about this. And we’re embarrassed to ask these questions and whether or not people are sexually active. It’s very sad that it’s a disservice that we’re doing because we’re uncomfortable asking the question.
Dr. Jan Seibert 14:00
Yeah, it is a healthcare provider. I mean, I don’t know I was the doctor of sex. I always wanted to have my patients have their sexy on and, you know, very specific, a lot of a lot of questions there. But most primary care providers are afraid to even go down this road with people. They’re just like, okay, what’s your cholesterol? Okay, I’ll counsel you on this. You know, what’s your pre diabetic risk? I’ll counsel you on this smoking. I’ll counsel you on sexual history for sexual health for someone over 50 not really talked about
Dr. Debra Muth 14:31
Not asking, not talking. So you’re absolutely right. You are the picture of how you live a great life. You climb mountains. You were doing it all before April 1, when you had this first inkling that something was not right. Yeah. So
Dr. Jan Seibert 14:47
I marked it on the calendar. I remember that morning. I said, is this coming from my rectum or my goodness, this is coming from my uterus. Hmm. And I just started to make a mark. Just a little drop a little drop only in the morning. And then it became more prominent as the days went on.
Debra Muth 15:08
And do you ever get to be where it felt like it was a normal period?
Dr. Jan Seibert 15:12
Never kind of no cramping, nothing else, to, you know, indicate any anything other than my discussion with you and saying, you know, I’m going to go get my hormones and I’m looking at my esterdiol level is there’s no, it’s not even measurable. Because I knew that genetic testing, I didn’t clear estrogen. years ago, you know, did 23andme and that’s when they were able to reveal everything. I didn’t have that kind of clearance. I used a protocol called the Wily protocol, I realized that I was starting to develop angiomas, those little red spots on my breast tissue and my belly. And once I did that genetic test, I said, I can’t clear this estrogen. I’m done. So primarily was using progesterone and testosterone.
Dr. Debra Muth 16:03
Perfect. And so so this is really important, I think, for women to understand that just because you’re not using estrogen does not mean that you’re not getting estrogen from someplace else that’s building up the lining of the uterus.
Dr. Jan Seibert 16:15
The mechanism of action, because what happens you go down from testosterone, and in you make a stir dial. And then Esther dial goes to a pregnancy, estrogen called estriol. But an intermediate before it could come off of this could be something called a estrone it, you can make esterdiol and then revert back to a belly fat estrogen, which is what I did, you know. And then, about a year ago, I decided to take a challenge from one of my other colleagues, Dr. Catherine rustler, out of Portland here, and she said, you know, calorie restriction. Let’s see if we can take off about 15 pounds off for you. And so that’s what I did. And that made a huge difference. Because your aromatizing What that means is you’re making estrogen from belly fat. Yes, folks, belly fat makes estrogen.
Dr. Debra Muth 17:08
Yeah. And I think that’s really important. Because as we age, and our metabolism slows down, and we’re making estrogen from different places, and we’re not only making it but we’re storing it in other fat stores as well. The more excess fat weight we have on us, the more you’re going to have estrogen circulating whether you want it to or not.
Dr. Jan Seibert 17:27
Exactly. And so this is going to land, women have estrogen receptors all over their body, it from skin to brain to heart, to the uterus, you know, the sex organs, and many of estrogen receptors as well men also need it. The problem with Men’s Health, not really a problem but a challenge. as men get older, they make more estrogen. As women get older, they make more androgens or male sex hormones. And that’s what that estrone or that belly fat estrogen is about. So it’s definitely an estrogen to be, you know, to be reckoned with. It’s not something and you know, every woman who come came into our office coming into perimenopause, late perimenopause, which means you’re almost near menopause, they would develop a, what we would call the five pound or three pound, lower belly button fat. Yeah. And they love to go get that sucked out. I mean, at least my California patients, because it was not something that would go away easily. Like when we were teens, you can go and starve yourself, and you’re still gaining weight.
Dr. Debra Muth 18:34
Yeah, and that’s a big problem for us, as women, I see it all the time, women coming in and saying I eat 800, 900, 1200 calories a day, and I can’t lose any weight. And in the past, we would say, well, you’re in starvation mode. Your body needs food. And now we know that that’s not necessarily the case. But it could very well be from all of these excess hormones that are causing them to have more estrogen be estrogen dominance and, and gain all that weight.
Dr. Jan Seibert 19:01
Yeah, and another thing that’s not really talked about, I worked at Dell chemical for about six years, got exposed to some solvents years ago, knew that that wasn’t good because I was breaking out with rashes. So those compounds were estrogenic in nature, and you know, those low level endocrine or hormonal disruptors that are in our water in our plastic bottles that we drink out of. I mean, they’re, they’re surrounding us. And also, you know, the, the, you know, the issue with glyco phosphates. Those are another problem. They’re, they’re changing the nature and they stay within our bodies. They don’t leave our bodies, fire with flame retardant materials, don’t leave our bodies. I mean, these are all things folks, if you you know, you have to try to detox as best as you can. Whether it’s with exercise, an infrared sauna, or just making sure that you know you’re doing cleanses, colon cleanse Next, things like that.
Dr. Debra Muth 20:01
Yeah, I think that’s so important because we don’t talk about these environmental estrogens. And what they actually do to our risks of not only uterine cancer, ovarian cancer, breast cancer, brain cancer, the whole nine yards, these chemicals are really creating some major problems for us. But primarily when they convert to estrogen, they create a huge
Dr. Jan Seibert 20:20
issue for us, right, and they and they look just like and you know, because I’m sort of geeky, they to look like an estrogen molecule, they start out with a similar structure. And so what they end up doing is they touch these doorways or receptors that are on our various tissues and organs. And they don’t disconnect like a key that goes into a lock, it gets stuck. And that stuck or partial blocking can turn on DNA replication, which has happened in my case, where it’s uncontrollable. And that’s what cancer is, it’s a loss of tolerance to one selfs ability to shut down a and start and stop a reaction of making new cells.
Dr. Debra Muth 21:12
So let’s talk about your journey of the cancer world. So you got diagnosed just a few months ago.
Dr. Jan Seibert 21:20
Yep. May 31 is when the real diagnosis came. It was through, you know, some blood work but mostly through a CT scan of the chest and abdomen and uterus. I was diagnosed at that point with some tumors. Five days, six days later, I was in surgery for 10 hours, they removed the fat layer that covers the organs called the omentum, all my sex organs, uterus, fallopian tubes, ovaries, cervix, it had spread into my appendix, and it’s spread into some of the muscle area of the colon.
Debra Muth 22:10
So major surgery for you
Dr. Jan Seibert 22:13
major surgery 10 hours. The diagnosis is a very unique type of cancer. For uterus cancer, it’s called kirsanow sarcoma. It used to be called malignant malarian tumor, but no oncologist could remember all yet. So they call it a kirsanow sarcoma. Essentially, what this is, is this is where your tissues transfer into different types of tissue types, for example, your skin tissue is called epithelial tissue. And then this particular tumor can turn into a muscle, a fiber, a tendon, a whole variety of things, and back and forth. So the difficulty is to know how to stop this change. And that’s where the challenges and what I do is I read journal articles all the time, and they’re coming up with things, but it’s not necessarily chemo is the answer. It will never be the answer for this kind of cancer, or, frankly, for other kinds of cancer, immunotherapy is where we’re headed now, where you’re just attacking the cancer cell instead of every cell in the body.
Dr. Debra Muth 23:27
So when you and I were chatting about your diagnosis, and you were making that decision to undergo chemo, I remember us talking to your friend Lydia, who worked at a Cancer Treatment Centers of America. And one of the things that that shocked me so much was that she had said, we have not changed treatment for this type of cancer in over 20 years.
Dr. Jan Seibert 23:51
Yes, exactly. Right. And, you know, again, this is a very unique population of uterine cancer, it’s less than 5% of all the uterine cancers out there. It is very difficult. The mechanism of action of how it It grows in the body is very, very complex. It works off of things like insulin, it works off of things like fats. It works off of things like blood sugar, you know, and my colleague, Dr. Lydia Worsem, she said that nothing has really changed. And I’m using ironically, I’m using the same chemotherapy that my dad used in trials when he was with small cell lung carcinoma back in 1993, he was using the the, the chemo agent taxall. And he was there to determine what would be the dose before it would kill you. So that’s what he did. And it would shrink tumors, alright, but it didn’t necessarily mean mean that it went to the cure. really how I got into medicine. As I said, if you shrunk the tumor, I’ll never get out of bed. This is ridiculous. My science background just said I need to pursue something of a higher meaning in my life. The other area of that’s really stunning is aspirin. Believe it or not this, this mechanism of action for this particular cancer carcinosarcoma of the uterus, works off of aspirin, a quarter of a penny dose, wow, aspirin, they’re not going to run a trial in America on aspirin. Most of my research has been in Europe where they’re socialized medicine, and they are looking at ways to use integrative medicine like curcumin, and aspirin and bioflavonoids to address this, vitamin C IVs, high high dose vitamin C IVs. For antioxidant protection. This is all about inflammation, oxidation, and a cell that’s gone dastardly wild-can I say dastardly? I just did
Dr. Debra Muth 26:02
You can, you can say whatever you want here.
Dr. Jan Seibert 26:06
Free Time cancer? No.
Debra Muth 26:08
You know, I think this is what amazes me so much with so much money put into cancer research. We really are not any further ahead than we were 20 years ago. And we had this conversation before you were even diagnosed with cancer is we will never find a cure for cancer in this country. Because there’s too much money. That Yep, he is cancer, we will not be building huge cancer institutes and hospitals all over the country if there wasn’t a business behind this to be made some
Dr. Jan Seibert 26:42
Well, you know, just just to give you a perspective, I’m in the land of granola here in Oregon. very progressive with integrative medicine on the forefront. You know, that the testing we have, you know, a great center here, Oregon Health Science University, OHSU, you, you know, they’re they believe in using genetic testing of your tumors. So, oncologist get on board, I feel very hearted for people that live in small towns, that they go to their cancer centers, which is the, you know, the bread and butter of the area. You know, in employment purposes, I mean, they go to these centers, and they’re just told this is your standard of care, like my colleague, Dr. Harrison said, Nothing has changed, you go from this drug, to this drug to this drug. And if no one’s testing, like what I had, I understand now what my tumor does respond to, you know, you’ve been seeing Alex Trebek, he’s the person on Jeopardy. He was able to lick his pancreatic cancer because of these new immunotherapies. I mean, he went through the treatment and now things are in remission. And he looks great. He hasn’t lost his hair like I have, because he’s using something that has a gateway specifically targeted. And this is what we’re looking at targeted treatment. And it’s going to work in the future on every cancer, every cancer, it’s a matter of understanding how the targets are unfortunately, my particular cancer doesn’t have a doorway for that PDL, one receptor, or keytruda, which is the new drug out there. But there are other things that they’re doing, which are really exciting, using, you know, taking my blood, taking T cells out of the blood, which is a type of white blood cell fighter, and then infecting it with a virus. And then in having it I an IV, put that back into my body that is specific for the cancer cells. But the testing is in the 10s of 1000s of dollars to make sure that I have the right pattern for that receptor to hook up.
Debra Muth 28:58
Yeah. So let’s talk a little bit about your oncologist. You have a very prominent top oncologist in your area. You researched her to know and before you decided that she was the one you wanted to see what kinds of things-Tell me what that’s been like for you and then tell our listeners, what you’ve done to try to move the needle fromthis drug to this drug to this drug.
Dr. Jan Seibert 29:25
Yeah, my, my oncologist is Dr. Erin Salinas. And she’s was she’s did her fellowship over at Sloan Kettering, which is a major Cancer Center. So she saw a lot of pathology. Her focus is you know, uterine, ovarian cancer. So, she has seen a lot of of these cases. And again, you know, hands are tied because standard of care requires that you go down, you know, pathway A and the pathway that I’m on right now is the most successful for my tumor type, again for carcinoma sarcomas, in general for the uterus is to use carboplatin and Paclitaxel, which are two chemo drugs that will kill tumors. And it’s administered every three weeks. So the game is to make sure that my white blood cell count stays healthy. And in between seeing my oncology, chemo visits, a lot of his has been placed on integrative medicine, like using high dose vitamin C IVs. Those are lifesavers, literally lifesavers for quality of life. Again, these are studies that have been done in Europe showing quality of life, you know, if you’re going to be killing everything, you’re going to have free radicals. Out of all that destroyed tissue type, why not use vitamin C, which is an antioxidant. You know, it just shocks me. The other thing that I do is go to acupuncture, twice a week, which helps again, with sleep and some of the quality of life issues. More importantly, I’ve been on a supplement that’s made from antlers of an animal that helps build up my white blood cell count. So I’m eligible to go in for these chemos every three weeks, probably the worst part is, is having your white blood cell count go down. And today is one of the days where my white blood cell count is hit its lowest point, it’s usually about 10 days after your oncology chemo IV. Working with, you know, working with the conventional medicine side. And pulling the integrative side together is quite a, an eye opener. Let’s put it this way. Once I understood the mechanism of action of the kind of cancer that I have, and what my cancer cells respond to, this is something that I’m shocked that we’ve had cancer this long, for 20 years, and there’s no one that navigates this. For every man and woman out there that is diagnosed in America with cancer, this should be a no brainer. Literally,
Dr. Debra Muth 32:25
I’ve seen that too. You know, using IV vitamin C for cancer patients for the last 15 years. It’s sad that nobody is looking at some of these alternative things that can be done to support the body support the white blood cell count support the immune system, so that people can continue to get chemo, they can continue to have a quality of life.
Dr. Jan Seibert 32:48
You know, I mean, this is funny, because like when I mentioned Dr. Salinas, I said, you know, she’s like, he anything that you need to do go ahead and do it. You know, and I, my background has been in endocrinology, integrative endocrinology. So I was the mechanism of action on the hormones. I never realized the level of molecular. And I don’t mean to scare anybody out there, what this means is going to almost the atomic level of how cells work. That’s what I am doing right now. And that’s why I write to researchers who are publishing in this area, you know, I’ve been able to find some, some really awesome researchers that are doing things that you know, that nobody really is seeing on a big global basis. But their papers are pushing other papers and research forward. I’m looking right now at going to MD Anderson out of Houston. They’re one of the leading cancer centers in the world. And they’ve seen this kind of problem 1000s of times, and what the benefit of going in for counsel, even though it’s going to be out of pocket, probably about $2,500 is that they’ll tell me what would work they’re going to be able to say okay, based on all this review, this is what we would do for you. As a second opinion. I think a second opinion is invaluable, especially when you have you know, some frustration. You know, when you’re an oncologist and you have to abide by what standard of care is and then you know, like looking at some things like low level chemo drugs. That’s what I’m trying to push for right now with Dr. Salinas to have her take a look at this because I’m seeing it in the studies for this type of cancer for my given pathway, that low level chemo drugs that are already FDA approved or repurposed drugs like Metformin, cyclophosphamide, these are things that can be used, you know, and who would have aspirin, aspirin.
Dr. Debra Muth 35:02
Yeah. And I think this is where it gets frustrating. From a provider standpoint, when you work for a large institution, you are bound by what we talked about standard of care. So standard of care just means this is what’s recommended for everyone. This is what’s accepted. We don’t deviate from that. Right?
Dr. Jan Seibert 35:21
Exactly. And I mean, even I hit a vitamin D, when requested that because of the importance on the mechanism of how it interacts with my particular tumor markers, genetic tumor markers that they’ve been able to see, by the way, folks, when they do these tests on your tumors, I was stunned. They don’t test every tumor, they test the primary site tumor in America, in research across the globe, they look at not only if you have metastasis, like I have, they look at not only the primary site, but also if it’s metastasized into other tissue types, my uterus does not look like my colon, it does not look like my rectum. You know, it does not look like my spleen. Those are different tissues. And, you know, I was stunned at this, the testing organization is called Caris (C-A-R-I-S) they do a very extensive testing, of $27,000 worth of testing. And I’m still a little stunned with the pricing, but my insurance is wrapping their head around it. Ironically, if you’re a cash pay, they told me it would be $600 or less. So I don’t know where they’re getting off on billing that much. But this is the problem. And that’s a whole nother conversation. I worked in the insurance industry. And we can talk about his the milking of insurance industries and what we’re doing, you know, to our health care dollars, there’s no way we are going to sustain what we’re doing right now. Especially like someone a $400 ultrasound, a pap smear could have maybe changed the outcome of my, you know, diagnosis.
Dr. Debra Muth 37:09
Yeah, because had you seen early enough that you were getting a thickened lining, going in and doing a simple procedure like a DNC where they clean out that uterus get rid of that lining? Those cells would not have turned into cancer.
Dr. Jan Seibert 37:23
sales or surveillance, that would have been number one thing to take a look at after after I went into menopause. What’s your lining, like? Nobody knows. Nobody knows. Unless you go in with an ultrasound. And it just makes sense. We’re doing breast exam, you know, breast exams, we’re doing, you know, I hate to say it, but I’m going to be pretty bold. The only thing we’re concerned about in cancer in America is just tits and, and penises, literally, prostate cancer, breast cancer, you know, those were, that’s where the majority of research lung cancer and colon cancer. I mean, those are the areas if you have anything else, you know, you’re you’re somewhere on the fringe. You’re it’s not it doesn’t have the same kind of research dollars I think that, you know, at least publicized research dollars in America is behind because it’s striking so many people, but this uterine side, you know, nobody’s really talking about it. This is the month that it’s you know, uterine cancer awareness. I didn’t even know it until my oncologist said that to me at the last visit.
Dr. Debra Muth 38:30
Yeah, I didn’t know that either. And you don’t see anything advertised at all on it being uterine cancer awareness. So what are we, you know, we’re clearly not doing anything to get that information out to people to make them aware, that concern or that we shouldn’t be asking about this.
Dr. Jan Seibert 38:48
I mean, every woman over 50 deserves the right to know, if she still has her female organ, the uterus she deserves the right to know what that lining is, when she stops her last bleed. She needs to know does she have a thickened lining that can replicate over and over? This is what we call, you know, an uncontrolled growth, if this keeps going on and on and remember, estrogen disruptors or hormonal disruptors that are in our environment can make these linings grow. It’s you know, you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to follow the path. And you know, we could anybody in the audience that’s interested, we can put up like a an organizational chart of how this works. You don’t have to be a significant researcher to understand if this arrow goes down to this, you know, it’s going to lead or it’s going to convert back. And what does that mean in your body, it’s going to mean that you’re going to have more estrogen in your body, especially if you start to carry weight. So-
Dr. Debra Muth 40:01
Yeah, and we need to look at that, because most women do carry weight after 50. And we’re not-
Dr. Jan Seibert 40:06
I mean, you know, if, you know, I weigh what I weighed in medical school 20 plus years ago, I weighed exactly that weight right now, that is not the weight that I started out with, you know, I mean, it’s, it’s, I think I’m too thin, you know, at 139 pounds right now, I, you know, earlier this year, or was up to about 158. So that’s a significant, it’s a 20 pound loss, it’s significant. And everything, your muscles, especially after the age of, you know, you know, 58, you know, you start everything starts to hang so you, you don’t want that to happen. You run it, and I try to work out right now, as much as I can. I was bike riding yesterday. So it’s, you know, it catches you, you have to appreciate cancer, because it fatigues you? It sure does.
Dr. Debra Muth 40:57
So let’s talk a little bit about you’ve been combining both integrative medicine and traditional medicine at the same time, what have you been doing from an integrative standpoint?
Dr. Jan Seibert 41:09
Okay, I just want to preface this, this is something that’s specific to me, if you have cancer out there, or I would suggest that you go and see a provider, like Dr. Deb or somebody else because I retired. I’m only good for mechanism of action! No! But you know, you need to check in with your primary care doctor, you need to find somebody that understands and that’s going to work with you and not say to boo to this or that. So from an integrative standpoint, one of the I would say a very good source of information is Life Extension. I’ve been a Life Extension doctor since 2008. And they are on the leading edge of all different research. Matter of fact, they just published the aspirin with the P1 through K that I have that that particular gene responded for inflammation. So they’re they’re talking about this and head and neck and throat cancer. What I use daily is a multivitamin that doesn’t have copper, because copper goes in with the particular chemo drug and ties it up. So I’m off of copper in my multivitamin. I use magnesium daily, to help with heart and nervous system and sleep. I use melatonin, high doses of melatonin. I use things like tumeric and resveratrol. I’m also using things like astragalas. Astragalus is one of the better kind of herbs that is used in China for exhaustion and also for cancer and all different viral loads. Let’s see I use vitamin E, I use fish oil. I use coconut oil for pulling on, you know to make sure that was ever in my mouth because in oncology, they don’t tell you this, but you get a really bad dryness in your mouth. And I use glutamine only when I’m coming off of my chemo, high doses of glutamine for four days to repair stomach cells and just to have my stomach be prepared to eat again. So let’s see, is there anything else that I use? I use the Chinese antler how to make white blood cells. It’s a combination of a number of herbs. But no B Vitamins. A B1 for some neuropathy. And that’s about it.
Dr. Debra Muth 44:00
That’s a great cocktail of things to do. Thank you for sharing that because that was great to explain what each one actually does as well. You also use some body modalities as well in your integreative practice. What are you doing there?
Dr. Jan Seibert 44:17
Well, acupuncture for sure. shiatsu, cranial sacral Believe it or not when you have chemo, especially platinum. It stays in your body. It has a long life in your body even though you know it’s three weeks that you’re out each time. The other chemo goes away within about 72 hours. So I noticed that my vision was affected and my brain wasn’t processing things properly. The high dose vitamin C helped, but I needed to also have some cranial sacral and when I did that, it was like my vision went back It was really strange. Very, very strange. So I go and get that done at least once a month.
Dr. Debra Muth 45:07
Excellent. And you also have an integrative oncologist that you work with as well. Let’s talk about what she does and what role she plays in the mix.
Dr. Jan Seibert 45:15
of all of this. Absolutely. Dr. Tina Kaisar. Natropathic Oncologist, a very well published, researcher worked at various cancer centers, understands mechanism of actions. So when our last conversation dealt with, you know, this is again with her and my colleague, Lydia Worsem. They said nothing has changed in 20 years. So the first thing she challenged me to ask my conventional oncologist was, what’s the difference between four chemo therapies and six chemo therapies? Like the efficacy or the effectiveness of chemotherapy starts to dwindle down, the more chemos you get and then there’s a greater risk for side effects, like brain fog and weight loss and, you know, just not being able to sustain energy. So I went back to my oncologist at the right before my third chemo, and I asked her, I said, Okay, what’s this statistics right now? Dead on for my particular cancer. And using this particular cocktail, she said, it all depends on tumor markers. So that particular chemo start of chemo three, my tumor marker was 174, July 1 of this year of 2019. It went down to 38. By the second by this well by the third of chemo at the start of the third chemo, so I knew we were on the right track. By the start of this fourth chemo, my tumor marker is now down to 15. I’d like it to be zero. We’re gonna continue on with this course of six, the six pack, you know, we call it the like Dr. Kaiser calls it the six pack of therapy, you know is more better necessarily, for other aspect of discussion was using the T reg, which is t regulation, this is a special white blood cell. And looking at therapies that are going to be working this is this immunotherapy idea. And one side discussed a little bit about a trial that I found with Gliead (G-L-I-E-A-D) it’s their division called Kite, where they take your, you know, they actually take your white blood cells spin down your T cells, inject them with a virus, like an HIV virus not to get HIV, but you know, a certain kind of virus that’s going to knock out once it gets into my cancer cells. Once it’s reenactivated, this blood is comes back into my body. It actually knocks out the mechanism of replication of the cancer cell, literally making it non-effective. And that’s what you know, that’s the newest technology. It doesn’t go after normal cells. It only goes after cancer cells. So that’s the trial that I’m hoping to get into.
Dr. Debra Muth 46:08
That’s the one at MD Anderson?
Dr. Jan Seibert 48:34
MD Anderson, also a couple other major centers in California, Florida and Boston.
Dr. Debra Muth 48:41
So when you talk to Dr. Salinas last week, you and I had an interesting conversation, and that was about the studies. And how do you find a study? How do you locate one specific for your cancer? Can you share a little bit about how that conversation went?
Dr. Jan Seibert 48:56
Absolutely. Well, with the studies, there are three organizations that any person could go in and look up. And this, again, is my advocacy for a cancer navigator. This needs to be in place for the average Jane and Joe on the street that is diagnosed with cancer your whole world. When you hear the C word, your whole world goes upside down for me. I was just like, okay, what’s next? So you go to the American Cancer Society, they have an area where they could help you find clinical trials. There’s a website that is a global website called clinicaltrials.gov. And you can maybe show that for people listening, and it shows clinical trials all over the globe. You just put in what kind of cancer you have. And you put in your particular region of the world that you want to find out where trial is held. There are some also others at the National Cancer Institute. And the National Institute of Health’s. So those are where you go to look for things. And then there is something called PubMed, which is what a doctors’ doctor look at, like you and I, we look at studies and how those studies are done. But there’s people that do these molecular research that I’m describing on the cancer level, we’re looking at the atom level of cancer of how cancer starts. And these are the people that are pushing the envelope to help identify an area, a target for drugs to work. And so what I do is I just look at my particular cancer type, and my particular genetic finding off those cancer cells that were in my uterus, and then try to locate those researchers. And Matter of fact, my sister, Carol slifka, who is not a researcher, found a study that was done in Israel, and I contacted the, the, the Israeli principal investigator on it, where it turns my cancer cell, the one that I have, that hopefully, will be the cure of the future into a fat cell actually stops it in its embryonic state and creates a fat cell that is non toxic, you just gain weight. And believe me right now, I don’t care if I gained 50 pounds off that, unfortunately, the it is FDA approved drugs, but no oncologist wants to take a risk. One is a diabetic drug. And the other is a legend drug that’s been used. No one wants to take a risk on using me as a an experiment to determine what the level of dosing I would need. So it’s all about you know, this concept study. And then is there a way to repurpose drugs that are already FDA approved or create new ones? Right?
Debra Muth 52:05
Well, like you mentioned earlier, Metformin, and we’ve known for years from life extension study, that Metformin actually helps to prevent cancer. Yeah, part of the whole thing with cancer is that sugar feeds cancer, and we have sugar everywhere and are amazing.
Dr. Jan Seibert 52:21
So we need to caution how we say that because we don’t want the sugar lobbyists to get out in the sugar beet capital in Michigan, and work through it don’t come with coal. So I you know, that I worked in the high fructose corn industry. You know, I don’t I don’t think that that’s a good idea. But what we should say is that the cancer works in a lack of oxygen environment, I want you to think about when you say if you were walking upstairs, or say you were running, you know, to, to just do a jog or let’s just say you were walking a lot and you get fatigued, your your calves get tired. That’s what cancer thrives on, it thrives on something called lactic acid. It’s a byproduct of your energy source. So if you think about fermentation, like things like kombucha or yogurt, it works off of the no oxygen. So what it does is it can with sugar, which is driving metabolism, sugar ends up creating lactic acid. And lactic acid is what helps cancer cells thrive. They love to work in a fermented area. So you know, it’s wine season here in Portland. And you know, that’s good for wines but it’s definitely not good for someone like myself or anyone who has cancer out there or anyone who is aging hard. Like you know, if you have diabetes, you are producing lactic acid, you will become more acidic.
Dr. Debra Muth 54:01
So this is where we talk about the intermittent fasting and keto diet and things like that because those help reverse that.
Dr. Jan Seibert 54:10
that build and drinking lemon lemon like a lemon water that’s what I start my day out with a little bit of heated lemon water. You think well that’s acid, but what it does is it resets you want to be more alkaline and alkalinity is the key to offset the acidity in the body.
Debra Muth 54:30
Right We need to look at that alkalinity and this is where our dark green leafy come in. And yes, a diet that’s more rich greens and more fruits and different vegetables and less animal proteins and things that will help us be more alkaline.
Dr. Jan Seibert 54:49
Right right I mean I have to confess I’m I’m I’m a slow slowly going over to the vegetarian side. It’s it’s been rough, I’m carnivore my whole like growing up in the Midwest, and even though I have free range organic, it’s, I’m going to have to do this crossover in order to survive the rest of my days.
Dr. Debra Muth 55:10
Yeah. So through this journey, tell us some of the things that you’ve been intrigued by and some of the things you’ve been frustrated by
Dr. Jan Seibert 55:21
intrigued by medical marijuana. I never thought that I would have to take this, but intrigued by medical marijuana because it can definitely create hunger, when you need it, it can help you sleep. And, you know, you have to understand the difference between CBD, CBG. CBG, is what we’re looking at now. It’s a, it seems to have something to do with various cells of our body. And it’s able to stop things from going awry in our cellular pathways. So I’m very that that has been probably one of the most stunning things, I’ve never thought that I would be down that pathway. The other that’s been been quite a revelation is just meditation, and clearing out bad relationships or bad things that bring you down. You know, it’s, it’s staying away from bad news. You know, you need to laugh, you need to be in the moment, be in the present. And, you know, sometimes it’s, it can be a challenge, because fear comes in having a strong belief in a higher power, whether you call it God, whether you call it Buddha, that has been remarkably comforting for me. And just knowing that a support system like you out there, for sure Deb, and the others that surround you in your life. There’s a book called Radical Revision. And I that was the first thing that Dr.Kaiser, my integrative oncologist suggested that I read, and she said, this is going to be your survival manual, and how you live the rest of your life, the best of your life.
Dr. Jan Seibert 55:51
Some of the frustrating areas, is just how big the system has gotten for cancer. You know how it’s gotten so out of touch, that there’s no touchstone, there’s no navigator. When I kick this shit, that is what I’m going to be focusing my life on is helping folks navigate through the jungle, because there needs to be people like myself out there that are going to speak up. You know, we saw this happen with folks that had a disease called an unknown disease called HIV. They acted up and they were heard, we need to act up as a society about you. You just can’t just sit there on autopilot going, Okay, you have cancer, here’s what you do. You know, it, you know, it’s not going to work that way. You have to take an active role, and you need advocates to help you along the way. Don’t be afraid to write to a researcher. They love to talk about the research. And if there was a way, there’s a book right now, that came across my pathway yesterday, and it’s called Chasing My Cure. And I’m sorry, I can’t pronounce the author’s name right now. It’s a Scandinavian name. But in any event, what he did is he’s a doctor and he had a business background like myself, and he started an organization to help with this rare disease that he had, that he figured out, repurposing drugs would help him repurposing a cancer drug would help him. And I’m planning on contacting him. As soon as I get my hands on his book, I definitely want to find out how I can set up an organization like this for other women who are suffering from carcinosarcoma. Because it’s so marginalized, and that’s was his particular diagnosis. It was a different kind of blood cancer. That with an autoimmune twist to it, so yeah, it’s frustrating. It’s frustrating to be told. This is what all we can do.
Dr. Debra Muth 57:25
Yeah. When there’s so many options out there that way that you could try you.
Dr. Debra Muth 59:37
We’re the only we’re the only country that has the best medical care in the world. That you can go bankrupt. Yeah, getting a disease. Yeah. And I can assure you right now, I’m not working. I had to quit. No one wants a doctor on chemotherapy. I’m sorry. You don’t want a doctor on chemotherapy! Even, you know, I mean, you have to check your work all the time. You have to say, okay, you need one needs to take care of themselves when they have cancer, they will try to be making decisions about other people’s lives is, is quite a process really, because you always worry, I’ve always worried, you know, am I doing the right thing? So I left medicine right away, and I knew that I had to retire.
Dr. Debra Muth 1:00:31
Yeah, good for you. So this has been an awesome discussion and all of your books and researchers and links that you have shared with us, we will post below our show so that our listeners who didn’t catch them, we will we’ll find the author for chasing the cure. And we’ll get that out there to our Is there anything else you want to share with us today about your journey so far?
Dr. Jan Seibert 1:00:54
Well, mountain climbing, taught me a lot about pacing. When I go into the chemo room, I gear up like I’m getting ready to climb a mountain. And I’m glad I had those experiences. It’s ironic, really, first effort was climbing Mount St. Helens, but that was just a walk up. But really climbing mountains like Mount Hood. I was doing a charity for lung cancer in honor of my father who passed away 20 years earlier. And, you know, if I didn’t have that kind of lesson of what to do, and pace myself, and know what it’s like to get exhausted, to be pushed my body to such extremes, I don’t think I would be able to respond as well. And I know that no matter what happens, I’ve given it my best. And I still will.
Dr. Debra Muth 1:01:52
You still will all the way. I’m so proud of you for doing this. I know you and I’ve chatted for a couple of weeks about sharing your story and doing this. And I’m so glad you were willing and able to do this. And I hope you come back on our show again and share your progress and your journey and what you’ve learned. Because you are such a delight to listen to talk, you are such an encouragement for so many people out there that are going through this. And so glad you’re sharing your story.
Dr. Jan Seibert 1:02:22
Yes, thank you and any of your audience, if they want to reach me, please go ahead and forward things. I mean, the least that I could do is help others in this situation of pointing you to directions of you know, solid information. I’m happy to go ahead and facilitate some some things if it gets overwhelming, then maybe I need a blog. I don’t know.
Dr. Jan Seibert 1:02:50
I love you, thank you so much for having me ever show and appreciate you.
Dr. Debra Muth 1:02:55
Back at you girl. I love you too, so much.
Dr. Debra Muth 1:03:00
So I never want you to give up on your dreams, on your beliefs on your desires on your health. I want you to stay strong and healthy for as long as you can. And I came across this saying my mom actually gave me this when I was going through the loss of Jan Dr. Jan. And I want to share this with you because I think it’s so important for us to remember this. I’m not sure where she got this from. So otherwise I’d give credit to whoever wrote it because it’s amazing. But I did not write this:
Debra Muth 1:03:42
Hope is always by your side. It’s bigger and stronger than doubt. It always lifts us up and never lets us down. And just a flicker is enough to lead the way on even the darkest days. The truth, hope is just too powerful to ever really be dashed, lost or crushed. And it’s never far away. It’s always right where you are.
Debra Muth 1:04:13
I want to leave you with that thought. These are stressful times for us right now. challenging times for us right now. Keep your faith, keep your hope. Call someone that is near and dear to you. Don’t let a day pass by when you don’t tell someone that is in your life, how important they are to you how much you love them. How much you appreciate them. Because believe me, you never know when the last time you speak to someone will be the last time that you can tell them how they’ve touched your life, how important they are to you and how wonderful they are. Do it every day. Make some Life beautiful every single day.
Dr. Debra Muth 1:05:03
Hey, it has been really great sharing this time with you guys on the Let’s Talk Wellness Now podcast. If this episode has helped you or you feel as though this episode would help someone else we’d love for you to leave us a review, share this podcast and if you don’t want to miss the most exciting episodes we have coming. We’d love for you to subscribe to our podcast on iTunes or Google Play. Until next time, live every day to the fullest
