October 7, 2025 • 31 mins
On this episode of Five to Thrive Live, our guest, Dr. JJ Dugoua, a doctor of pharmacy and of naturopathic medicine, will share effective natural strategies to reduce chemotherapy-induced nerve pain, or peripheral neuropathy. He will update us on the latest researched strategies and share what he sees working in his clinical practice.
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Five To Thrive Live is broadcast live Tuesdays at 7PM ET and Music on W4CS Radio – The Cancer Support Network (www.w4cy.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com).
Five To Thrive Live Podcast is also available on Talk 4 Media (www.talk4media.com), Talk 4 Podcasting (www.talk4podcasting.com), iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, Audible, and over 100 other podcast outlets.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Any health related information on the following show provides general
information only. Content presented on any show by any host
or guests should not be substituted for a doctor's advice.
Always consult your physician before beginning any new diet, exercise,
or treatment program.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Welcome to five to Thrive Live, a podcast about thriving
for those who have been affected by cancer and chronic disease.
I'm doctor Lisau Schuler and I co host with my
good friend Carolyn Gazella. You can find all of our
past show podcasts on any major podcast outlet and a
schedule of our shows on ithriveplan dot com. So tonight
(01:01):
I will be talking with doctor jj Dagua about natural
relief for chemotherapy induced nerve pain. So Doctor Jean Jacques Dagua,
or doctor jj as He is affectionately known as a
naturopathic doctor, clinical pharmacologist, and researcher. He's the chief medical
officer of the Liberty Clinic in downtown Toronto and the
(01:24):
first nature pathic doctor to practice at the Toronto Western
Hospital Artist Health Center. He has done research with the
Motherisk program at six Sick Kids Hospital and was an
associate professor at the University of Toronto Leslie Dan Faculty
of Pharmacy. He has a PhD in Pharmacy Sciences from
(01:46):
the University of Toronto. He's co author of two textbooks,
has lots of peer reviewed scientific publications, and is considered
a world expert on natural health products, pharmacology, pregnancy safety.
He's an avid public speaker and does presentations, including at
the World Health Organization. So before we get to doctor JJ,
(02:06):
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(03:12):
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So with that, welcome doctor JJ.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
Hello, Hello, thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Lee's absolutely Yeah, it's great, great to talk with you.
You and I have had the chance to meet each
other finally after kind of dancing in the same circles
working on a board together over the last couple of years.
It was really a pleasure getting to know you and
your vast knowledge base. We're going to tap into that
a little bit tonight and talk about nerve damage and
(03:42):
nerve pain from chemotherapy. And you know, for this condition,
medical options can be limited, but there's actually some excellent
nature pathic natural therapies available. So let's start though with
first describing why nerve pain or how nerve pain can
happen as a result of chemotherapy.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
Yeah, so, so I totally agree with I mean naturopathically,
I really think that's where we can make a big
impact with this. I mean, first of all, at you know,
our often seeing patients after they've done their chemotherapy. I
know vary from state to state, but at least I
know in Toronto people are a little I mean a
lot of the oncologists are a little bit uptight about
allowing us to do too many things during chemotherapy sessions.
(04:25):
So you're often getting you know, these folks after the
end of their treatment. But aopathically, once they have their neuropathy,
you can usually help THEMBT resolve faster, and the meds
are I mean, there's duloxiteine, but the meds you know,
are not great. But so basically, you know a lot
of this is fun. As you know from from doing
some research on this, A lot of this breaks down to,
(04:46):
you know, mitochondrial damage, which basically mitochondria is the energy
center of you know, all living cells, just in particular
the nerve cells. The neurons of higher demand of energy.
So when their neurons get damage, to get issues with
respect if it's firing too much or too little, if
it's firing too much, pain or you could have cold
(05:07):
sensitivity like you gain and like platinum based chemotherapies too little,
you have like numbness, tingling. How they describe it is
that usually when it starts, it feels like you've got
a glove around your hand or a glove around your foot,
but it could go through the whole body, and it
can it can last for years. So basically a mitochondria damage,
you basically damage the energy center of the cell and
(05:27):
then the cell can't repair itself. There's more reactive oxygen species,
so more we always talk about antioxidants, So basically these
oxidants are damaging the function of the neurons themselves. There's
you know, there's a different channel, there's calcium channel that
some channel blockers that are interfered with, and that's pretty
(05:50):
much that.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Yeah, yeah, that's a lot. So it is I think that,
you know, the key takeaway from that is that the
damage is to the inside of the nerve cells and
preventing the nerve cells from transmitting signals to each other
in essence through a variety of mechanisms. So and that
obviously when that gets interfered with, that can result in
(06:13):
the feeling of the sensation of pain. Itching, discomfort, burning,
like you said, kind of a compressed feeling, especially in
the hands and the feet. So which chemotherapy drugs are
most likely to cause the profile neuropathy?
Speaker 3 (06:29):
Yeah, I mean commonly you're looking at your platinum based ones,
so your cisplatin, you're oxyled platin, your carbo platin, so
those are your platinum based ones, which you're commonly used
in breast cancer and other cancers. You have your taxanes.
So it's interesting because the taxanes are originally from the
Pacific yew tree. So when people say, oh, you know,
(06:51):
natural stuff doesn't do anything, well, the Pacific yew tree,
you know, makes they derive the chemotherapy agents from it.
Nowadays it's mostly synthetic or semisynthetic, so you'll find it
from there. Some other ones too, there's what has been
a vinco vin christine vin blastin could also cause that.
(07:12):
You have some non chemo drugs too. I mean these
I mostly see more for multiple by lawme treatments like
you'll have time called revlmand. You'll see that in aminotherapy
or some other drugs too. They're like their proteas inhibitors,
like it's called Valcade is another one too so and
more commonly you'll see with like the platinum based ones
(07:34):
and the and the taxanes.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Because yeah, and this question is sort of a setup
for my next question, because it does make a difference, right,
the type of chemotherapy agent. Even though the end result
might to the patient feel the same, the mechanisms are
a bit different for each chemotherapy class, if you will.
So therefore, is there one size fits all from a
(07:59):
natural perspective or do you have to know or take
into account the chemotherapy I think you do.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
I think you do need to. I think you do
need all differently. I mean you'll know as the as
the patient and you know as an atropathic doctor, what
original medication they had to a certain extent, yes, But
if you think of something like an alphalipoic acid which
does so many things you know, you talked about, you know,
glutathione at the top, I mean, huffalo book acid helps
(08:26):
to recycle glutathione, vitamin E, vitamin C. It has a
good effect of you know, trying to protect the neurons.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
That one.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
The data is actually there was some data on both
actually the tax sanes and the and the platinum based ones,
so that one. I don't like to apply everything but
that one. Maybe some other ones you could. It depends.
It depends on the drug they've received. It also depends
on the incidents. Like when I was looking at this,
(08:53):
they say on average thirty percent, but some other studies
are like from twelve to sixty seven. I mean that's
a huge range. Someone comes in like, you know, sixty
seven percent of you, We'll have this ely twelve percent
of you. I mean that's quite a lot.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
So yeah, So what else about I mean, alfhalo pot acid,
as you mentioned, does have a you know, applicability across
a variety of chemo therapy agents and can be amazing
actually in its ability to reduce perfile neuropathy pain related
to perfile neuropathy. What what else would you like to
(09:28):
tell us about alfalopot acid.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
Yeah, I mean ALA is pretty well studied for diabetes,
diabetic neuropathy. I know when we had it, we had
an IV for a while and then we lost it
and then it came back. I used to use it
and I found it worked quite well. And it doesn't
have to be fancy and being IV or really I
find it works just as well just if you do
(09:51):
an IV, it sometimes accelerates when people need to have
the nerve pain go away quicker. Like recently IV I've
used for posts goles neuropathy and that worked actually quite well.
So yes, I mean yeah, so alpha the poet. So
basically again back to antioxidant recycling the other antia antioxidants
(10:12):
and increases the glutathione in the neuronal cells, increases glucose
uptake neuronal cells. If they're getting more glucose, the cells
able to make more energy. It increases like the conduction,
the nerve conduction. It's it's a good one across the
board generally for a neuropathy. I don't like to use panaceas,
(10:33):
but it's a general good one across the board for
really any type of neuropathy.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
M okay. Well, one that's a bit more recent on
the scene for this indication anyway, is saffron. And a
lot of people are familiar with saffron as a as
a spice to use in cooking, but it also is
a medicinal part. It's the little tiny like what we
call the pistols of a flower. So it's just the
very center of the flour that's dry and then used.
(11:00):
But why is saffron potentially helpful for for nerve pain?
Speaker 3 (11:05):
Yeah, it's it's interesting because we had a we had
a natural path who's who's Persian who gave us this
quite a detailed saffron lecture back in February, and she
was talking about how the reason why it's so expensive,
like if you ever bought saffron to that little tiny container,
and it's it's it's fortune. It's what you know when
(11:26):
if you go to Indian food or Persian food, it's
what makes it orange. But you're right, it's it's it's
like it's the it's the the stamen, right, it's the
stament little statement.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
I use the wrong botanical term.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
Yeah, yeah, it's statement pistol stamen.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
One of them, one of them, one of the two.
We are not.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
We apologize and they She was saying that they have
to pick them by hand, which I thought was like,
I didn't know that you can't. You can't make a
machine to pick them. So the reason why it's so
expensive is they're going through the field picking these little, tiny,
little and it was super interesting, and she went to
the long traditional Persian medicine history of it like you
(12:05):
could have it as a tea, could have it as
a pill, you know, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
And she was talking about it more in terms of
its mental health benefits and I was looking for I
couldn't find but they looked at it along with the medication,
and they found it combined well with one of the
mental health meds. But I couldn't find the name. I
didn't get a chance to find it. But anyway, Yeah,
so basically it seems to have analgesic properties, antioxidants, this
(12:30):
trend everything, you know, antioxidant that seems to help opten
that seems to help in performer operty, also happens to
be an antioxidant, anti inflammatory, antidepressant, some memory enhancing benefits too.
And they had a study on it. So this was
a platinum based chemo decdn't study, I mean one hundred
(12:52):
and seventy something patients, and they found that the patients
that had received the saffron had less nerve pain, had
better there's just a scale to use, but they had
improvements and their perform neuropathy compared to the group that didn't.
So and this is like dose that's because it's so expensive.
(13:14):
It's those that a lower lower values that's normal. Don't
expect to see like, you know, a thousand milligrams of saffron.
I mean, that would probably cost like five hundred dollars
a pill. I'm exaggerating. So it's still set at a
lower dose and it's quite effective.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
So it was neat Yeah, yeah, it's yeah, it isn't
you know. Yeah, there's a whole emerging body for saffron.
I mean, it's interesting because it does seem to be
very active in the neurological system. There's some data that
suggests it might be useful, for example, for depression, and
it also has been shown to help with low libido,
(13:49):
which can be a manifestation of depression. So and those issues,
of course just can concur along with the Perfie neuropathy,
which is one of the advantages of natural agents. Right,
It's usually targeting multiple things, so it's not just one result.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
Yeah. Well also too, I saw another study where they
said that it helped to prevent liver toxicity. I didn't
seen a lot of its use in the liver, but
seems to be a liver protective, kidney protective, which kidneys
are fussy, they're hard to You don't want to have
any anything too damaging to the kidney and bladder. Protective too,
you know, think of UTI's immune systems weakend. I don't know,
(14:27):
all these things are beneficial. So yeah, and you could
take it as a tea, you know, I know the
speaker was saying a lot of them in Persia, they
just they just take and they take it as a tea.
So you know, you may not get therapeutic doses, but
maybe as a maintenance once you've kind of you know,
getting some improve and you could continue as having it
as a tea. That was.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Well. From another traditional system of healing, we have Hannah.
So Hannah is used in parts of Asia as a
temporary tattoo. It sort of dyes the skin kind of
a deep orange red color for a period of time.
And there's been a study at least one, I don't know,
maybe you know more about using Hannah for platinum based neuropathy,
(15:11):
So tell us more about Hannah and how what's going
on with that.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
So so this is like I'm not making this up,
but I was at a wedding today and it was
a Catholic Canadian guy and he was marrying a she's
a Seak Canadian bride and she was covered in Hannah.
That's what they do and in the South South Asia
srilank et cetera. So they hend on their hands. So
(15:38):
I was asking a ton of questions. I was like, so,
you know, what is it? Ly? How did they get
this on you? How long does it stay? I'm giving
a talk on neuropathy and now Hannah, and they're like
really really, So I asked a ton of questions. So
I know nothing about Hannah. I've just seen all of
patients come in and their hands are headed and they'll
be like, oh yeah, I was at a wedding and
(15:58):
you know, no, no, no, like okay, it's quite pretty. If
you've ever seen it, it's like they.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
Okay, it's beautiful. Like they do it by hand. It's art.
It's quite it's quite pretty. So basically, it's like a
paste and they just draw it on your on your
hand and then you leave it. You let it dry
overnight and then the ink goes into your hands and
then it stains it and then it gets a bit
darker with time and then eventually it fades. So it's
not like a on a tattoo. It's just like a
(16:24):
temporary type of thing. But anyway, but in the study,
they took this kind of paste and they put it on.
It was the palms of the hand, the palms of
the feet, and the fingers and the entire fingers, and
I assume they would have left it overnight, so that's
what you commonly do, and they found an improvement in
(16:46):
their opathity. I thought it was kind of neat. I mean,
you would have seen, you know, a little bit of
staining of the hand, but if it's your palms, it's
a little bit easier to hide. And if it's your
bottom soles of your feet, well, I mean no one's
usually like an at the bottom of your feet. That's
a pretty good way of you know, kind of being
in in conspicuous. So great outcomes are just pretty neat.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
So yeah, that's a that's a it's a good one.
I've actually had a couple of patients try it and
they've all reported that it definitely reduces the pain. I
think there must be some anti inflammatory effects from the
herb that's used in the head of pace that's you know,
getting absorbed into those little nerve endings there.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
Yeah, yeah, I think so that's very smelly though. That's
the only feedback I had when I asked, Mike, Yeah,
it doesn't doesn't. And you also see that like hair dye,
like natural hair dyes to you say, they'll often use
head on.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
Right, Okay. So that's a good option though, because it's
inexpensive and people can find it usually at Indian grocery
stores if they're curious about that. Okay. So another one
from the Arivedic tradition is turmeric. Turmeric root is the
source of kircumin, which is a component in turmeric that
some people may be more familiar with. But anyway, timer
(18:01):
can be used for some chemotherapy because nerve pain. So
tell us a little bit more about that.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
Yeah, turmeric turmic. I mean, I sometimes wonder what does
turmeric not do? And too? Inflammatory delivery support.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Doesn't deliver my groceries, that's for sure.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
Exactly it's working on it. It's almost there. It's I
saw it used orally, and I wonder after looking at
the hend of stuff, wondering if you could use it
topically because I had a fellow come in like ten
years ago, completely different condition and he dislocated his kneecap.
And I saw him the next day after you dis
located it, and he just unbandage it because he tightened
(18:41):
it and it was bright yellow. And I was like,
oh my god, what happened to your kneecaps? All the
bruising and it starts off yellow as a bruises and
he's like, oh no, it's way better now. He said
yellow is from the turmeric. So he thought of just
I told him to take turmeric, but he didn't. He
just said, oh, I was just making it to a
pace and he packed his knee and it really said
in a day, it really sucked up a lot of
the inflammation. Soon if you could use the topic why,
(19:05):
I wonder right, same thing too, you do it palms
up your hands, your feet, you know who cares your hands? Are?
You know? I've had patients use it for carpal tunnel,
you know, thumb tendinitis, you know, anything like that. So
you know, I digress, So I'm going off, going off topic.
But but yeah, so it's been studied. I've found a
study on the chemia where they gave it for three
(19:26):
months and uh so definitely decreased symptoms of perform theirropathy
and sped up their recovery. But it's one of the
few things that that I've seen that actually seemed to
prevent it, which is interesting. So people did this during
their chemo and actually seem to have a lower incident,
to be more preventive, because a lot of the stuff
(19:47):
I've read, you know, there's some like a setyl carnatine
actually doesn't help but actually makes it worse. I mean,
they're I think met form and there's there could be
something there, but a lot of it and there's not
a lot that really prevents. But the termic seemed to
have a preventative effect.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
And JJ was that actually do you know do you
remember in that study.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
It was curcumen You're wrong? Yeah, sorry, Yeah, I was wrong. Yeah,
it was curcumum. It was in turnmaric, it was curcumum.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Yeah. So that's kind of important because curcumin does not
have the same risk of drug orb interactions as you know.
And in fact, there were a couple of studies done
out of uh Iran I believe that demonstrated that people
with a variety of solid cancer types getting a variety
of chemotherapy agents taking I think in that study they used,
(20:35):
you know, kind of any kind of turmeric, whether it
was turmeric root extractor, curricuman. But in both cases there
was no interference to the effect of the treatment or
you know, and in general kind of improvement of quality
of life. So that's always important, right during chemo, just
to make sure we're not going to interfere with the chemo.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
Oh absolutely, And I think and now I find the
down coologists at least here are very concern learn about
the very mild blood titting effects of turmeric, which I
think is just very very mild. But if you're doing
curcumen and kurcumen is it's not a blood dinner.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Right, Yeah, So curcumin is probably the safer way to
go in this case. So you know, this this great
overview of some supplements that we can take. What about acupuncture,
So I find acupuncture helps.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
I find the effective acupuncture can be temporary, but it
usually builds on itself. I mean, I'm talking more about
classical acupucture. I know there was a study on electro
acupuncturehich didn't really seem to help, which is unfortunate. I
don't do a ton of electro acupuncture. I've never particularly
loved electroacupuncture. I find you just sort of just let
(21:48):
the needles do their own things. And you know, for
those who are not familiar with acupuncture, with these meridians
running through your body, and you know, through this very
old system of traditional Chinese medicine, which is over six
thousand years old, basically trying to move chi energy, vital force, circulation,
et cetera through these meridians. So normally, if you stick
a needle in a spot that it's numb, you usually
(22:09):
start to get you start to get circulation, blood flow,
nerve supply. I mean what mine did, my my my internship,
we were where we were again when we're in our
fourth year whatever residance residence. In terms of residence interns,
we had a HIV clinic and the meds. The meds
(22:31):
are a little bit better now, but the men's at
the time, everyone almost had neuropathy. And you'd stick needles
in someone's hands and they'd be like, I could feel
my hands, I could tie my shoelaces, and then probably
last for about three or four days, and then they'd
come back the next week and we'd just keep building
on that. The reason why I wouldn't lasts as long
is because the medications would be every day and then
be you know, then keep damaging the nerves. But it helped.
(22:53):
I found classical acupuncture and help for pretty much most neuropathy,
you know, along with something else will definitely help us
up the process. Can it be a permanent fix? I
mean sometimes yes, sometimes no. You need you know, herbal supplements,
other treatments along with it to kind of, you know,
kind of support it. But if you give you know,
(23:13):
if you allow someone a day or two or three
to be able to cut their own vegetables, like you know,
to some of this neuroperity, if it's really that, like
you can't cook for yourself because you can acidentally cut
off your finger right, so it can get quite bad.
Cold sensitivity, I mean, if you live in a cold
state or a cold province, you know, the winter would
be hell. If you're going to freeze all the time,
or even in the summer, the ac is crazy. I
(23:34):
don't know about you know, where you live in these
but it's like it's bananas, you know. I actually wear
a hoodie in the summer indoors because it's freezing. It's
like it's it's ridiculous atention.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Well, I think that it is important to I mean,
what would I want to highlight what you said is
the acupuncture. I too have found acupuncture to be very useful,
but it is during therapy a bit short lived, so
you know, gives substantial relief for those that period of time,
but it does need to get repeated. So I typically,
if I'm going to recommend it, try to get people
(24:10):
to get it at least twice a week. That seems
to kind of sustain them a bit better. And on
a similar vein red light laser, so this is sometimes
referred to as cold laser. Just like canheld devices, there's
medical grade and there's also a lot of now red
light lasers that people can purchase on their own. Have
(24:30):
you used this for chemotherapy induced nerve pain? What do
you think?
Speaker 3 (24:33):
I haven't. I've used it for shingles nerve pain, but
I haven't used it for chemo nerve pain yet. But
I mean I think it would help. I mean, there's
some data on the laser being useful for that. I
haven't used a ton of laser. I almost felt like
it was a little bit a bit of a fad
for a bit and then I see it less used
than practiced by the cairos and the physios and so on.
(24:54):
Now the LED red lights meaning get them at Costco
and they're they're the research on them is they keep
constantly pumping out research for skin repair, microcirculation. I haven't
seen anything specifically for you know, cancer, neuropathy, but it
does seem to have a benefit for mitochondria. So it
(25:17):
seems like one of the one of them, the protein
ctochrome C protein, one of the components of the mitochondria,
apparently could take in the light directly from the photos
red LEDs. So I found it's been helpful definitely. The
patient we had, we're doing off of the POLO. That's
the thing with naturopathic medicine. We're normally doing multiple things
(25:38):
at the same time. But we did acupuncture on her,
we did off of the poic acid, and we're doing
the red light and it definitely once we added the
red light component, did seem to accelerate her recovery. So,
m h, I found you. So I use it, you know,
if I have some chronic aches and pains, I almost
use it every day and I found it very beneficial
for me.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
So yeah, yeah, I agree. I think it's great for
pain and I have had patients report that it does
help with the neuropathy symptoms a bit, you know, again
a bit short lived, but certainly helps and helps in
the recovery phase once the chemo's done and they still
have lingering neuropathy. It can speed the healing along with TENS.
And I just want to just give a shout out
(26:17):
to TENS. I find trans electro nerve stimulation I think
is what it stands for, trans containings but works great
and especially for you know, on the feet. They have
these things you can buy now on any you know,
Amazon or whatever, and you just put your feet on
this device is sort of like foot kind of pad,
(26:38):
type of elevated foot pad type of thing, and it
sends the TENS stimulation right into your feet and that
would be pretty amazing.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
Actually, that's cool. Okay, I'll look for that. I'll mention though,
that's really cool.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
So what did we forget? What about glutamine? You know,
I think glutamine that used to be so popular and
it got kind of a bad rap because there's some
cell studies that suggest it could accelerate tumor growth. Although
in my opinion, you have to take so much glutamine
to do that, it becomes a little bit nonsensical. But
nonetheless it's not as common. But boy for taxinging induced
(27:16):
like tax saw taxi, you're induced chemotherapy. I find high
dose glutamine just for a few days starting the day
of chemo for a few days after to be very
helpful at reducing neuropathy. And even actually I've had patients
come in who have had taxing, They got neuropathy, never
went away, and then I give them glutamine for a
period of time and they start to experience some healings.
(27:39):
So I think that's definitely got some some good indication too.
Speaker 3 (27:44):
Yeah, that's correct. I used to use it for for
oral meucocitis and just general geig issues. And then and
then you know, the study came out that it could
be feeding the cancer, and patients are usually worried about that.
They read up on it, and then they're concerned about
thee I mean, and I mean my thought around and
probably your thought too, is just if someone's in treatment,
(28:08):
they're you know, the glutamine is not going to make
its way to the cancer cells. First of all, cancer
cells love sugar. Their preference will always be sugar. But
someone will be so depleted if you're trying to repair
the gut or their mechanism. If you give them a
short term dosing them glutamine, I think that's fine. Would
you be with forever? I mean probably not. I mean
(28:28):
we don't know, but probably that'd be playing with fire.
But like you're saying, they're in treatment right during chemo,
so I think it'd be okay if the patient's okay
with it, because I'll look up and then they'll be like, well,
you're giving me this, and you know I'm worried about that,
and so yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
I'm very fine with it short term too. So what
other thoughts or ideas would you like to leave with
our listeners? Uh?
Speaker 3 (28:53):
What else? I run up on these cold gloves and
cold socks. I kind of like the cold cradle people
wear to preserve their hair. I haven't seen anybody being
offered at though, at the hospital, so I don't know
if you've seen that.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
Yeah, No, I usually tell my patients to get a
pair of cotton socks, wet them, and a cotton gloves,
wet them, put them in a nice chest and bring
them with them to the chemo infusion center and then
wear them and two pairs is good so that if
they're in a long infusion they can switch them out
and it just all does just prevent the capillary blood
(29:29):
flow into the surface of the hands and feet, so
there's less chemo circulated to those areas, less neuropathy, less
nerve damage.
Speaker 3 (29:37):
That's a that's a great hack. That's good thinking. Yeah,
I know for the cradle caps and only runs them
and all that.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Right. Yeah, then that same idea, it just freezes the
hair follicles so it's less circulation up there. Well, gosh,
this has been a good show, such an important topic
and I want to, you know, just thank you for
taking time out of your wedding post waiting celebration to
join us.
Speaker 3 (29:59):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
Yeah, so where can our listeners find you? Do you
have a website or any social media?
Speaker 3 (30:04):
Yeah? So Instagram is a sk d r JJ asked
doctor JJ, websites ask DOCTORJJ dot com. It's really fine.
I have a YouTube channel. I forget what it's called, but.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
The web that is is ask d r JJ dot
com dot com. Okay, well, thank you, doctor JJ. That
was it's been a pleasure speaking with you, and that
wraps up this episode of five to Thrive Live Again.
I'd like to thank our sponsors pro Thrivers Wellness, Sleep Formula, Cetria,
glu do Thione the superior glued to Thion to support
(30:42):
liver and immune health, Cognizance Soticoline to help enhance memory,
focus and attention, and doctor Or Here is award winning
Shell Stable probiotic. And thank you listener for joining us.
May you experience joy, laughter and love. It is time
to thrive everyone, have a great night.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
Sta
Any health related information on the following show provides general
information only. Content presented on any show by any host
or guests should not be substituted for a doctor's advice.
Always consult your physician before beginning any new diet, exercise,
or treatment program.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Welcome to five to Thrive Live, a podcast about thriving
for those who have been affected by cancer and chronic disease.
I'm doctor Lisau Schuler and I co host with my
good friend Carolyn Gazella. You can find all of our
past show podcasts on any major podcast outlet and a
schedule of our shows on ithriveplan dot com. So tonight
(01:01):
I will be talking with doctor jj Dagua about natural
relief for chemotherapy induced nerve pain. So Doctor Jean Jacques Dagua,
or doctor jj as He is affectionately known as a
naturopathic doctor, clinical pharmacologist, and researcher. He's the chief medical
officer of the Liberty Clinic in downtown Toronto and the
(01:24):
first nature pathic doctor to practice at the Toronto Western
Hospital Artist Health Center. He has done research with the
Motherisk program at six Sick Kids Hospital and was an
associate professor at the University of Toronto Leslie Dan Faculty
of Pharmacy. He has a PhD in Pharmacy Sciences from
(01:46):
the University of Toronto. He's co author of two textbooks,
has lots of peer reviewed scientific publications, and is considered
a world expert on natural health products, pharmacology, pregnancy safety.
He's an avid public speaker and does presentations, including at
the World Health Organization. So before we get to doctor JJ,
(02:06):
I do want to thank our sponsors. We have Cetria,
a patented form of glutathione clinically proven to raise blood
glutathione levels, and glutathion is the body's major antioxidant and
the primary defense against free radicals. You can learn more
at Cetria Glutathion dot com. We also have cognizanceticoline, which
(02:26):
is nature's way of keeping the brain working on all cylinders.
So if you want to enhance your brain's function, including
your memory, focus, and attention, look for Cognizant on the
label or go to cognizant dot com for more information.
We also think Prothriver's wellness supplements, including pro Thriver's Wellness Sleep,
a supplement which combines higher dose melatonin and other sleep
(02:49):
supporting natural ingredients designed specifically for thrivers, and you can
find pro thrivers wellness sleep at Pureformulas dot com. And finally,
doctor or Here Probiotics a best selling probiotic for thirty
years with twelve probiotic strains which are shelf stable without
refrigeration due to a unique three year fermentation process, and
(03:12):
you can learn more at doctor hiro Probiotics dot com.
So with that, welcome doctor JJ.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
Hello, Hello, thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Lee's absolutely Yeah, it's great, great to talk with you.
You and I have had the chance to meet each
other finally after kind of dancing in the same circles
working on a board together over the last couple of years.
It was really a pleasure getting to know you and
your vast knowledge base. We're going to tap into that
a little bit tonight and talk about nerve damage and
(03:42):
nerve pain from chemotherapy. And you know, for this condition,
medical options can be limited, but there's actually some excellent
nature pathic natural therapies available. So let's start though with
first describing why nerve pain or how nerve pain can
happen as a result of chemotherapy.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
Yeah, so, so I totally agree with I mean naturopathically,
I really think that's where we can make a big
impact with this. I mean, first of all, at you know,
our often seeing patients after they've done their chemotherapy. I
know vary from state to state, but at least I
know in Toronto people are a little I mean a
lot of the oncologists are a little bit uptight about
allowing us to do too many things during chemotherapy sessions.
(04:25):
So you're often getting you know, these folks after the
end of their treatment. But aopathically, once they have their neuropathy,
you can usually help THEMBT resolve faster, and the meds
are I mean, there's duloxiteine, but the meds you know,
are not great. But so basically, you know a lot
of this is fun. As you know from from doing
some research on this, A lot of this breaks down to,
(04:46):
you know, mitochondrial damage, which basically mitochondria is the energy
center of you know, all living cells, just in particular
the nerve cells. The neurons of higher demand of energy.
So when their neurons get damage, to get issues with
respect if it's firing too much or too little, if
it's firing too much, pain or you could have cold
(05:07):
sensitivity like you gain and like platinum based chemotherapies too little,
you have like numbness, tingling. How they describe it is
that usually when it starts, it feels like you've got
a glove around your hand or a glove around your foot,
but it could go through the whole body, and it
can it can last for years. So basically a mitochondria damage,
you basically damage the energy center of the cell and
(05:27):
then the cell can't repair itself. There's more reactive oxygen species,
so more we always talk about antioxidants, So basically these
oxidants are damaging the function of the neurons themselves. There's
you know, there's a different channel, there's calcium channel that
some channel blockers that are interfered with, and that's pretty
(05:50):
much that.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
Yeah, yeah, that's a lot. So it is I think that,
you know, the key takeaway from that is that the
damage is to the inside of the nerve cells and
preventing the nerve cells from transmitting signals to each other
in essence through a variety of mechanisms. So and that
obviously when that gets interfered with, that can result in
(06:13):
the feeling of the sensation of pain. Itching, discomfort, burning,
like you said, kind of a compressed feeling, especially in
the hands and the feet. So which chemotherapy drugs are
most likely to cause the profile neuropathy?
Speaker 3 (06:29):
Yeah, I mean commonly you're looking at your platinum based ones,
so your cisplatin, you're oxyled platin, your carbo platin, so
those are your platinum based ones, which you're commonly used
in breast cancer and other cancers. You have your taxanes.
So it's interesting because the taxanes are originally from the
Pacific yew tree. So when people say, oh, you know,
(06:51):
natural stuff doesn't do anything, well, the Pacific yew tree,
you know, makes they derive the chemotherapy agents from it.
Nowadays it's mostly synthetic or semisynthetic, so you'll find it
from there. Some other ones too, there's what has been
a vinco vin christine vin blastin could also cause that.
(07:12):
You have some non chemo drugs too. I mean these
I mostly see more for multiple by lawme treatments like
you'll have time called revlmand. You'll see that in aminotherapy
or some other drugs too. They're like their proteas inhibitors,
like it's called Valcade is another one too so and
more commonly you'll see with like the platinum based ones
(07:34):
and the and the taxanes.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Because yeah, and this question is sort of a setup
for my next question, because it does make a difference, right,
the type of chemotherapy agent. Even though the end result
might to the patient feel the same, the mechanisms are
a bit different for each chemotherapy class, if you will.
So therefore, is there one size fits all from a
(07:59):
natural perspective or do you have to know or take
into account the chemotherapy I think you do.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
I think you do need to. I think you do
need all differently. I mean you'll know as the as
the patient and you know as an atropathic doctor, what
original medication they had to a certain extent, yes, But
if you think of something like an alphalipoic acid which
does so many things you know, you talked about, you know,
glutathione at the top, I mean, huffalo book acid helps
(08:26):
to recycle glutathione, vitamin E, vitamin C. It has a
good effect of you know, trying to protect the neurons.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
That one.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
The data is actually there was some data on both
actually the tax sanes and the and the platinum based ones,
so that one. I don't like to apply everything but
that one. Maybe some other ones you could. It depends.
It depends on the drug they've received. It also depends
on the incidents. Like when I was looking at this,
(08:53):
they say on average thirty percent, but some other studies
are like from twelve to sixty seven. I mean that's
a huge range. Someone comes in like, you know, sixty
seven percent of you, We'll have this ely twelve percent
of you. I mean that's quite a lot.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
So yeah, So what else about I mean, alfhalo pot acid,
as you mentioned, does have a you know, applicability across
a variety of chemo therapy agents and can be amazing
actually in its ability to reduce perfile neuropathy pain related
to perfile neuropathy. What what else would you like to
(09:28):
tell us about alfalopot acid.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
Yeah, I mean ALA is pretty well studied for diabetes,
diabetic neuropathy. I know when we had it, we had
an IV for a while and then we lost it
and then it came back. I used to use it
and I found it worked quite well. And it doesn't
have to be fancy and being IV or really I
find it works just as well just if you do
(09:51):
an IV, it sometimes accelerates when people need to have
the nerve pain go away quicker. Like recently IV I've
used for posts goles neuropathy and that worked actually quite well.
So yes, I mean yeah, so alpha the poet. So
basically again back to antioxidant recycling the other antia antioxidants
(10:12):
and increases the glutathione in the neuronal cells, increases glucose
uptake neuronal cells. If they're getting more glucose, the cells
able to make more energy. It increases like the conduction,
the nerve conduction. It's it's a good one across the
board generally for a neuropathy. I don't like to use panaceas,
(10:33):
but it's a general good one across the board for
really any type of neuropathy.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
M okay. Well, one that's a bit more recent on
the scene for this indication anyway, is saffron. And a
lot of people are familiar with saffron as a as
a spice to use in cooking, but it also is
a medicinal part. It's the little tiny like what we
call the pistols of a flower. So it's just the
very center of the flour that's dry and then used.
(11:00):
But why is saffron potentially helpful for for nerve pain?
Speaker 3 (11:05):
Yeah, it's it's interesting because we had a we had
a natural path who's who's Persian who gave us this
quite a detailed saffron lecture back in February, and she
was talking about how the reason why it's so expensive,
like if you ever bought saffron to that little tiny container,
and it's it's it's fortune. It's what you know when
(11:26):
if you go to Indian food or Persian food, it's
what makes it orange. But you're right, it's it's it's
like it's the it's the the stamen, right, it's the
stament little statement.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
I use the wrong botanical term.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
Yeah, yeah, it's statement pistol stamen.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
One of them, one of them, one of the two.
We are not.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
We apologize and they She was saying that they have
to pick them by hand, which I thought was like,
I didn't know that you can't. You can't make a
machine to pick them. So the reason why it's so
expensive is they're going through the field picking these little, tiny,
little and it was super interesting, and she went to
the long traditional Persian medicine history of it like you
(12:05):
could have it as a tea, could have it as
a pill, you know, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
And she was talking about it more in terms of
its mental health benefits and I was looking for I
couldn't find but they looked at it along with the medication,
and they found it combined well with one of the
mental health meds. But I couldn't find the name. I
didn't get a chance to find it. But anyway, Yeah,
so basically it seems to have analgesic properties, antioxidants, this
(12:30):
trend everything, you know, antioxidant that seems to help opten
that seems to help in performer operty, also happens to
be an antioxidant, anti inflammatory, antidepressant, some memory enhancing benefits too.
And they had a study on it. So this was
a platinum based chemo decdn't study, I mean one hundred
(12:52):
and seventy something patients, and they found that the patients
that had received the saffron had less nerve pain, had
better there's just a scale to use, but they had
improvements and their perform neuropathy compared to the group that didn't.
So and this is like dose that's because it's so expensive.
(13:14):
It's those that a lower lower values that's normal. Don't
expect to see like, you know, a thousand milligrams of saffron.
I mean, that would probably cost like five hundred dollars
a pill. I'm exaggerating. So it's still set at a
lower dose and it's quite effective.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
So it was neat Yeah, yeah, it's yeah, it isn't
you know. Yeah, there's a whole emerging body for saffron.
I mean, it's interesting because it does seem to be
very active in the neurological system. There's some data that
suggests it might be useful, for example, for depression, and
it also has been shown to help with low libido,
(13:49):
which can be a manifestation of depression. So and those issues,
of course just can concur along with the Perfie neuropathy,
which is one of the advantages of natural agents. Right,
It's usually targeting multiple things, so it's not just one result.
Speaker 3 (14:05):
Yeah. Well also too, I saw another study where they
said that it helped to prevent liver toxicity. I didn't
seen a lot of its use in the liver, but
seems to be a liver protective, kidney protective, which kidneys
are fussy, they're hard to You don't want to have
any anything too damaging to the kidney and bladder. Protective too,
you know, think of UTI's immune systems weakend. I don't know,
(14:27):
all these things are beneficial. So yeah, and you could
take it as a tea, you know, I know the
speaker was saying a lot of them in Persia, they
just they just take and they take it as a tea.
So you know, you may not get therapeutic doses, but
maybe as a maintenance once you've kind of you know,
getting some improve and you could continue as having it
as a tea. That was.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
Well. From another traditional system of healing, we have Hannah.
So Hannah is used in parts of Asia as a
temporary tattoo. It sort of dyes the skin kind of
a deep orange red color for a period of time.
And there's been a study at least one, I don't know,
maybe you know more about using Hannah for platinum based neuropathy,
(15:11):
So tell us more about Hannah and how what's going
on with that.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
So so this is like I'm not making this up,
but I was at a wedding today and it was
a Catholic Canadian guy and he was marrying a she's
a Seak Canadian bride and she was covered in Hannah.
That's what they do and in the South South Asia
srilank et cetera. So they hend on their hands. So
(15:38):
I was asking a ton of questions. I was like, so,
you know, what is it? Ly? How did they get
this on you? How long does it stay? I'm giving
a talk on neuropathy and now Hannah, and they're like
really really, So I asked a ton of questions. So
I know nothing about Hannah. I've just seen all of
patients come in and their hands are headed and they'll
be like, oh yeah, I was at a wedding and
(15:58):
you know, no, no, no, like okay, it's quite pretty. If
you've ever seen it, it's like they.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
Okay, it's beautiful. Like they do it by hand. It's art.
It's quite it's quite pretty. So basically, it's like a
paste and they just draw it on your on your
hand and then you leave it. You let it dry
overnight and then the ink goes into your hands and
then it stains it and then it gets a bit
darker with time and then eventually it fades. So it's
not like a on a tattoo. It's just like a
(16:24):
temporary type of thing. But anyway, but in the study,
they took this kind of paste and they put it on.
It was the palms of the hand, the palms of
the feet, and the fingers and the entire fingers, and
I assume they would have left it overnight, so that's
what you commonly do, and they found an improvement in
(16:46):
their opathity. I thought it was kind of neat. I mean,
you would have seen, you know, a little bit of
staining of the hand, but if it's your palms, it's
a little bit easier to hide. And if it's your
bottom soles of your feet, well, I mean no one's
usually like an at the bottom of your feet. That's
a pretty good way of you know, kind of being
in in conspicuous. So great outcomes are just pretty neat.
Speaker 2 (17:08):
So yeah, that's a that's a it's a good one.
I've actually had a couple of patients try it and
they've all reported that it definitely reduces the pain. I
think there must be some anti inflammatory effects from the
herb that's used in the head of pace that's you know,
getting absorbed into those little nerve endings there.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
Yeah, yeah, I think so that's very smelly though. That's
the only feedback I had when I asked, Mike, Yeah,
it doesn't doesn't. And you also see that like hair dye,
like natural hair dyes to you say, they'll often use
head on.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
Right, Okay. So that's a good option though, because it's
inexpensive and people can find it usually at Indian grocery
stores if they're curious about that. Okay. So another one
from the Arivedic tradition is turmeric. Turmeric root is the
source of kircumin, which is a component in turmeric that
some people may be more familiar with. But anyway, timer
(18:01):
can be used for some chemotherapy because nerve pain. So
tell us a little bit more about that.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
Yeah, turmeric turmic. I mean, I sometimes wonder what does
turmeric not do? And too? Inflammatory delivery support.
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Doesn't deliver my groceries, that's for sure.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
Exactly it's working on it. It's almost there. It's I
saw it used orally, and I wonder after looking at
the hend of stuff, wondering if you could use it
topically because I had a fellow come in like ten
years ago, completely different condition and he dislocated his kneecap.
And I saw him the next day after you dis
located it, and he just unbandage it because he tightened
(18:41):
it and it was bright yellow. And I was like,
oh my god, what happened to your kneecaps? All the
bruising and it starts off yellow as a bruises and
he's like, oh no, it's way better now. He said
yellow is from the turmeric. So he thought of just
I told him to take turmeric, but he didn't. He
just said, oh, I was just making it to a
pace and he packed his knee and it really said
in a day, it really sucked up a lot of
the inflammation. Soon if you could use the topic why,
(19:05):
I wonder right, same thing too, you do it palms
up your hands, your feet, you know who cares your hands? Are?
You know? I've had patients use it for carpal tunnel,
you know, thumb tendinitis, you know, anything like that. So
you know, I digress, So I'm going off, going off topic.
But but yeah, so it's been studied. I've found a
study on the chemia where they gave it for three
(19:26):
months and uh so definitely decreased symptoms of perform theirropathy
and sped up their recovery. But it's one of the
few things that that I've seen that actually seemed to
prevent it, which is interesting. So people did this during
their chemo and actually seem to have a lower incident,
to be more preventive, because a lot of the stuff
(19:47):
I've read, you know, there's some like a setyl carnatine
actually doesn't help but actually makes it worse. I mean,
they're I think met form and there's there could be
something there, but a lot of it and there's not
a lot that really prevents. But the termic seemed to
have a preventative effect.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
And JJ was that actually do you know do you
remember in that study.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
It was curcumen You're wrong? Yeah, sorry, Yeah, I was wrong. Yeah,
it was curcumum. It was in turnmaric, it was curcumum.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
Yeah. So that's kind of important because curcumin does not
have the same risk of drug orb interactions as you know.
And in fact, there were a couple of studies done
out of uh Iran I believe that demonstrated that people
with a variety of solid cancer types getting a variety
of chemotherapy agents taking I think in that study they used,
(20:35):
you know, kind of any kind of turmeric, whether it
was turmeric root extractor, curricuman. But in both cases there
was no interference to the effect of the treatment or
you know, and in general kind of improvement of quality
of life. So that's always important, right during chemo, just
to make sure we're not going to interfere with the chemo.
Speaker 3 (20:54):
Oh absolutely, And I think and now I find the
down coologists at least here are very concern learn about
the very mild blood titting effects of turmeric, which I
think is just very very mild. But if you're doing
curcumen and kurcumen is it's not a blood dinner.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Right, Yeah, So curcumin is probably the safer way to
go in this case. So you know, this this great
overview of some supplements that we can take. What about acupuncture,
So I find acupuncture helps.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
I find the effective acupuncture can be temporary, but it
usually builds on itself. I mean, I'm talking more about
classical acupucture. I know there was a study on electro
acupuncturehich didn't really seem to help, which is unfortunate. I
don't do a ton of electro acupuncture. I've never particularly
loved electroacupuncture. I find you just sort of just let
(21:48):
the needles do their own things. And you know, for
those who are not familiar with acupuncture, with these meridians
running through your body, and you know, through this very
old system of traditional Chinese medicine, which is over six
thousand years old, basically trying to move chi energy, vital force, circulation,
et cetera through these meridians. So normally, if you stick
a needle in a spot that it's numb, you usually
(22:09):
start to get you start to get circulation, blood flow,
nerve supply. I mean what mine did, my my my internship,
we were where we were again when we're in our
fourth year whatever residance residence. In terms of residence interns,
we had a HIV clinic and the meds. The meds
(22:31):
are a little bit better now, but the men's at
the time, everyone almost had neuropathy. And you'd stick needles
in someone's hands and they'd be like, I could feel
my hands, I could tie my shoelaces, and then probably
last for about three or four days, and then they'd
come back the next week and we'd just keep building
on that. The reason why I wouldn't lasts as long
is because the medications would be every day and then
be you know, then keep damaging the nerves. But it helped.
(22:53):
I found classical acupuncture and help for pretty much most neuropathy,
you know, along with something else will definitely help us
up the process. Can it be a permanent fix? I
mean sometimes yes, sometimes no. You need you know, herbal supplements,
other treatments along with it to kind of, you know,
kind of support it. But if you give you know,
(23:13):
if you allow someone a day or two or three
to be able to cut their own vegetables, like you know,
to some of this neuroperity, if it's really that, like
you can't cook for yourself because you can acidentally cut
off your finger right, so it can get quite bad.
Cold sensitivity, I mean, if you live in a cold
state or a cold province, you know, the winter would
be hell. If you're going to freeze all the time,
or even in the summer, the ac is crazy. I
(23:34):
don't know about you know, where you live in these
but it's like it's bananas, you know. I actually wear
a hoodie in the summer indoors because it's freezing. It's
like it's it's ridiculous atention.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Well, I think that it is important to I mean,
what would I want to highlight what you said is
the acupuncture. I too have found acupuncture to be very useful,
but it is during therapy a bit short lived, so
you know, gives substantial relief for those that period of time,
but it does need to get repeated. So I typically,
if I'm going to recommend it, try to get people
(24:10):
to get it at least twice a week. That seems
to kind of sustain them a bit better. And on
a similar vein red light laser, so this is sometimes
referred to as cold laser. Just like canheld devices, there's
medical grade and there's also a lot of now red
light lasers that people can purchase on their own. Have
(24:30):
you used this for chemotherapy induced nerve pain? What do
you think?
Speaker 3 (24:33):
I haven't. I've used it for shingles nerve pain, but
I haven't used it for chemo nerve pain yet. But
I mean I think it would help. I mean, there's
some data on the laser being useful for that. I
haven't used a ton of laser. I almost felt like
it was a little bit a bit of a fad
for a bit and then I see it less used
than practiced by the cairos and the physios and so on.
(24:54):
Now the LED red lights meaning get them at Costco
and they're they're the research on them is they keep
constantly pumping out research for skin repair, microcirculation. I haven't
seen anything specifically for you know, cancer, neuropathy, but it
does seem to have a benefit for mitochondria. So it
(25:17):
seems like one of the one of them, the protein
ctochrome C protein, one of the components of the mitochondria,
apparently could take in the light directly from the photos
red LEDs. So I found it's been helpful definitely. The
patient we had, we're doing off of the POLO. That's
the thing with naturopathic medicine. We're normally doing multiple things
(25:38):
at the same time. But we did acupuncture on her,
we did off of the poic acid, and we're doing
the red light and it definitely once we added the
red light component, did seem to accelerate her recovery. So,
m h, I found you. So I use it, you know,
if I have some chronic aches and pains, I almost
use it every day and I found it very beneficial
for me.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
So yeah, yeah, I agree. I think it's great for
pain and I have had patients report that it does
help with the neuropathy symptoms a bit, you know, again
a bit short lived, but certainly helps and helps in
the recovery phase once the chemo's done and they still
have lingering neuropathy. It can speed the healing along with TENS.
And I just want to just give a shout out
(26:17):
to TENS. I find trans electro nerve stimulation I think
is what it stands for, trans containings but works great
and especially for you know, on the feet. They have
these things you can buy now on any you know,
Amazon or whatever, and you just put your feet on
this device is sort of like foot kind of pad,
(26:38):
type of elevated foot pad type of thing, and it
sends the TENS stimulation right into your feet and that
would be pretty amazing.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
Actually, that's cool. Okay, I'll look for that. I'll mention though,
that's really cool.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
So what did we forget? What about glutamine? You know,
I think glutamine that used to be so popular and
it got kind of a bad rap because there's some
cell studies that suggest it could accelerate tumor growth. Although
in my opinion, you have to take so much glutamine
to do that, it becomes a little bit nonsensical. But
nonetheless it's not as common. But boy for taxinging induced
(27:16):
like tax saw taxi, you're induced chemotherapy. I find high
dose glutamine just for a few days starting the day
of chemo for a few days after to be very
helpful at reducing neuropathy. And even actually I've had patients
come in who have had taxing, They got neuropathy, never
went away, and then I give them glutamine for a
period of time and they start to experience some healings.
(27:39):
So I think that's definitely got some some good indication too.
Speaker 3 (27:44):
Yeah, that's correct. I used to use it for for
oral meucocitis and just general geig issues. And then and
then you know, the study came out that it could
be feeding the cancer, and patients are usually worried about that.
They read up on it, and then they're concerned about
thee I mean, and I mean my thought around and
probably your thought too, is just if someone's in treatment,
(28:08):
they're you know, the glutamine is not going to make
its way to the cancer cells. First of all, cancer
cells love sugar. Their preference will always be sugar. But
someone will be so depleted if you're trying to repair
the gut or their mechanism. If you give them a
short term dosing them glutamine, I think that's fine. Would
you be with forever? I mean probably not. I mean
(28:28):
we don't know, but probably that'd be playing with fire.
But like you're saying, they're in treatment right during chemo,
so I think it'd be okay if the patient's okay
with it, because I'll look up and then they'll be like, well,
you're giving me this, and you know I'm worried about that,
and so yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
I'm very fine with it short term too. So what
other thoughts or ideas would you like to leave with
our listeners? Uh?
Speaker 3 (28:53):
What else? I run up on these cold gloves and
cold socks. I kind of like the cold cradle people
wear to preserve their hair. I haven't seen anybody being
offered at though, at the hospital, so I don't know
if you've seen that.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
Yeah, No, I usually tell my patients to get a
pair of cotton socks, wet them, and a cotton gloves,
wet them, put them in a nice chest and bring
them with them to the chemo infusion center and then
wear them and two pairs is good so that if
they're in a long infusion they can switch them out
and it just all does just prevent the capillary blood
(29:29):
flow into the surface of the hands and feet, so
there's less chemo circulated to those areas, less neuropathy, less
nerve damage.
Speaker 3 (29:37):
That's a that's a great hack. That's good thinking. Yeah,
I know for the cradle caps and only runs them
and all that.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Right. Yeah, then that same idea, it just freezes the
hair follicles so it's less circulation up there. Well, gosh,
this has been a good show, such an important topic
and I want to, you know, just thank you for
taking time out of your wedding post waiting celebration to
join us.
Speaker 3 (29:59):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
Yeah, so where can our listeners find you? Do you
have a website or any social media?
Speaker 3 (30:04):
Yeah? So Instagram is a sk d r JJ asked
doctor JJ, websites ask DOCTORJJ dot com. It's really fine.
I have a YouTube channel. I forget what it's called, but.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
The web that is is ask d r JJ dot
com dot com. Okay, well, thank you, doctor JJ. That
was it's been a pleasure speaking with you, and that
wraps up this episode of five to Thrive Live Again.
I'd like to thank our sponsors pro Thrivers Wellness, Sleep Formula, Cetria,
glu do Thione the superior glued to Thion to support
(30:42):
liver and immune health, Cognizance Soticoline to help enhance memory,
focus and attention, and doctor Or Here is award winning
Shell Stable probiotic. And thank you listener for joining us.
May you experience joy, laughter and love. It is time
to thrive everyone, have a great night.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
Sta
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