Natural cancer treatment: Patient turned down chemotherapy but ‘nearly killed himself’
JANE HANSEN, The Sunday Telegraph
October 15, 2016 11:00pm
GREG Melhuish turned to natural therapies to cure his cancer and it nearly killed him. That’s the message he now wants to share in the hope it will save lives.
The Byron shire resident lives in an area renowned for its alternative lifestyle and abundance of natural therapy choices, but Mr Mehuish said the downside was a “suspicion of Big Pharma” and the medical profession in general.
The Byron resident decided to try natural and alternate remedies hoping for a miracle. Picture: Luke Marsden
The popular DJ was diagnosed with metastasised cancer of the colon which had moved to his liver last November. His doctor offered chemotherapy which he turned down.
“When I was diagnosed I commenced a full treatment of natural therapies consisting of many things and methods that I regularly hear mentioned,” he said.
“I decided I’d give myself three months on alternative therapies. I was hoping for a natural miracle but for me it was false hope. I nearly killed myself.
“I saw a local guy and my natural therapies considered of a whole bunch of herbs and mushrooms and enzymes and detoxifying stuff and I got really ill, it was about $500 worth of stuff.
“Then I had vitamin C infusions at a clinic in Robina and heat tent treatment (hyperthermic treatment) at $500 an hour but I was just pissing money up against the wall.”
On another recommendation, he turned to a ‘master pranic healer’ or energy healer who claimed to have cured him.
The popular DJ opted for herbs, mushrooms and enzymes but instead he became really ill. Picture: Chris Higgins
“I went to this master pranic healer in Brisbane and he took an aura photo and said ‘look how bad your liver is’ and I said ‘I know’ and then he said ‘I’m going to do all this work on you’ and then took another aura photo and said ‘look how greatly reduced it is’.
“He was saying ‘look it’s nearly gone, it’s a miracle, you’re cured’ he really thought he was doing something but he was deluded,” he said.
“But I didn’t feel any better and a week later I was in hospital and a new CT scan showed my liver was riddled and here’s a healer telling me he cured me, it was a joke.”
At that point Mr Melhuish started chemotherapy.
“A treatment without side-effects is generally not going to work.”
“I started a 12-week course and I was pretty happy, it is done a lot more than the natural stuff, the chemo is difficult and not easy but it is worth it,” he said, adding the delay has cost him dearly.
“I would be in an even better state had I commenced chemotherapy when I was first diagnosed. I would have an even greater life expectancy and better health than I have right now.
“I made a choice and it was the wrong bloody choice. It is a nice thought (that natural therapies can heal) but this is a serious disease and eating lettuce leaves and alkaline food and if you just eat baking powder you’ll be cured, well, that is ridiculous,” the 62-year-old said.
Mr Melhish described chemotherapy not being easy with health professionals revealing dozens of people rejecting chemo, only to discover they don’t work but by then it’s too late. Picture: Luke Marsden
Sydney Oncologist Professor Fran Boyle said she had seen dozens of sad cases of people who had rejected chemotherapy and conventional western medicine in favour of alternatives only to return when it was too late.
“They’ll say they are worried about the side-effects and they’ll take their chances and the ones that come back are in desperate circumstances and the temptation to say ‘I told you so’ is very strong, I’d like to say this could have been avoided,” Prof Boyle said.
“I had a patient whose husband was a conspiracy theorist saying we had an interest in not curing cancer so we could sell chemotherapy and he took his wife to Mexico and she died a year ago.
“Just this week I had a young woman who elected not to have treatment for what was a very treatable cancer and it was very distressing to know she missed out on treatment that could have cured her and now she is at death’s door.
“She was having intravenous vitamin C and a number of herbs by alternative practitioners that gave her the belief that her cancer could be controlled.”
Part of the problem she said is that doctors are “just being honest” when they detail side-effects of chemotherapy and some people prefer to take a natural route to avoid side-effects, however, she said, they simply don’t work.
“A treatment without side-effects is generally not going to work,” she said.
