Things don’t always go as well as we expect, right?

One of our readers, Deborah, left a number of questions about the supplements I use in the comment section following an article I wrote Wednesday.

With Danny’s help, I wanted to do a follow-up to yesterday’s post about my nutritional and supplement plan for 2012.

I met guest columnist and fellow multiple myeloma patient Danny Parker just over a year ago at ASH in Orlando, Florida.

What an exciting Rose Bowl!  Our beloved Badgers played hard, but I think Oregon was just better.  Can’t win them all, right?

This weekend’s article featured emails on the subject from a regular reader named Danny.

One of our regular readers, George, often emails me with his thoughts about various myeloma related topics.

Yesterday I shared a hopeful story about how turmeric (curcumin) may be helping a post-stem cell transplant patient in Australia.

Yesterday we heard from a reader in Florida.  Today, how about Australia? Michael was responding to my recent article about curcumin,

Here are excerpts from a Reuters/CancerPage.com article about the positive, anti-cancer effects of curcumin:
Why aren’t there more clinical studies to help figure-out how and why curcumin works and optimum dosing?

I just completed a three part series in my column, Pat’s Place, on The Myeloma Beacon.  Here is a link to Thursday’s column, Pat’s Place: Can Curcumin, Resveratrol, Or Other Nutritional Supplements Help Fight Multiple Myeloma?

Here is an timely review, written by Vidya Sury, about the medicinal uses of turmeric (curcumin) for those of us who use, or are thinking about using, curcumin to help slow our multiple myeloma:

I wanted to take a moment and refer you to several multiple myeloma related articles we ran on our other site, http://www.helpwithcancer.org/. this week. 

I understand many of my readers take curcumin as a cancer fighting supplement in an attempt to slow the progression of their multiple myeloma. Here is a lot of information about using curcumin (tumeric) to help stop cancers other than multiple myeloma:

Are most of you familiar with CaringBridge?  This free, interactive service is the largest of several blog/journal type sites for those of us with serious medical conditions.  Since I blog daily on this and our http://www.helpwithcancer.org/ site, I don’t use CaringBridge as often as I did starting a few months after my diagnosis.  Journaling on the site helped me in two different ways:  First, it helped me organize my thoughts and update friends and family.  But the best part was all of the positive notes I received on the site’s guestbook—a feature allowing those reading CaringBridge to comment on my condition—sending best wishes and positive vibes.  It was overwhelming reading notes from so many people—some I barely knew. Very uplifting!

Yesterday’s post referenced a number of readers who were critical of my “main stream” reporting concerning multiple myeloma related therapies.  One of them, Margaret from Italy, makes this wonderful point in an e-mail I recieved from her a few days ago:

Last week I became involved in a heated “off line” discussion with several activist patients about the pros and cons of using novel therapy agents before the myeloma progressed into active, full-blown multiple myeloma.  The underlying issue here is whether a patient should delay treatment as long as possible and/or use as few drugs as possible.  Here is a summary of the clinical study I found on CancerConsultants.com, which seemed to ignite the debate:
Early Treatment of Smoldering Multiple Myeloma May Be of Benefit

Researchers from Spain and Portugal have reported that compared with delayed therapy, early treatment of smoldering (asymptomatic) multiple myeloma (MM) may benefit patients at risk of progression to symptomatic MM. The details of this study were presented at the 2009 meeting of the American Society of Hematology in New Orleans in early December.[1]

In response to one or more readers critical of my positive support for the use of novel myeloma therapies, yesterday I disclosed I have never been paid by Celgene to write good things about their drugs, Thalomid or Revlimid. I would like to take this spirit of transparency one step farther today. As a writer, do I have a personal agenda for this blog, or when my wife Pattie or I write on our other Website, www.HelpWithCancer.Org?

Here is another teasingly positive article about curcumin which appeared in Reuters last month. I know how many of you are using or have tried curcumin as a natural treatment for myeloma: