Urgent help for an 11 year old girl

Dear Stephen and all,

I have a question concerning my friend’s daughter. She is a Spanish 11 year old girl. She has been diagnosed with a grade IV medular glioma. She had surgery, but the tumor could not be removed. They just took a biopsy. She has had 30 sessions of radiation and 27 days of temozolomide. Parents are desperatly looking for possible clinical trials that would fit her case. Any suggestions on specific treatments or cocktails would be of much help as well. Even though they live in Spain they would have no problem travelling overseas. We are attaching pathological report, MRI and tractography report.

Please click on the following link.  Once the link takes you to the page of the girl's medical information, click on "Visualizar el estudio" to see her images and "Descargar el informe" to read the medical report:

http://resultados.healthtime.es/PortalPaciente/OpenSharedStudyRequest/a4ac550a-19f7-4d58-99ad-6e1fb2e06ccb

The picture I am including is the report of the pathologist.  It is in Spanish, but I think it is understandable.  If you have any questions, please contact me. 

Thank you all in advance.

Isabel

Cocktail questions, also foot twitching?

My dad aged 59 had a grand mal seizure 25th Feb 2019; operation/debulking 7th March 2019, Radiochemotherapy 30 sessions in May 2019. Completed 2nd round of 5/23 chemo cycle. He is negative for IDH, MGMT.

Overall he has been doing ok with the treatment. The only set back was when he had around 3 to 4 multiple grand mal seizures around 30th June 2019. We had no warning about that seizure and our medical team didn't warn us that he could get seizures from the radiation swelling 4 weeks post radiation (we thought maybe just during radiation treatment). He had no side effects during radiation treatment period itself - we were shocked that it happened - 

Question 1: Seizures post radiation 4 weeks after radiation

I guess it is a "normal" side effect? We thought seizures would be a side effect later on when the treatment might stop working. The hospital put him into an induce coma for 2 days to stop the seizures. He took steroids for about 6 weeks after and has come off the steroids now and has had no further seizures. We are also surprised that nobody ever mentioned to us to have buccal midazolam injection at hand as when we called the ambulance, the paramedics had to call the fire brigade for an advance paramedic to inject IV anti seizure drug. If we had the buccal midazolam this might have prevented the multiple seizures. He now carries the buccal midazolam injections around.

Question 2: Foot twitching post seizure, same side as tumor

His Keppra was 2 x 500mg up until then and now they have increased it to 2.5g per day and added Phenytoin. Since that seizure he has had a foot twitch during the night and a sore pain in his thumb - can be normal effects from the swelling and tumor? The tumor is on the left side and the twitch is on the left side which is unusual? The doctors would expect the tumor to effect the right side.

We stopped doing the cocktail after 30th June with the big seizure then but then continued with Chloroquine and Celebrex a week later. We have since started back doing the cocktail (see below).

Question 3: Celebrex

I read the Brain Tumor Charity do not support taking Celebrex and some articles says it is not good to take, what is the opinion about it now given the new clinical trail data? Also it seems like it can react with Epainutin (Phenytoin) so we give it to him in the evening. - https://www.thebraintumourcharity.org/brain-tumour-diagnosis-treatment/treating-brain-tumours/treatments-licensed-other-illnesses/celecoxib-celebrex/

https://bpspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/bcp.12785

Question 4: Daily timetable of cocktail

Do people have a daily timetable to avoid interactions between anti-seizure drugs and others? 

Question 5: Disulfiram

We have disulfiram but we have never given it to him as it seems to interact with the Epanutin (Phenytoin). Have people taken this together?

Question 6: Curcumin

He is taking Doctors Best High absorption Curcumin with C3 Complex and Bioperin 1000 mg. This tablet he finds hard to digest because it is very big and solid even using a tablet cutter. Is there a different brand which people recommend which is easier to take?

Question 7: Reishi

He is taking Reishi as part of a multi-mushroom supplement for Brain function called Fungi Perfecti, MycoBotanicals for the Brain. However we read on Sloan Kettering that reishi is not good to take?

https://www.mskcc.org/cancer-care/integrative-medicine/herbs/reishi-mushroom

Question 8: Ranitidine in absence Cimetidine

He is taking Ranitidine as we could not get cimetidine. We asked a friend in Spain to get the cimetidine but they got us cinitaprida normon? It is for treating stomach ulcers but I guess its totally different as it doesn't appear to be a H2 antihistamine. We were not sure if it was any use giving it to my dad? We have not given him the Cinitaprida normon but we give him 75mg Ranitidine a day.

Question 9: Mebendazole

He is taking Mebendazole 100mg daily - i know its well below the dosages a human would need to take compared to the mouse study? Do people take much higher doses? The studies do not seem clear about it but I know it is used in Care Oncology alot? 

Question 10: Antibiotics Doxycycline/Minocycline

Antibiotics – he was only on these when during radiochemo phase but not now…Care oncology seems to recommend doxycycline and a rotation with other antibiotics such as minocycline? Should he start taking this too? How much do people take, do people rotate each month? Surely antibiotics will cancel out the effects of building up the immune system? 

Question 11: Valacyclovir and other antiviral drugs?

Should we look into taking Valacyclovir? (I know there is no right or wrong cocktail). If so, how do people get this, how long do they take it for? We read somewhere that people can get tested for different virus's in their system such as Herpes? Is there a test for CMV? Is there any other herpes/CMV drugs we should take?

Question 12: Amino acid Brain supplements L-tyrosine and N-acetyl cysteine

We had been giving him L-tyrosine and N-acetyl cysteine and we stopped after the seizure. I know Cheryl Broyle mentioned using NAC. I don't know if these 2 compounds have good/bad effects on the brain? For a normal brain they are meant to be good. 

Question 13: Vitamin C IV

I read up on Vitamin C IV and I don't know if we should try that - it doesn't seem clear if it is effective or not and it doesn't mention it could flush out the anti-seizure drugs?? Those studies mention N-acetyl cysteine reverses the benefits of IV Vit C?? 

Question 14: Berberine

Only recently ive seen many people taking berberine. Are many people taking this supplement?

Question 15: Other Repurpose drugs

Interesting article with a few extra repurpose drugs which I have not mentioned above. Not too familar with them and the cocktail?

https://www.canceractive.com/article/repurposing-old-off-patent-drugs-as-new-and-effective-cancer-treatments

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphar.2019.00681/full

Prescribed by GB:
Keppra - Anti seizure. he was on 500 mg x 2 day but since the seizure it is now 2.5g per day. 

Epanutin - Phenytoin. Anti seizure..100 mg x 3
Atorvastatin – Cholesterol treatment 20 mg per day
Metformin – diabetic, 500 mg twice a day
Ramipril - To lower blood pressure, 5mg

Melatonin 20 mg

Off-label prescription/non prescription drugs:
- Chloroquine Phosphate, 250 mg/day
- Celebrex (Celecoxib), 200 mg/day

- Mebendazole 100mg - this is the recommended daily dose for normal pinworm treatment but i read people are on more?

- We could not get Tagamet (cimetidine), so we were using Ranitidine, another Histamine H2 receptor (usually used for stomach uclers - repurpose of Cimetidine is immune, anti invasion. We do not know if Ranitidine is a good replacement but apparently cimetidine can interact with Celebrex, but I think Ranitidine has reduce side effects to Tagamet). - we have not restarted Ranitidine yet

Supplements: Majority of these we get from iherb apart from the coriolus versicolor which we order from evitamins.

- Coriolus versicolor extract PSK/PSP (Turkey tail mushroom)
- Maitake-D mushroom extract, 1200mg per day
- Reishi mushroom extract - for immune. We got Fungi Perfecti mycobotanicals for the Brain
- Curcumin High absorption extract 1000mg
- Omega-3-6-9 1200 mg
- Boswellia extract 500 mg – to reduce edema
- Standard multivitamin/multimineral capsules, time-release
- Probiotic (Garden of Life, Dr. Formulated Mood+ 16 strains)
- Vitamin D, 5,000 IU/day
- Selenium (we just used a multi purpose vitamin)
- Soy Extract (we were using Soya Isoflavonoids which I think contains genistein which is meant to be good).
- Resveratrol 200mg
- Green Tea Extract ECGg 400 mg

- Silymarin

Stopped taking - should we take again?

- NAC N-acetyl cysteine– I noticed Cheryl Broyle was taking this but it is not on Stephen’s cocktail list.
- L-Tyrosine 500mg – I did not see this on any cocktail list but it is an amino acid which is meant to help with brain function.

Never started this but should we after the seizure? Can it interfere?:

- Disulfiram and he has not started this. 

Low Level Dex Long-Term/Indefinitely

Hello,

I'm hoping to interact with those who have needed to stay on Dex long-term at low levels (2mgs or less) or hear from experts on the topic.

My Uncle was on very high levels for many months but we've not gotten him down to 2mgs and it seems that going lower is not an option to do - safely. He had regrowth immediately after surgery, that said he's got tumors in his head taking up space, and also at this point his adrenals are shot.

I imagine that just like any drugs the lower the level, the less detrimental they are.

Is anyone on 2mgs or less - indefinitely?

Thanks :)

Demention. Hbot. Glioblastoma. Radiation therapy consequences.

Dear Stephen! Dear all!

My mom has demention because of hydrocephalus, as well as, probably, in connection with radiation therapy. Today she will have a shunt. However, we need to treat the consequences. One person said that in England in this case they use hbot.

Questions:

1) can hbot cause glioblastoma progression? I read that this procedure improves blood supply, because the tumor is usually well supplied with blood vessels and blood supply could it make worse? Or is it incoherent things? We are currently taking Avastin.

2) could hbot really help with demention? Any experience?

3) could you please advise other good methods to treat demention and consequences of radiation therapy? Cbd oil, lions mane, ps100?

Thank you!