Greyt Goodies: Supplements

Shark Cartilage - Sharks to the Rescue

In the June of 1995, we noticed that our greyhound Porsche was limping a bit, sometimes yipped when she rolled over at nights, and obviously had pain in her left shoulder.

We took her to our vet thinking she had a touch of arthritis, and had an X-ray done. Imagine our distress when she informed us Porsche had osteosarcoma and might only have a few months to live since this was a very painful and fast growing type to cancer.

I am writing this is the hope that what we did may be of help to others in a similar situation. We also took her to an Oncologist who concurred after looking at the X-ray. The only treatment she would recommend was amputation and chemotherapy. Since the lesion was at the top of her shoulder we felt that amputation would be too drastic, and it would be too much to put her through. She felt very certain that the diagnosis was osteosarcoma, but shouldn't be positive without doing a bone biopsy, a minor operation in itself. We elected not to do this since it is quite invasive and even if it turned out to be some less virulent form of cancer, the treatment would be the same, and would give her a little more time, but definitely not quality time. We went home with heavy hearts determined to make her as comfortable as possible for her remaining time with us.

We started giving her an anti-inflammatory every other day. She had no gastric problems with this as can occasionally be the case, although once when she seemed very uncomfortable, we gave her one two days in a row and this did seem to bother her stomach.

After her diagnosis, we watched her get slower and slower on walks. She sometimes yipped at night when rolling over, and stopped getting up on the couch, her usual resting place. Every now and then she had a problem where she seemed to hurt herself if she got up wrong or was too active, and would be worse for a couple of days but bounce back a bit, though slowly getting worse overall.

We stopped taking her running of course, and after one bad incident, built her a ramp to help her get down our two steep back steps. Meanwhile, my good friend and the adoption rep who had placed Porsche with us, just wouldn't give up on her and called several holistic vets, one of the recommend we give her shark cartilage.

I had no guidelines for this, but figured it was a chicken soup remedy. Can't hurt, might help. In mid July we started giving her three 750 mg capsules twice a day with meals for the first three weeks, then cut back to one with am meal, two with pm meal, and have continued this dose since. I just open the capsule and sprinkle it over her food. We have also continued her anti-inflammatory pills, but only give them every three to four days.

After about six weeks on the shark cartilage she seemed to start picking up a bit on her walks, and seldom yipped anymore. One day she jumped upon the couch for the frist time in a couple of months. This was a turnaround point. She has continued to thrive. We even had another X-ray done in March 96 and the vet said that if she didn't know what she was looking for she wouldn't even notice the cancer, she's that improved.

We have a friend who also uses shark cartilage for a neck problem and has had relief. He has tried several types and found that the tablets as supposed to capsules (powder) don't work. It is important to be sure they contain Mucopolysaccharides. For more information, you may want to read "Sharks Don't Get Cancer" by I William Lane, Avery Publishing Group.

We think shark cartilage improved the quality of Porsche's life a lot. Here we are over two years later and she's still with us and thriving. What's in the future, who knows, but what it's done so far is considered a miracle in our family.

P.S. Porsche had stroke in Oct 98 and is sadly no longer with us, but we had over 3 additional good years with her due I feel to her treatment with Shark Cartilage.

Reprinted with permission of the author - Kathy Dubuque
 

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