Attending the Kentuckiana Holistic Nurses Association conference provided me the opportunity to get more information about a technology I have been curious about called Digital Infrared Thermal Imaging (DITI), also known as Thermography. I have heard only positive things, but have not been encouraged by the medical professionals, specifically my oncologist, when I inquired about DITI. Now I have the facts, the mystery is removed, and when next I am scheduled for a mammogram, I will be getting a full body DITI.
Focus on Health
Because DITIs show changes in the body well before there is a previously diagnostable growth, time is on your side. You have the opportunity to make lifestyle changes, interrupting the disease cycle VERY early. With early awareness you are self-empowered to create your expression of physical wellness.
Having two doctors with DITI cameras in Louisville gives you the opportunity to schedule today. The sooner you get your DITI, the sooner you will be able to see where your body is experiencing a challenge maintaining health. The readily available, non-invasive and safe diagnostic experience provides the opportunity to focus on your “health” care instead of “illness” care.
The Conference Presentation
The DITI presentation was given by the delightful Lynn Chadd, MSN, ARNP, PS from Leavenworth, Washington. While living in Seattle I was told of the quaint Bavarian Village noted as “The Most Christmassy Place in America”. To know she is practicing holistic care with cutting edge technology in Leavenworth, population 7,313, is inspiring.
As Lynn’s presentation was focused on using DITI for breast health, she offered information about DITI and compared it to the more traditional breast diagnostic tools such as, mammography, MRI, and Ultrasound. These technologies are focused on matter/lump detection.
I am writing about the the benefits of DITI as compared to traditional technology. In order to condense the massive amounts of info, I am using lots of bullets. While not my usual conversational approach, I hope you find the information helpful.
Rather than fill the article with all the sources and links I found, I am listing these at the end.
In my research I found videos supporting and demonstrating the use of thermography as a diagnostic tool for the whole body. So while the focus is breast health, I am including information about whole body health possibilities.
Highlights about DITI
• DITI is a unique technology that takes a picture and creates a map of the infrared patterns of the body
• DITI is different from any other screening tool because it helps us to see function or physiology
• Thermal Imaging was FDA approved for breast cancer screening in 1982
• DITI can detect early danger signs in the body years before other diagnostic tools
• Over 800 peer-reviewed studies on thermography exist in the index-medicus literature
• Strict standardized interpretation protocols have been established for over 15 years
• Extensive clinical trials have shown that breast thermography significantly augments the long term survival rates of its recipients by as much as 61%
• DITI is good at detecting changes in the armpit area, an area that mammography isn’t always good at screening
• Today’s DITI cameras are small, affordable, and very precise
• DITI cameras measure to 1/100 of a degree centigrade
Understanding How Thermography Works
• DITI imaging works by taking infrared images reading heat, detecting minute temperature changes associated with inflammation and the abnormal blood flow patterns associated with the initiation and progression of tumors
• DITI is different than other screening tools as it is showing us function and physiology – not matter/lumps
• Cancerous tissue must have a blood supply. These new blood vessels maintain a steady temperature independent of cooling or heating of the surrounding tissue
• Temperature changes show up as “hot spots”, early warning signals, allowing for the earliest possible intervention and treatment
• The faster a malignant tumor grows, the more heat it generates
• dense and fibrocystic tissue, implants and scars do not affect a DITI image
• DITI imaging involves no radiation, discomfort or pain
When one looks at a DITI image of breasts, one expects to see the left and right sides to be basically the same. Just as when you get hot when you are active, abnormal blood flow patterns and inflammation show up as a “hot spot”. When there is a “hot spot” it becomes obvious there is a change in that breasts cellular activity.
Bigger Picture, Benefits of Whole Body DITIs
• Inflammation is the earliest stage of almost all major health challenges
• DITI helps you better understand your body’s functions and stress points, seeing early when there appears to be a “hot spot”
• By identifying your body’s typical thermal patterns with DITI’s, you are able to see when your body is challenged in its ability to maintain a stable internal environment (including cold spots)
• DITI is beneficial in discovering conditions that can lead to or already be cancer, heart, vascular disease, diabetes, etc, at an early stage
Cancerous Cellular Activity
• Cancer doubles in size about every 90 days
• 2 years = 256 cells, the point when blood vessels move in and when you can see activity in thermal imaging
• 8 years = 2 billion cells and the point when a tumor will show up on a mammogram
Breast cancer tends to grow significantly faster in younger women.
AVERAGE TUMOR DOUBLING TIME
Under 50 years old = 80 days
50 – 70 years old = 157 days
Over 70 years old = 188 days
The use of mammography is associated with
• overdiagnosis (finding lesions that would not have been diagnosed and would not have posed a threat to life)
• false positives (I know I was stressed when I had to go back in for a second test recently. I decided to look for the gift… using it as the catalyst to see if I was living my life fully)
• radiation exposure
More reasons to choose DITI
• The ability to detect or identify a tumor with a mammogram is decreased in patients with dense or fibrocystic tissue
• Mammograms can increase the risk of cancer
• Mammograms may damage breast tissue during the compression process
• Mammograms could cause already-malignant cells to spread
• One animal study found that the number of metastases will increase by 80% if the tumor is manipulated
• Mammograms expose a breast to radiation
• Research reveals that exposure to low-dose radiation causes damage so extensive to the DNA that it is unable to repair itself, resulting in a permanent genetic mutation of the DNA
• Some believe that the anxiety and over-treatment associated with mammography may outweigh the benefit
• Typically breast cancer will have been growing for 7 to 10 years before a mammogram can begin to see it, during which time a tumor could have already metastasized
• Cancer was thought to grow in an orderly progression from a small tumor to a larger tumor. Research now contends that cancer cells are capable of traveling from the breast early in the course of the disease
Lynn Chadd’s free online newsletters have more details about Mammography and DITI. The differences are significant and worth learning about.
Benefits to Early Screening
Thermography detects early cellular changes. This activity PRECEEDS the growth of a tumor. Thermal images can detect the first signs of cellular change up to 10 years before any other detection method.
Advocates of DITI say it is the single most important marker of risk. As with most diseases, cancer, heart disease and stroke are more lifestyle related than hereditary. The earliest-possible identification provides valuable time to begin easy and effective lifestyle changes and interventions.
Fun Fact – Egyptians and even Hippocrates studied skin surface temperatures as a predictor of disease
In Conclusion
Studies show that DITI images identify pre-cancerous or cancerous cells earlier. Lifestyle changes can prevent further cancer cell growth and encourage the natural death of any existing cancer cells. DITIs produce unambigious results, cut down and or eliminate additional testing, painful biopsies, causes no harm and does not hurt the body.
Dr Christiane Northrup, an advocate for thermography asks, “Isn’t this what women want?” I ask “isn’t this what we all want for our whole body?”
More Than Just a Pretty Picture
expanding outside the use of DITI for breast health, I personally advocate tracking the microscopic changes with full body scans. My cancer was in the uterus so I propose that a full body scan every few years could be a significant tool for full body health. Information from DITI’s provide you, your medical professionals and complementary and alternative practitioners the information and time to make lifestyle changes long before dis-ease of any kind can settle anywhere in the body.
Closing with CAM
With all I have written of the benefits of DITI, as a proponent and Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) practitioner, I feel the need to offer that hot and cold spots can also be addressed by practitioners without using imaging tools. Practitioners of Acupuncture, BodyTalk, Reiki, etc., can dissipate, neutralize and or increase energy often before symptoms become set patterns. I opt for this as a first line of maintaining health. I also like the idea of serial DITI’s for a tangible measurement of my body’s changes.
Thank you Lynn Chadd and Kentuckiana Holistic Nurses Association for expanding my awareness of the benefits of DITI.
Our local providers of Digital Infrared Thermal Imaging are:
Functional Imaging and Assessment of Kentucky
http://www.funimky.com/home.htm
Dr. Craig Mueller & Dr. Brent Furnish
1015 Dupont Road, Louisville, KY 40207
502-897-5181, 888-891-7075
Biological Medicine
http://www.biologicalmedicine.info/
Dr James Odell, L.Ac
305 N Lyndon Lane, Louisville, KY 40222
502.429.8835 odell@biologicalmedicine.info
Tell them Mollie sent you!
Mollie Yunker
writer, dancer and certified BodyTalk practitioner
502.550.2719
http://www.bodytalkworks.net/
Let the Healing Begin
© Copyright 2010
To learn more about BodyTalk go to http://www.bodytalkworks.net. Ask to receive BodyTalk emails listing upcoming events and classes.
This is my second article following up from the Kentuckiana Holistic Nurses Association conference in November. The first article can be found at http://ulocal.wlky.com/_Food-As-Medicine-more-specific-to-you/blog/3106612/62916.html
This information is not intended to treat, diagnose, cure or prevent any disease. All material in this article is provided for educational purposes only. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health care provider with any questions you have regarding a medical condition, and before undertaking any diet, exercise or other health program
References
Lynn Chadd, http://www.lynnchadd.com/
Weston A Price, http://www.westonaprice.org/womens-health/640-mammography-madness.html
Life Extension, http://www.lef.org/protocols/prtcl-022.shtml
http://breastthermography.com/
Mercola www.mercola.com, (http://naturalhealthcenter.mercola.com/services/thermography.aspx)
Lessons from the Mammography Wars, http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc1011303
http://www.qualityhealth.com/medical-advisory-board
Dr Christiane Northup www.drnorthrup.com
Book Unnatural History: Breast Cancer and American Society By Robert A. Aronowitz, http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMbkrev0802475
What is Breast Thermography?, http://www.healthcarereview.com/2010/10/what-is-breast-thermography/
