Cancer treatments made naturally: Plano vet uses supplements to ward off disease

Plano veterinarian Shawn Messonnier and his wife, Sandy, used to joke by saying if either were ever diagnosed with cancer, they would take the same approach that Shawn takes with his furry patients.

But when Sandy was diagnosed with breast cancer a year-and-a-half ago, he never expected he would be treating his wife with the knowledge he has gained through treating animals.

“When we look at both veterinary and human medicine, they both have conventional doctors,” Shawn said. “They usually know nothing about natural therapies. We saw two different ones and not one talked about supplements. This is about taking care of yourself.”

As a holistic veterinarian, Shawn has devoted his life to helping animals survive cancer. But after Sandy’s diagnosis, his focus changed to saving her and other women from the epidemic.

“Cancer is such a scary disease,” Shawn said. “We don’t just want to treat cancer, we want to treat the patient. The whole holistic approach is about, ‘you’re an individual, how can I help you?’ We need to head things in this direction, otherwise the disease will keep winning.”

Since his and Sandy’s personal journey through the cancer battle, Shawn has published his latest book titled, Breast Choices for the Best Chances: Your Breasts, Your Life and How You Can Win the Battle? The preventative book provides practical and important ways women can reduce their risk of developing breast cancer and empower them to make informed health care decisions in order to get the type of care she desires, rather than leaving it up to third parties.

“If a woman is ever diagnosed with breast cancer, it's a scary time, a confusing time, but yet a time when decisions need to be made,” Shawn said.

A portion of his book’s profits will go to the families of Micaela White and Anna Basso, friends of the Messonnier’s 19-year-old daughter, Erica, who died of cancer last year.

Shawn opened Paws & Claws Animal Hospital in 1991, which also serves as a holistic pet center. The practice offers a more natural approach to pet care, its focus on keeping pets healthy first and treating sick ones – particularly those diagnosed with cancer – with a combination of conventional and holistic practices.

“If someone chooses to do surgery, chemo or radiation, when those treatments are finished – for pets or for people – what are you doing to keep the cancer from coming back,” Shawn said. “If your answer is 'nothing,' then why would you be surprised if the cancer came back and killed you or your pet?”

The key to avoiding and surviving cancer, he said, is boosting one’s immune system naturally and making healthy choices, which include improving one’s diet, taking supplements and engaging in routine exercise. When we neglect these, Shawn said, cancer has more avenues through which to appear and grow.

“We want them feeling better immediately. We want to minimize the side affects felt from the chemotherapy, radiation and surgery,” he said. “We can maximize the amount of cancer we kill … because it boosts the immune system and the cancer-killing abilities still in our bodies so they can continue to fight the cancer.”

Aside from his wife’s successful defeat of her breast cancer, Shawn’s holistic approaches have also produced positive results for his four-legged patients. While most pets with cancer are expected to live anywhere from six to 12 months after diagnosis, Shawn tells owners that same dog or cat can live one-and-a-half to two times longer feeling better thanks to the integrative therapy.

“Twenty-five to 50 percent of the owners [whose pets I see] are not doing chemo or radiation, so my therapies are the sole therapies,” he said. “Other times it’s combined. A lot of it is improving their diet. We look at the entire health of the pet.”

Sandy’s state of being during the month-and-a-half she underwent radiation treatment caught the eye of her doctor, who was surprised by her energy level and ability to live life as usual. Shawn helped Sandy find the right combination of supplements that would help prepare her body for eradicating her disease, as well as help research to find the best team of doctors that would be suite her needs.

At her husband’s advice, Sandy was taking supplements such as omega-3, vitamin D, quercetin and antioxidants like green tea extract. Although she has to spread out her dose of supplements to four times a day because there are so many, she said the way they have made her feel overrides the continual pill-swallowing. And their effects are much better than the kind of results some of the synthetic drugs prescribed to breast cancer patients can produce, Sandy said.

“Just knowing what those drugs can do to your body scared me to death, worse than the idea of me having cancer,” she said. “I didn’t want them to go in and wreak havoc on my body.”

Depending on when the cancer is caught and what type of cancer it is, someone who has been living a healthy lifestyle may not have to have chemo, and if they do, Sandy said, they will probably be able to get through it a lot easier than someone who’s not as healthy.

“For me, it was about how can I become even healthier so my body’s own immune system can do what it’s supposed to do, which is protect me from having a fatal disease,” she said.

For information or to order Breast Choices for the Best Chances, visit www.petcarenaturally.com.

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