Digital Thermography
- 1 in 8 Women will experience Breast Cancer in their life. (According to National Cancer Institute)
- Early Breast Cancer Detection can make a BIG difference.
- Mammography is the primary diagnostic tool for breast cancer screening and detection.
- Digital Thermography is an important adjunct used along with Mammography for Breast Health Screening.
In this video interview, Callie Eide explains why Breast Digital Thermography is being used more and more along as a powerful adjunct tool for early detection of Breast Cancer.
Callie explains:Here at The Natural Path, we have been doing digital thermography for many years. My husband David Eide brought this modality in, in 2003. There have been several Thermographers over the years, and I took it over in 2012. We use camera equipment from ICI; it’s a very small camera with very powerful software. The way that Digital Thermography works is to identify and detect heat patterns in the body. You may have seen it used on houses to see what kind of heat is escaping. When we’re using it with The Body, we are looking for vascular changes. We want to see if there is any sort of abnormality; is a tumor or a clogged node, or congestion causing a heat pattern? When there is an abnormality it’s going to ask the body for sustenance, it’s going to ask for more blood, there’s going to be responses in the blood cells that do create more Heat. That’s why Thermography is such a valuable tool!
How does Digital Thermography work?
Pre-cancerous and Cancerous masses are “highly metabolic” tissues. They need an extra supply of nutrients to grow. This results in higher chemical and blood vessel activity in both pre-cancerous tissue and the area surrounding a developing tissue. This higher metabolic activity results in higher regional surface temperatures in the body. Thermography can detect the higher temperature.
Question:When that particular area in the body looks “heated,” or it shows up in your scan as somewhat heated, what does that really mean or imply?
Callie Eide: It can imply that we want to do some further studies. What we do is we take the images, (I do those images), we send them out to a medical doctor by the name of Dr. Jeanne Stryker. Dr. Stryker then provides the medical report, assessment, and recommendation as to what’s the next step. So ideally you come in, you have your scans, and she says it looks great, and come back in a year. She might say, you know we need a better baseline, let’s have you come back in 3 months, 6 months; what we are looking for are changes. Is there is anything inconsistent in the heat patterns? We want to know about that...
All scans are reviewed by Dr. Jeanne Stryker, MD, a Board Certified Interventional Radiologist based out of California specializing in Women’s Imaging.
Question: Is it possible Callie that if I just worked out and then I’m coming to do my scan, or if I’m getting over a flu or if I’m getting over some kind of sickness that my scan might look different?
Callie:There is some preparation involved in order to do Digital Breast Thermography. We give you a questionnaire to fill out to give us some medical history. We also give you information on how to prepare in the days preceding your Thermography. It’s not extensive. We ask that you do not do any major workouts 24 hours before your scan because we do not want any excess heat in the body. One of the Big ones here in MN that I always remind my clients of; please do not turn on your heated car seats when you are on your way to visit me. Who would think of that?! That heats up the body! Not drinking any hot coffee or hot liquids two hours prior or eating two hours prior. So, it’s a pretty simple preparation; it’s a non-invasive technology.
Our goal at The Natural Path is to always start with the Least Invasive Process and move towards what may be needed.
Question:What do you say to someone who is considering doing this? What’s the right age group? Someone in their 20s, or someone older?
Callie:Absolutely, there are strong recommendations that people do Thermography to get a baseline at an early age; much earlier than Mammograms are usually recommended by the medical community. I like to see someone in their early to mid-20s come in for their first scans and then they don’t have to come every year, provided we haven’t seen anything unusual. Every three years or so is recommended up until about the age of 35. There are recommendations based on your overall health. If you are seeing one of our practitioners and you are dealing with a certain health problem such as fungus or lymph congestion, we may want to run those scans a little more often in the younger people. The blessing in doing this in your twenties is that when you get to your 40s, 50s, 60s (when as women in the US we are much more susceptible to breast cancer), we’ve got those comparisons to identify at an early moment what might be a problematic area. And be able to use some natural processes to help alleviate it, get you over to whatever sort of additional testing that might be recommended by our Medical Doctor, Dr. Jeanne Stryker.
Question: When Dr. Stryker looks at this report, what usually comes from that analysis?
Callie:After you do your images, we send those out, she sends them back within two weeks, you receive a paper copy of the images of the scan, along with the reports. What she is doing is reading something called the “Delta T” what that is; measurements of heat in comparison. She may be comparing the left nipple to the right nipple. We are looking for differences; that’s what we’re hunting for. She then writes a report that includes recommendations regarding supplementation, Iodine or Vitamin D3, (for example is very important for breast health). And she will give us an idea of what might be the next step if there is something questionable. Either come back in three months for a baseline or, perhaps go to your medical doctor for an ultrasound or an MRI.
Question:What % of people come to you that have doubt that something is wrong with them?
Callie:People often come in for the peace of mind that you mentioned earlier. They may have had a mammogram, and they see something questionable, and they want to gather further information. Thermography is for gathering information on what is going on in your body.
Question:Can you share any client stories that came from doing the scans?
Callie:My favorite topic is something that you mentioned earlier, which is how Peace of Mind can affect us in such a marvelous way! If we know that our body is clear, it takes away the stress and the worry. Many women will come to me saying “You know what, I just feel like something is wrong.” I’ll give you an example; I had a woman come into me about a year ago, and her mammogram had been clear, and she never had any problems. She said “I have an intuition there is something wrong in my left breast. So, we did the images, we sent them out to Dr. Stryker, and it came back, and there was Clearly a problem. Now, thermography is not a
Diagnostic Tool. So, we didn’t say “you have cancer.” We do not do that here at The Natural Path. Dr. Stryker doesn’t do that with her report. She may say that this warrants further study. So, my wonderful client went directly to her MD. They took the thermography information, referred her to an ultrasound and an MRI, and she did indeed have active breast cancer that was effectively dealt with using some natural processes and some medical intervention. She is doing Great Today!
Interviewer:So, she did a mammogram first, and that didn’t show anything, then she did the Digital Thermography, and something showed up, and then she went back and did an ultrasound, and there was something there?!
Callie:Yes, and she followed her intuition! I’ve also had a woman come in who had been given numerous testing at a very famous clinic and had been told she had breast cancer. She was preparing to have a double radical masectomy. And guess what? It wasn’t active cancer. And on thermography, our medical doctor came back and said, I have to questions this diagnosis; let’s get a second opinion. We did the work that we do here with Electrodermal Screening, she also followed up with some other practitioners and discovered that what she had was an intense case of Candida infestation. It had clogged up her entire lymph system, and it was appearing on the scans that were being done through mammography and ultrasound that she “had cancer,” and that was over two years ago and she is 100% clear of Candida and did Not have to have the surgery!
Interviewer:That is a powerful story, and I wonder how many people go through that sort of an experience?! Many times, when you are dealing with cancer, a doctor will say that we will only know for sure if it is cancer or not once we biopsy a sample. Which means we have to get in there, take a sample and biopsy it. So, no matter what a patient has to go through that, but the fact that there is another way to look at that same issue and get a second opinion is Very powerful...I Really like that option!
Question:I do have to ask, and maybe this is expertise specific, why did you focus on Breast Cancer or Breast Health? What about if someone has oral cancer or has an issue with their ovaries or uterus; is that something that can be captured through Digital Thermography too or is it just the breast?
Callie:We originally chose to focus on breast thermography due to Dr. Bill Hobbins really- his book is Breast Cancer Boot Camp. Dr. Hobbins was The Founder of Digital Breast Thermography. He was also our mentor here at The Natural Path. He passed away recently; he was in his 90s, and he actually worked with us and did reports up until about 2012. He wrote this book in 2013, this is really the “Bible in Breast Thermography” in my world. He really saved many, many lives and helped us to work with people to save lives too.
Question:What were some of the things that he shared with you that maybe you can share with us?
Callie:He was a firm believer in Faith. He was a Faith-Based Medical Doctor, and he so believed to listen to your own body. He empowered women to know what they want and how to get it. He said that you need to take that power and bring it into your health and trust your faith.
Dental Thermography
So, one thing I’d like to mention is about Dental Thermography. We expanded into that many years ago. We’ve worked with many may holistic dentists in the Midwest area. We can do images in color and in black and white, for both Breast and Dental. What we’re looking at here are two images of someone who came in with no symptoms what-so-ever, and we were just doing some sample thermography, and we spotted these pockets and these drainage patterns. We subsequently did some further scans and evaluation; we worked with the holistic dentist, and it turned out to be a very, Very Serious Infection of the Molar. Why is that important? It’s important because we believe that a vast amount of the breast cancer in this country is due to infection from drainage from the mouth. Dental drainage is a very common thing. There are many studies to support this. In this client’s case, she went in, and I think your regular dentist would have probably recommended a root canal. We see so many root canals, using Dental Thermography that have ongoing latent infections that it just sends so many red-flags to me as a Thermographer. Working with a Holistic Dentist; she determined that she would prefer to have that molar pulled. She (the client) did that, and we followed her as a client. Her entire Body’s Health Pattern Changed, within a period of approximately 4-8 weeks; everything changed, her blood pressure changed, her readings on the electrodermal screening changed; it was very dramatic, and it was all due to this one latent infection. That was asymptomatic, no symptoms at all, but we spotted it on Thermography.
Question: What do you recommend for people as root canals are so common!? They really are...and as someone who cannot give medical advice, but what do you typically say to someone when you share this story? Should they be coming in to you if they are experiencing a dental issue, or going to have a dental procedure done to work with you, before or after?
Callie:If you are working with a holistic dentist, they are likely going to request that you do have a dental assessment using electrodermal screening which can evaluate all of the different types of composite, even the Novocain, all of the things that a dentist uses, to find out if it’s compatible with your body. That’s one of the big problems; compatibility, so we do that. In addition to that, the dentist may suggest that thermography would be beneficial in the case that we discussed earlier to find any sort of infection that doesn’t show up on X-rays...remember we are looking at Heat Patterns.
If considering a root canal, consider a Digital Thermography Scan first!
Question:Is Dr. Stryker’s expertise with Breast Health, or do you also send her the Dental images and other areas of the body?
Callie:Dr. Jeanne Stryker who does our actual medical reports...she is a Board Certified interventional Radiologist out of California, extremely well-known. We are so blessed to have her as our Reader. She is really renowned in her field, and she works with some of the most intense breast cancer situations from both a medical and a holistic standpoint.
Question: If I have a breast thermography appointment with you, I know you talked about preparation for it, what should I expect in the procedure and how does the procedure work?
Callie:When you come in to The Natural Path for breast thermography you would’ve done your preparation that we discussed earlier, then you and I will sit down and take as much time as we need to discuss your history, go through the forms that you’ve filled out and identify what is your purpose for being here. Then we will move into, what I call "The Cold Room." It’s about 62 degrees, and you’ll be seated in a chair. You’ll take off your top and your underclothes. We will put your hair up using a headband, and you sit for about 10 minutes in the cold. You’re cooling down with a fan blowing on you. After that cool-down, I come back in the room and check the temperatures, we talk a little more; it’s usually about a total of 15minutes to get your body to the proper temperature.
At that point using our camera equipment, we take the images, and there’s nothing invasive about it; you don’t feel anything, it’s just like taking a picture. Then you’re finished, that part usually takes about 10 minutes and then you get to get dressed, and I get you a hot cup of tea!
Here is an image of breast thermography- as I move it around, it’s taking temperature measurements. Our Medical Doctor uses this high-tech software to identify any temperature differentials- it’s called “Delta T.” You can see that the temp numbers change. I’m not the person that does that; a Medical Doctor does that. What I use that for is to make sure your body is cooled down enough to get a useful image we then send off to Dr. Jeanne Stryker.
So, once we’ve taken the images and I send them to Dr. Stryker she does her evaluation, and she sends back the results; we mail them to you; in a hard copy. You get two copies one for yourself and one for your medical professional if you choose and you get those within two weeks (with recommendations).
Interviewer:That’s wonderful. Is there anything else that you want to explain about this process, Callie?
Callie:I think it’s really important for women to realize that we have choices. So many times I have women come in who’ve been through the medical community and really feel that they’ve been bulldozed into making a choice that wasn’t in keeping with what they wanted to do. So I encourage people to speak up for yourself and explore the possibilities. And come visit us at The Natural Path!
Key take away:Lets recap what we have learnt from this interview:
- Digital Thermography is a great adjunct method for Breast Cancer Screening.
- Digital Thermography is a non-invasive procedure requiring no contact and no compression of the breast.
- In digital thermography, there is no exposure to radiation.
- Digital Thermography uses an FDA cleared Infrared Thermal camera to capture temperature differences in the different areas of the breast.
- Digital Thermography can detect vascular changes in breast tissue associated with breast cancer.
- A Baseline scan is recommended for women in their early twenties.
- A vascular and interventional radiologist (MD) interprets the scans and makes further recommendations.
Special Thanks to Callie Eide for being an educator on TrailheadHealth.com and helping to answer consumer questions! Breast Digital Thermography appointments can be made by contacting Callie Eide at the Natural Path Holistic Health Center.
Wondering if Digital Thermography is right for you? Callie Eide if offering a free 15 minute phone consultation to anyone looking for answers on Digital Thermogrpahy.
Callie Eide can be reached at:
The Natural Path
952.941.1919
info@the-naturalpath.com
The-NaturalPath.com
