Nowhere does the promise of Integrative Medicine, the blending of the best of alternative and conventional approaches, hold so much promise than in the field of cancer management.

Cancer is a very complex medical condition.  One of the reasons that cancer is so difficult to treat, is that cancer is not just the isolated disease of cancer.  Each different region of a person’s body in which cancer grows represents a unique and seperate disease entity. Scientific breakthroughs in cancer treatment are developing daily, and we have come a long way in the diagnosis, treatment, and management of patients with cancer.

Traditional Chinese Medicine holds tremendous potential in the management of cancer patients. When patients are undergoing chemotherapy and/or radiation treatments, it is often not a case of whether the treatments will eliminate the disease, but rather the case of whether the patient can tolerate and continue these treatments long enough for them to be fully effective.  Acupuncture treatments provide an effective way to strengthen a patient’s energy to tolerate these treatments.  Additionally, Acupuncture is recognized by the National Institute of Health as being highly effective in the treatment of chemotherapy-induced nausea.  Another reason that cancer patients should enlist the help of an acupuncturist would be to alleviate some of the often severe pain associated with cancer and cancer treatments.

During the course of chemotherapy treatments, cancer patients are monitored to ensure that they have an adequate level of red and white blood cells.   If their level of healthy blood cells drops below a certain level, they must hold on further treatments until that level comes back up. Specific herbs have the ability to boost levels of red and white blood cells dramatically, allowing patients to complete their course of cancer therapy. During my clinical internships at the Santa Barbara College of Oriental Medicine, I witnessed firsthand the almost miraculous ability of Herbs to boost those blood cell levels.

Traditional Chinese Medicine holds the tremendous potential to teach patients how to live a lifestyle that is considered to lower the risk for the development of cancer.  This stems from a theory called Yang Shen, or “nourishing life”. As the incidence of cancer in our modern world is becoming more prevalent, Traditional Chinese Medicine is being called upon as a largely preventative medicine to teach people how to live balanced and healthy lives.