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I love integrative oncology because it allows me to interact with my patients in a wholistic
manner. And wholistic is a word that means taking care of the whole patient.
I use complimentary alternative medicine therapies with radiation for a variety of reasons. I've
found that they may be helpful to reduce the side effects of radiation treatment. For example
I might use a botanical based cream to apply to the skin that we're radiating. Colendula
is the name of the cream that I like to use. Aloe vera is another one. Both of these have
been shown to reduce the radiation skin reaction that is fairly common during radiation treatment
to the skin. I also use acupuncture very frequently in my practice to help ladies and gentlemen
who have breast cancer to reduce stress and occasionally pain, but typically stress is
a big deal, psycho-emotional stress. And acupuncture is wonderful for that. It's also excellent
for chemotherapy induced neuropathy which is unfortunately not terribly uncommon and
also chemotherapy induced nausea and vomiting. And so acupuncture has been great for that.
I teach people about breathing exercises to help them also with the management of stress.
Psycho-emotionally there's a connection with a patient that I have to have and they need
to have with me in order for us to have the best outcomes, I believe. And by just simply
addressing the tumor with radiation or chemotherapy or surgery I think we're missing out on some
of the more important things in terms of a patient and a doctor relationship. And that
is actually touching the patients emotionally, physically and that's something that you can
do with complimentary therapies that may not be as easily done with conventional therapies.