It is estimated that 99% of all cancer survivors know about
complementary and alternative medicine practices and up to 83% of them
have participated in some form during their conventional medical care.
The most frequently reported therapies are spiritual practices,
relaxation therapy, imagery, exercise, lifestyle, diet and nutritional
supplementation.
There are many people that I meet that are interested in complementary therapies. The difference between complementary and alternative therapies is important to understand. Complementary therapy means that it is used in conjunction with traditional Western medicine.
Alternative therapy means that it is used instead of traditional western medicine. I feel that we should always take the best of all medicines. Therefore, I find complementary therapies to be quite beneficial and rarely recommend using only alternative therapy.
Important Questions to Ask:
In order to evaluate a complementary therapy you might be considering, be sure to ask yourself these questions:
- Is the practitioner qualified and educated in the practice they are recommending?
- For example, when getting diet or nutrition advice, you want to know that the person is a registered dietitian.
- Has the practice been scientifically proven to be safe and effective for someone like you?
- If you have cancer, or other chronic disease, you want to make sure that the practice is safe for you.
- Is there another therapy that is less invasive but may have the same therapeutic outcome?
- If you’re looking for an aid for sleep, mindful meditation might be less invasive and more effective than taking an herbal sleep aid.
- What do you hope to achieve with this therapy, and are your expectations for this treatment realistic?
- Are you expecting this therapy to prevent or cure disease, as opposed to manage a particular side effect?
Evaluating your options:
Based on how you answered the previous questions, you can categorize the therapy into one of 4 groups:
- This therapy is supported by objective research suggesting a benefit.
- This therapy has not been studied but isn’t likely to cause harm, and could provide a benefit
- This therapy has not been studied and could possibly cause harm
- This therapy has been studied and was shown to cause harm or provides no benefit
If the therapy falls into the first two categories and doesn’t cause
you to go into debt, then I think it’s a good choice. If it falls into
the third or fourth or is exorbitantly expensive, then I’d pass on the
opportunity.
It drives me nuts when I hear someone complain about how expensive it is to eat healthy, but they’re willing to pay $25 a quart for the newest miracle cure juice!
Recommended Therapies:
Here are some examples of complementary therapies that I believe are beneficial. There’s no way that I could list them all, so I just picked out some to highlight.
- Exercise therapy including Yoga, Thai Chi, Qi Gong, Aerobic or Strength Training, Dance
- Mind, Body, and Spirit Therapies: Visualization, Journaling, Self Hypnosis, Prayer, Spiritual Meditation, Anointing, Spiritual Counseling, Art Therapy, Music Therapy, Emotional Counseling, Mindful Meditation, Support Groups, Acupuncture, Aromatherapy,
- Physical Touch Therapies: Healing touch, Reiki, Massage Therapy, Pet Therapy,
- Diet and Nutritional therapies: Plant based diet, vegetarian or vegan diet, Ginger tea with honey for nausea, Herbal therapy under the guidance of a trusted and certified herbologist.
The most important thing to do when using a complementary therapy is to ALWAYS communicate with your health care providers about the therapies you are using!
-Julie
Hi Julie,
I’m just curious which of the recommended therapies you think falls in the first category “This therapy is supported by objective research suggesting a benefit.”
Thanks!
Hey Heather!
Actually, I think that Acupuncture and Massage probably have the most research behind them as far as improving quality of life for cancer patients. I believe most of the research for Accupuncture is in pain management.
I would also say that Aerobic and Strength training exercise have proven benefit. It’s funny to think of those as complementary therapy, but I feel that it’s the right label for them. Cardiac rehab certainly has proven a benefit.
For the Nutrition and diet therapies, there’s been enough research for a plant based diet for me to consider it proven. Vegetarian or vegan diets are one way to achieve a plant based diet.
Counseling and support groups certainly have objective research showing benefit. Herbal therapy I think has mixed results. Yoga has been studied for breast cancer survivors and suggests benefit for fatigue as well as stress management.
I guess those are the ones that stand out to me. I would probably utilize all of them at some point and especially if I was a cancer survivor looking for something to make my treatments more effective.
Thanks for the question!
Julie,
I just read your post above and was wondering if you have any supporting information for massage being good for cancer patients. A couple years ago I tried to get my Mom to go to some free massage thing they were doing complimentary for cancer patients, but she insisted that she had someone in the health profession tell her that massage is bad for cancer patients because it can help to spread the cancer around to different areas. Do you have any information that supports that one way or another?
Thanks,
Jamie
There are some myths that go around that having massages will cause cancer cells to be spread through the lymph nodes. This is not true.
It is important, however to be sure that the massage therapist is familiar with the precautions on giving massages to cancer patients. I have been told that the therapist should not be giving deep tissue massages to patients under treatment.
Also, there are considerations for people who have had lymph node biopsies or removal of lymph nodes when it comes to their risk for lymphadema. So I would always recommend that a patient ask their health care provider for a recommendation on a massage therapist that is familiar with treating cancer survivors. If their health care provider does not have a name, then asking the therapist on what their training and knowledge is regarding massage therapy for cancer patients is very important.
I would hope that whomever is coordinating the free day for cancer survivors would make sure that the therapist is familiar with the considerations, but you can’t always be sure. Here in Winston-Salem we have a massage therapist who has taken a course and read a book regarding massage for cancer.
Long answer! And no, massage therapy will not spread cancer.
Good question!!
– Julie
Hi Julie:
Great site and information. I love that you are focused on “evidence based” information. I’ve bookmarked this site. I’m interested in cancer prevention for a few reasons. One, is I want to do as much as possible to prevent it in my life. And two, I have a dear friend who was touched by cancer and is now cancer-free and my mom was diagnosed with throat cancer–that was caught early. I’m always keeping my ear to the streets for the latest “credible” information. I love how simple and easy the information on this site is to understand.
That said, I wonder if you have heard of Savor Health? If not, I highly encourage you to reach out to Savor as you both have the same mission of supporting cancer patients, survivors, and their caregivers with science-backed, information on nutrition and cancer.
Savor is staffed with highly credentialed nurses and dietitians specializing in oncology–as they, too, are focused on sharing only evidenced based information.
The owner of Savor, Susan Bratton, started Savor Health because cancer touched her life, personally, when her father and a good friend were diagnosed. She saw a gap in the market to provide sound nutritional support.
Savor offers oncology based nutritional counseling and meal delivery service. I highly encourage you check them out at http://www.savorhealthy.com. You can learn more about their dietitian nutritional counseling service at this link: http://savorhealth.com/services/dietician-counseling/
Hope this helps your readers.
Tish