When diagnosed with cancer, many people are shocked and horrified. Some become paralyzed with fear and passive as if they have received a death sentence. Chinese medicine regards cancer as a chronic disease which must be managed as any other health condition, using diet and lifestyle modifications to support the system during the appropriately prescribed chemotherapy or radiation treatments. Because these treatments are often aggressive, healthy tissue as well as cancerous tissue is effected.
Natural health care offer several goals to assist patients who are undergoing cancer treatment:
- Support the 'righteous qi', the life force of the body so that therapies do not damage essential functions of the body. Therapies to support the righteous qi include acupuncture and specific nutritional supplements.
- Assist
in elimination of toxins: this could include various detoxification
strategies. For example, after undergoing radiation, colonics might be
considered as a therapy to help facilitate removal of dead radiated
tissue from the colon.
- Create a positive mental outlook: Meditation and breathing exercises relieve stress and ultimately secure the mind from worry. A meditative state often inspires insight into a deeper purpose in life, as well as reflection on values.
- Relieve
symptoms of side - effects of chemotherapy and radiation. Nausea,
burning hands, foggy brain, headache, muscle tension, lack of appetite
are all symptoms that I have seen relieved by acupuncture.