The first time I ever heard about complementary medicine being used as a kind of treatment for cancer was while my dad was undergoing chemotherapy last year. He personally never tried complementary medicine in his own battle with cancer, but many other patients that he met in the hospital praised it. I remember watching him go through chemotherapy and seeing the harsh toll it took on his mind and body. Everyone who had mentioned complementary medicine had said that it helped reduce some of their symptoms dramatically, so I couldn’t understand why my dad wasn’t thinking about trying it himself. He kept telling me that none of the methods that he had heard of in complementary medicine had been proved yet, so he was just going to “tough it out.” The thing with complementary medicine—treatments other than conventional medicine, such as chemotherapy and radiation, but used in conjunction with them—is that it is very controversial in use. Many doctors and many people in the general public think that using it gets patients’ hopes up and that the medicine itself is ineffective in curing cancer.
So far, there is no cure for cancer. Someone is said to be “cured” when tumors do not reappear after a period of 5 years, but that does not mean that they will never come back (Lamson). There is so much limited knowledge about what causes cancer and what it takes to put an end to it. The current treatments are extremely debilitating for the people who undergo them, and that’s where complementary medicine comes into play. Complementary medicine such as acupuncture, hypnosis, and dietary changes are used to lessen the effect of symptoms caused by chemotherapy and radiation. However, due to the fact that complementary medicine does not cure the cancer completely makes most people turn their backs to the idea of trying it or helping fund research to look deeper into its usefulness in oncology.
What do you think about the idea of using other treatments in addition to typical cancer treatments, even if they are not conventional or scientifically proven? Have any of you had relatives or friends who have had cancer, and what was the hardest aspect about treatment for them? What do you think is the difference between curing and treating cancer?
Author: 9AM
So far, there is no cure for cancer. Someone is said to be “cured” when tumors do not reappear after a period of 5 years, but that does not mean that they will never come back (Lamson). There is so much limited knowledge about what causes cancer and what it takes to put an end to it. The current treatments are extremely debilitating for the people who undergo them, and that’s where complementary medicine comes into play. Complementary medicine such as acupuncture, hypnosis, and dietary changes are used to lessen the effect of symptoms caused by chemotherapy and radiation. However, due to the fact that complementary medicine does not cure the cancer completely makes most people turn their backs to the idea of trying it or helping fund research to look deeper into its usefulness in oncology.
What do you think about the idea of using other treatments in addition to typical cancer treatments, even if they are not conventional or scientifically proven? Have any of you had relatives or friends who have had cancer, and what was the hardest aspect about treatment for them? What do you think is the difference between curing and treating cancer?
Author: 9AM