During Cancer Treatment: What to Expect

Whether you are undergoing surgery, chemotherapy and/or radiation, integrating naturopathic treatments can help to reduce and prevent your side effects. It can also increase your immunity while helping you optimize your quality of life throughout treatment.  

Everyone is different in the symptoms that they experience, the symptoms that you experience may be very different from your neighbor.  

That is where naturopathic medicine can be especially beneficial in individualizing your treatment based on your genetics, diagnosis, pre-existing health concerns, genetics and environment. Using that information, we develop a treatment plan based on your specific needs, to optimize your own, personal health.

During Surgery

Depending on your type of cancer, you may experience digestive upset, changes in bowel movements. For example – either constipation or more frequently diarrhea, reduced appetite, fatigue and/or pain, just to name some.  

Dr. McMurry works with her patients to develop a plan to reduce the risk of infection from surgery, increase healing and reduce scar tissue formation and restore healthy bowel function.  

Following Surgery

It may be appropriate to have a referral to a lymphatic massage specialist, visceral manipulation specialist or massage therapist to further work on reducing the effects from treatment.  

Dr. McMurry can help you determine where the best referral location is based on your location and need.  If pain is occurring, Dr. McMurry will determine which treatments could be beneficial in reducing those symptoms. Which could be either physical or occupational therapy, homeopathics, topical treatments and/or lifestyle modifications.

Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy can be overwhelming.  Just the thought can be overwhelming, not to mention actually undergoing the treatment.  There can be many side effects, acute and chronic that can occur from treatment.  

Dr. McMurry will help you optimize your health throughout treatment, by reducing your side effects up to 50% through dietary changes.  

Nutritional supplements will be prescribed based on your specific treatment, which can greatly reduce the risk of delaying your treatment or having to discontinue treatment prematurely due to worsening symptoms.  

She will address potential long-term effects from treatment such as chemo brain, fatigue and lymphedema, and direct you as to which lifestyle changes need to be initiated and nutrients prescribed to reverse and treat those symptoms.  

If you suffer from anemia, low white blood cells and/or platelets throughout and following treatment, she will help to strengthen your blood and immune system through herbal and dietary interventions.   During treatment common side effects can be peripheral neuropathy, diarrhea, mouth sores, taste changes, fatigue, appetite changes, and weight loss or gain.  

Dr. McMurry will monitor your lab values, adjust the prescribed treatments as needed and discuss interventions specific to each one of those concerns. Helping to balance weight, enhance appetite, restore taste, increase energy and heal digestive tissue.

One of the most common side effects during radiation is fatigue.  

This can last for months following your last treatment, and can go untouched by the conventional medical community.  Dr. McMurry will educate you on the herbal and lifestyle treatments, such as increase or initiating a daily exercise routine.  

During radiation your skin can be at risk of dermatitis, applying topical calendula can be incredibly beneficial in preventing this from occurring.  Based on where your radiation is occurring and the treatment regimen.  

Dr. McMurry will help you understand the importance of protecting the surrounding organs and tissue as well, as delayed side-effects are quite common in those areas.  For example, protecting the heart and lungs in breast cancer radiation; protecting the bladder in prostate cancer radiation and protecting the thyroid, mouth and lining of the esophagus in head and neck cancer.

Schedule your first session with Dr. McMurry to discuss your options.

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