Alternative & Complementary Treatments for Mesothelioma

This article is provided by guest blogger Richard Moyle of The Mesothelioma Center, dedicated to providing information and resources about Mesothelioma, a cancer caused by asbestos exposure.

While many advocates of conventional medicine are still skeptical over the effectiveness of alternative medical treatments, the use of complementary and alternative treatments is becoming more and more accepted. Those who suffer from asbestos-related illnesses like asbestosis or mesothelioma are beginning to discover that many alternative treatments can alleviate the pain and other side effects that conventional treatments can sometimes cause.

Mesothelioma is a rare and aggressive cancer that is primarily caused by exposure to a substance called asbestos. The symptoms of this type of cancer can lay dormant for anywhere from 20 to 50 years after initial exposure to asbestos. Because of this, the cancer is typically diagnosed in its later stages when treatment options are more limited. The typical mesothelioma survival rate is about one year after diagnosis.

There are a number of alternative and complementary treatments that can (at the very least) ease the pain and other symptoms of the disease, as well as the sometimes negative side effects that come with conventional cancer treatments like chemotherapy. Acupuncture, for example, can provide relief from chronic pain, inflammation, anxiety, and stress and it is one of the most widely-accepted alternative therapies in use today. In fact, acupuncture has become so widely accepted that some health insurance companies actually cover it.

Meditation has also been known as a great way to reduce feelings of stress, anxiety, and depression. Currently, there is also evidence that meditation can help manage pain and other disease symptoms. Many people with cancer who include meditation in their treatment program find the practice helps relieve pain, stress, and anxiety. Some studies have even shown that meditation may be able to slow tumor growth and improve patient prognosis.

Dietary supplements like vitamins, minerals, herbs, and amino acids can also be a big help for those who suffer from asbestos-related diseases. Vitamins, minerals, and amino acids are all required by the body to perform essential life functions, and supplements can help provide needed chemicals when diet alone cannot. Many herbs can be useful in treating diseases and conditions, as well as provide symptomatic relief. For example, flaxseed, ginseng, and garlic are all known to reduce blood pressure.

While all these types of alternative and complementary treatments may be helpful to sufferers of mesothelioma and asbestosis, it is always important that you discuss any new treatments with your doctor before proceeding. Especially in the case of dietary supplements, as some of them may react badly with prescription medications. 

Center for Sustainable Medicine

The Center for Sustainable Medicine was established over a year ago by local homeopath and acupuncturist, Didi Pershouse, to frame a new (and old) paradigm for personal and planetary health. Visit the website: http://sustainablemedicine.org

Sustainable Medicine Manifesto

1. Sustainable Medicine recognizes that we are part of something larger than ourselves: a complex system, known to us as the universe, the ecosystem, the web of life, or Gaia.
-This system seeks balance through interdependence, and constant change.

2. Sustainable Medicine sees the body as its own ecosystem, and recognizes that all parts of a system are linked and collaborative.
-Our bodies are a micro-system, reflective of and included within the whole.

3. Sustainable Medicine teaches that the health of the environment is intricately linked to the health of our bodies.
-Therefore, to care for the environment is part of caring for ourselves and others.

4. From the perspective of Sustainable Medicine, connection with the ecosystem is essential to health. Disease is a manifestation of lack of connection.
-Each disconnection that occurs leads to a loss of power, integrity, flexibility and energy—both for that part and for the whole system.
-This lack of connection separates us from ourselves, each other, and the source of our life.

5. Therefore, to create health, one must restore connection.
Sustainable Medicine does this by:
-Acknowledging that networks, relationships and communities exist at every level.
-Facilitating deep communication, understanding and cooperation within and between them.
-Respecting the integrity and wisdom of community networks by using local medicines and knowledge whenever possible and appropriate.

-Reconnecting people with the inherent wisdom and support of the social and natural communities that surround them.

6. Sustainable Medicine operates best in environments that are fertile, rather than sterile.
-It does this by encouraging honest, open-hearted, and evenly-balanced relationships between healers and the communities they serve.
-And by recognizing that healthy communities are built through relationship, including cross-pollination of ideas, populations and coping mechanisms to create the diversity and flexibility that ensures survival in times of crisis.

7. Health depends also on our ability to honor wildness, which has its own wisdom and integrity.
-Sustainable Medicine therefore seeks to restore the integrity, power and sanctity of wild places—from the internal flora and fauna of the body, to the microorganisms of the soils, to the vast tracts of wilderness that plants, animals and fungi depend on for survival, diversity and well-being.

8. Sustainable Medicine is pattern-based in its thought and action.
-When disease occurs, Sustainable Medicine gathers information from the whole system, looking for patterns and cycles, not just individually occurring symptoms.
-When looking at a single part, it looks deeply: for within each part, the whole is reflected as well.
-In its treatments, Sustainable Medicine works within the patterns and cycles of nature, recognizing that the system, when allowed to move freely and without obstruction, will naturally flow towards balance.
-Sustainable Medicine also respects and accepts that cycles of growth, decline, transformation, and regeneration are natural and essential to the health and balance of the entire system.
9. Sustainable Medicine is inherently sustainable.
-It does not deplete resources or excessively drain one part of the whole to benefit another.
-It does not add to the toxic waste stream, creating further illness.
-It is affordable to learn, to practice and to use.
-Care is available to all parts of the system

10. Sustainable Medicine is “slow” medicine.
-It begins with deep listening and understanding.
-It allows time for deep and lasting cures.


–Didi Pershouse 2007
The Center for Sustainable Medicine

Monthly SWAP

It is monthly SWAP time. This month I am referring to the last SWAP post as that listing is still current with only a few sales. Please see: http://alternativehealthguides.blogspot.com/2009/05/swap-today.html for a list of items for sale. And if you have items you want to post please email them to the Guide at: info@thealternativehealthguides.com. have a great month!

In UK, a Nod to Acupuncture

The National Health Service (NHS) in the UK has announced that they will be offering patients suffering from back pain some choices other than physician visits and pain medications for their care. Under the new guidelines, back-pain sufferers can choose to attend exercise classes, have acupuncture, or receive spinal manipulation from an osteopath or chiropractor. These new benefits are based on findings that these therapies are beneficial to people with back pain, and offer practitioners around the globe recognition of their valuable and useful work.
CHEERS!