Ovarian Cancer Treatments – Naturopathic Medicine

Naturopathic Medicine for Ovarian Cancer

At Cancer Treatment Centers of America (CTCA), we take a team approach to your ovarian cancer care. In addition to your conventional treatments for ovarian cancer, you will also receive complementary medicine therapies, including naturopathic medicine.

Our cancer doctors consult with naturopathic practitioners to enhance your ovarian cancer treatment plan with a variety of natural therapies designed to help strengthen your body, reduce side effects, and improve your overall quality of life.

What is Naturopathic Medicine?

Naturopathic medicine, also called “naturopathy,” is a distinct system of primary health care. It is a practice of diagnosis, treatment and prevention of illness. A central goal of naturopathic medicine is to use the healing power of nature to maintain and restore health.

Naturopathic practitioners are specialists in natural health care who use natural, non-toxic therapies to support the whole person and encourage the inherent self-healing process, with an emphasis on building health. Working together with your oncologist, CTCA naturopaths are able to provide diverse therapies for ovarian cancer.

Naturopathic medicine is based on the following principles:

The Healing Power of Nature
Focused on the natural healing power of nature, naturopathic medicine centers on your body’s inherent ability to establish, maintain and restore health. The healing process is ordered and intelligent; nature heals through the response of the life force. The practitioner’s role is to facilitate and augment this process, to identify and remove obstacles to your health and recovery, and to support the creation of a healthy internal and external environment for you.

First Do No Harm
Naturopathic practitioners use methods and medicinal substances that minimize the risk of harmful side effects, and apply the least possible force or intervention necessary when both diagnosing and treating cancer. Naturopathic practitioners respect and work with the healing power of nature in diagnosis, treatment and counseling. Therapeutic actions should be complementary to and synergistic with this healing process.

Practitioner as Teacher
Beyond an accurate diagnosis and appropriate prescription, the naturopathic practitioner must work to create a healthy, sensitive interpersonal relationship with you. A cooperative practitioner-patient relationship has inherent therapeutic value, helping to empower the patient to assume responsibility their health. The practitioner's major role is to educate and encourage you to take responsibility for your own health. The practitioner must strive to inspire hope as well as understanding.

Treat the Whole Person
Naturopathic practitioners treat the whole person and not just the cancer. They recognize that health and disease result from a complex of physical, mental, emotional, genetic, environmental, social, spiritual and other factors. Naturopathic medicine recognizes the harmonious functioning of all aspects of you as being essential to health. The multifactorial nature of health and disease requires a personalized and comprehensive approach to cancer diagnosis and treatment.

Prevention
The ultimate goal of naturopathic medicine is prevention, and building health rather than fighting disease. This is accomplished through education and promotion of lifestyle habits that create good health. Naturopathic practitioners assess risk factors and hereditary susceptibility to disease and makes appropriate interventions to avoid further harm and risk to you. Because it is difficult to be healthy in an unhealthy world, it is the responsibility of both you and your practitioner to create a healthier environment and lifestyle.

Naturopathic Practice at CTCA

While naturopaths are trained to be primary care physicians, some choose to emphasize particular treatment methods (see below) and others may concentrate on particular medical fields such as pediatrics, gynecology, allergies, arthritis, etc.

Even though it has its own therapeutic specialties, naturopathic medicine incorporates the natural therapies of many different healing traditions. What makes a therapy part of the naturopathic scope of practice is the way it is applied, (i.e., on the basis of the six naturopathic principles of healing). The current scope of naturopathic practice includes, but is not limited to:

Clinical Nutrition:
The concept "food is the best medicine" is a cornerstone of naturopathic practice. It is also a key component of our integrative approach to ovarian cancer treatment at CTCA. Naturopathic medicine believes that many medical conditions can be treated more effectively with foods and nutritional supplements than they can by other means, with fewer complications and side effects. NDs use diet, natural hygiene, fasting, and nutritional supplementation.

Botanical Medicine:
Many plant substances are powerful medicines. Where single chemically derived drugs may address only a single problem, botanical medicines are able to address a variety of problems simultaneously. Their organic nature makes most botanicals compatible with the body's own chemistry; hence, they can be gently effective with few toxic side effects.

Physical Medicine:
Naturopathic medicine has its own methods of therapeutic manipulation of muscles, bones, and spine. NDs use ultrasound, diathermy (the controlled production of "deep heating" beneath the skin in the subcutaneous tissues, deep muscles and joints for therapeutic purposes), exercise, massage, water, heat and cold, and gentle electrical therapies.

Chinese Medicine:
Chinese medicine is a healing philosophy that naturally complements naturopathic medicine. Meridian theory offers an important understanding of the unity of the body and mind and adds to the Western understanding of physiology. Acupuncture is a technique that can help stimulate the immune system and the healing response.

Psychological Medicine:
Mental attitudes and emotional states may influence, or even cause, physical illness. Counseling, nutritional balancing, stress management, hypnotherapy, biofeedback and other therapies are used to help patients heal psychologically.

Homeopathic Medicine:
Homeopathic medicine is based on the principle of "like cures like." Clinical observation indicates that it works on a subtle, yet powerful, energetic level, gently acting to strengthen the body's immune response and triggering the healing process.

Next Topic: Mind-Body Medicine for Ovarian Cancer