Healing Unconventionally

By JOHN LANGONE

omplementary therapy, especially when it is sought after a diagnosis of cancer, can be a risky proposition if the patient substitutes it for the best conventional treatment available.

It involves an enormous range of treatment possibilities, some promising, and others that don't work. Moreover, its basis — that disease is a state of imbalance — does not always set well with conventional medical philosophy.

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How to sort through the options and separate the quackery from effective treatment, and how to develop a treatment plan that includes your mainstream doctor's suggestions, is the basis for this helpful guidebook.

Written by a medical oncologist and a breast cancer survivor, who spent seven years researching alternative healing therapies, the book addresses all the familiar alternatives including acupuncture, homeopathy and naturopathy.

An important message is that using complementary therapies can help with the transition back into everyday life after medical treatment has ended.

The therapies, the authors say, keep patients focused on continuing the healing process.

But the authors also point out that while many complementary therapies reduce the side effects of conventional treatments "by helping restore body, emotions and spirit," they are not recommended as primary or sole treatment when dealing with deadly illnesses.

"Healing Outside the Margins," by Carole O'Toole with Dr. Carolyn B. Hendricks, LifeLine Press, $21.95.