Holistic Therapy Day

I don't get much good stuff from Twitter/X these days, but this morning, I learned there that today is Holistic Therapy Day. 

And I learned it through a post from Lymphoma Action, the United kingdom's only charity devoted to Lymphoma (as they describe themselves). I'm sure that those of you in the UK are familiar with them, and I hope that the resources they provide have been helpful to you. 

But their Twitter/X post today was helpful to me, linking to an article about Holistic Therapy and its relationship to Complimentary Medicine. 

As I have said many times before, I am not a fan of alternative medicine -- practices that are considered by some as better or as good as the science-based treatments that have been tested in clinical trials, but which have not gone through the same process themselves. There are lots of them, I think they are popular because so many of us have seen the effects of older versions of cancer treatments. We hope that there can somehow be a way to go through treatment without side effects, without the problems that come with treatment. And alternatives promise all of that. 

But without the long testing that comes from the clinical trial process, it's hard to know just how effective and safe those alternatives are. I'd rather take my chances with science. 

On the other hand, complementary medicine takes some alternative practices and uses them in conjunction with science-based treatments. It recognizes the strengths of those treatments, but also their limitations. Lymphoma Action is helpful here, too, in describing what complementary medicine is all about. You can learn more about practices like acupuncture, aromatherapy, massage, mindfulness, yoga, and art and creative therapy.

None of things will cure cancer. But any or all of them can help you deal with side effects -- physical, emotional, spiritual. 

And caring about those things is what Holistic Therapy is all about -- treating someone as a whole person, with all of those dimensions. It all fits together.

As I have written about recently, I've been thinking a lot more about survivorship lately -- what happens when treatment is "finished," and how much (or how little) support we receive when that happens. Good survivorship support focuses on the physical, the emotional, and the spiritual. They are all damaged by the experience of being a cancer patient. Not just the treatment itself, but the whole experience. 

And so, Holistic Therapy is something to be considered, and today is a good day to think about. The Lymphoma Action article is a good place to start.

Take care of yourself. Your whole self.