Once diagnosed, not advisable to use complementary medicine only

MANY ARE going back to the earth to find solutions to treat breast cancer, and enterprising individuals have capitalised on this by manufacturing teas and other such commodities, which claim to provide healing. Then there are those offering other avenues to reversing the disease. These avenues include detoxification programmes, Chinese medicine, acupuncture, and iridology.

Across the island, naturopathic and other such practitioners are establishing health and wellness conglomerates to facilitate the treatment of conditions such as cancers. Even some traditional doctors are gradually incorporating elements of alternative medicine when treating patients.

General practitioner Dr Derrick Jarrett admits that traditional doctors, like him, who practise alternative medicine are, for the most part, in virgin territory, so there is still a bit of caution.

“We try to prevent cancers using complementary medicine, but once it crosses over into malignancies, I don’t believe that we should use only complementary. We should seek the traditional physicians first, and if you want, you can continue using your complementary medicine on the advice of your physician,” he said.

“Once they have been diagnosed, I immediately move over into my traditional role and refer them to the surgeon and the usual traditional way of treating it,” he explained.

He has noted that breast cancer patients have, in recent times, placed more confidence in naturopaths than their traditional doctors, but as one of those smacked right in the middle, he has his concerns.

“The studies have shown that those who have been diagnosed with cancers and do only complementary medicines, their survival rates haven’t really been increased,” he said.

“If you have breast cancer, surgically remove the breast or the lump and then you can seek your complementary (medicine) with your chemotherapy or your radiography,” he advised.