Complementary Medicine During Radiation Therapy – A Natural Guide for Self-Care

In this episode, Carla shares a natural approach to nurturing yourself during radiation therapy. This guide provides tips to help minimise side effects like radiation dermatitis and fatigue, offering ways to support skin health, energy levels and overall well-being throughout treatment.

Preparing for Radiation Therapy

1. Turmeric for Support -  Incorporate fresh turmeric into your routine to support radiotherapy and help reduce side effects, especially for skin and mucous membranes.

2. Skin Saver Cream  - Consider a specialised cream, such as PHD's replication of Skin Saver Cream, featuring ingredients like Manuka honey, slippery elm, green tea and St. Mary’s thistle. Clinical studies suggest applying this cream can help reduce or prevent radiation dermatitis when used daily before and after treatments.

3. Matcha Spritz - A green tea spritz made from organic Matcha can be used topically to calm the skin post-radiation, thanks to EGCG, a compound that may minimise radiation dermatitis.

4. Herbal Energy Support - To combat fatigue, herbs like American ginseng, schisandra, Korean ginseng and withania can offer natural energy support. Ask about a personalised herbal blend to help you stay energized.

During Radiation Therapy

1. Gentle Exercise - Aim for at least 20 minutes of gentle activity each day, ideally before treatment sessions. Physical activity has been shown to relieve radiation-induced fatigue.

2. Colourful Diet - While high-dose antioxidants should be avoided during radiation, a diet rich in colourful fruits and vegetables supports overall health and energy without interfering with treatment.

Managing Side Effects

For side effects like nausea, natural remedies such as ginger tea can help, along with any recommended pharmaceuticals. Deep Inspiration Breath Hold (DIBH) may also be a useful technique to explore, depending on your treatment plan.

Additional Support

By working with PROSPER Cancer CARE, you can receive a personalised plan to complement these self-care strategies, optimizing your overall experience during radiation. Stay in close communication with your healthcare team for guidance and support and remember that comprehensive care is key to enhancing well-being through your treatment journey.

Next Episode Preview:  Carla explores innovative complementary care options for bladder cancer.

Find PROSPER Natural Cancer CARE on Instagram @prosper.cancer.care or visit www.prospercancercare.co.

For more information or to get in touch, connect with Carla on Instagram @carlawrenn or visit www.carlawrenn.com.

Disclaimer: This podcast is intended to be informational only and represents the opinion of the participants, but not necessarily their workplace. It is not intended to be used as medical advice and does not take the place of advice from a qualified health care practitioner in a clinical setting. Please check with your healthcare practitioner before embarking upon any of the treatments or lifestyle changes discussed.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Welcome to Prosper Natural Cancer Care. I'm Carla Wren. We discuss naturopathic cancer care, integrative oncology, and lifestyle medicine, examining complimentary medicine tradition, science, and evidence-based personalized health care for people with cancer. If you or a loved one has a cancer diagnosis, or you're a professional with an interest in complementary medicine or cancer care, you've come to the right place. Let's prosper. But before we start today, let's take a moment to define the word prosper and why it's an important word for me in the work I do. Prosper is defined as to flourish physically, grow strong and healthy, to become strong and flourishing, to cause to succeed or thrive. These words and words like choose hope are important to me as I aim to empower, educate, and encourage people in my practice and on this podcast. Please be sure to take a moment at the end of today's show to listen to the very important disclaimer. Today we're looking at nurturing yourself during radiotherapy, and this is a great guide for those looking at using natural or complementary medicines during their oncology treatment. Or if you're a carer of someone undergoing treatment, this podcast may interest you. So undergoing radiotherapy can be a really challenging journey, often accompanied by many side effects such as radiation dermatitis and fatigue. However, with the right support and care, I've found that you can minimize these effects and promote healing throughout your treatment process. And avoiding things like you know, mucositis, whether it be the mouth or the bottom, effects on the heart and lungs, if they're in the field of radiation. Radiotherapy is, you know, uh so different for everyone, and um the side effects experience is different for everyone, but complimentary medicines have a lot of evidence base for supporting those side effects and improving outcomes. So today in the podcast, we'll explore some practical tips and strategies aimed to help you feel your best during radiotherapy. But please listen to the disclaimer at the end of today's show and ensure that you get personalized advice to help you know improve your outcomes during radiotherapy and ensure you don't undertake anything that might be contraindicated during your therapy. So when we prepare for radiotherapy, before you start radiotherapy, you want you know it's important to prepare your body to cope with potential side effects. And I say to my patients in Prosper Cancer Care Clinic that it's a bit like preparing for a marathon. And it really does depend on how many sessions you're having. Chemotherapy and radiotherapy are personalized for each cancer type, and radiotherapy can range from a couple of really high, um, highly focused stereotactic type radiation, maybe on the brain, to more extensive radiotherapy over a period of maybe five weeks. And so the type and extent of your radiotherapy will really impact the level of side effects you may experience and how and where you experience those side effects, but generally preparing for it like as if it's a bit of a marathon, resting well beforehand, eating well, eating lots of protein, those building blocks of your body, and getting yourself ready is something that you may have time to focus on doing. Fresh turmeric has been shown to um, or turmeric as a supplementation has been shown to improve outcomes in radiotherapy, um, and it can be part of a radiotherapy plan to complement the radiotherapy. There is loads of published research on this, and if you just head to PubMed, you can see that. Um, but also minimize some side effects, particularly on the skin and the mucous membranes. Now, um a fresh turmeric in your diet, a small amount, maybe a 10 cent piece, sliced into a juice or added into curries is a great way you can utilize this in your diet, but in the clinical setting, we may, where appropriate, use a strong uh curcumin type formula. Please don't do this without seeking the advice of a professional. Now, using um moisturizer on the area of the radiation prior to radiotherapy is even really important. It's a way we can improve the barrier function of the skin and reduce the risk of radiation dermatitis. But once radiotherapy starts, there are some very specific creams formulated for radiation patients, such as BioFirst Skin Saver, a great cream out of New Zealand. And these creams contain things like manuka honey, slippery elm, green tea, St. Mary Sicile, and other herbs and nutrients, which have all been clinically reduced to help to reduce or prevent radiodiction dermatitis when applied before the radiation treatment starts and maybe daily two hours after radiation treatment. But you really need this to seek the advice of a practitioner such as myself before using a therapeutic cream like BioFirst. Mugu also has a great um range of creams you can use in radiation. Now, this is a bit of a fun one, a bit of a home first aid one. Try a matcha spritz. Now, matcha or green tea specifically contains something called EGCG. And EGCG is a great ingredient found in green tea and matcha, which has been researched to reduce and minimize radiation dermatitis. And rather than ingesting it, although I would say for most patients suffering through uh cancer diagnosis or hopefully thriving through a cancer diagnosis, can drink green tea, creating a matcha spritz is or green tea spritz is done by simmering um organic matcha or green tea in water, um, reducing it down to make what we call a decoction, and then straining it of all the green tea and storing it in a spray bottle in the fridge. Now, this spray bottle of really strong green tea or matcha is a great thing to use as a spritz, almost like a toner after radiation sessions. It's nice because it's cool from the fridge and uh made hygienically, it's really, really low risk and used as a bit of a spritz can reduce some of the radiation side effects, most specifically radiation dermatitis. So certainly you don't use any creams or spritzes before the radiation session, but two hours afterwards or later in the day, it would be a great time to use the radiation spritz and maybe some skin saver cream. Now, energy is one of the most commonly complained about issues with radiotherapy. And many, many, many patients come to me each year at Prosper Cancer Care for support with energy during treatment or post-treatment. And certain herbs and nutrients can help combat fatigue in chemotherapy, whether it be from the cancer itself, from the chemotherapy, from the radiotherapy, or post-treatment. And so radiation-induced fatigue is one that we use herbs such as American ginseng, Shizandra, Korean ginseng, and with ania. But we need to consider a personalized hermal tonic to support your energy levels during treatment in your next appointment at Prosper Cancer Care because not all of those herbs I mentioned would be suitable for everyone. And some of those herbs may even interact with your treatment. So we need to check safety for sure. So strategies during radiation therapy. Um, once you get started your radiation therapy sessions, it's crucial to continue to support your body with emerging side effects. And so when you think about herbs like those for energy, um, we want to make sure that we continue those during treatment, uh, maybe even before treatment. If you're coming off the back of chemotherapy, you might need to do some work to boost yourself up before radiotherapy, and then for two to four weeks after radiotherapy concludes because those fatigues and other side effects really continue to come out in those two to four weeks after radiotherapy, even though the active radiotherapy is finished. And so, some strategies to consider uh during radiotherapy to also help with energy are keeping on moving and engaging in gentle, enjoyable exercise regularly, even if you're feeling fatigue, has an improved, huge improvement on energy. And so, exercise has been shown to alleviate radiation-induced fatigue. And so, aim for at least 20 minutes of activity a day, ideally before your radiation session has got really positive benefits to it in the research, which again you can head to PubMed and look up. Um, also eating the rainbow, and so while high dose antioxidants should be avoided during radiation therapy, this includes things like vitamin E and vitamin A, selenium, we don't use them during radiotherapy, and maintaining a balanced diet, rich in colourful fruit and vegetables is you know the prudent diet it's suggested for patients who are looking to sustain their energy and recover well from radiotherapy. If you start to feel other side effects, despite your best effort, you may you know experience other things like nausea. There are lots of other therapies that we can do to deal with things that might be more unique to you and your radiation specific journey. So, um, nausea, we use things like ginger, but there's also pharmaceutical options that your healthcare team may give you, and other side effects like radiation-induced constipation or diarrhea might be a problem. You might have mouth ulcers or some trouble swallowing, and we have lots of different suggestions. Glutamine, one is one that comes to mind that we might use really safely in this time, but again, reach out because it's not suitable for everyone. I wanted to also give a bit of a shout out to some great YouTube videos that my patients love. For some patients, you may need to do something called deep inspiration breath holds during your radiation session. And this is particularly common in some breast cancer treatments, and so familiarizing yourself with this deep inspiration breath hold can really help your confidence and reduce stress in the lead up to radiation. You might get a moment to be practicing with your um nurse if they've mentioned to you or your treatment coordinator that you might need to do this. But visiting YouTube and searching for tutorials on how to learn how to do deep inspiration breath hold and how to practice is something that my patients have really recommended over time as a way of you know building your confidence and just taking one other thing off your list. It's a bit like practicing some meditation, it's a great way to help improve that um side effect and ensure you feel confident going into your treatment. So, navigating radiation therapy requires a comprehensive support, in my opinion. Working with Prosper Cancer Care, you can personalize a plan to follow these tips and strategies. You can enhance your overall well-being throughout your treatment journey, but also stay well during radiotherapy. Keep in close communication with your healthcare team if you're going to start something like exercise. Remember, I love for you to visit with an exercise physiologist. Um, dealing with um the side effects can be um overwhelming, but with the help of a care team, I believe we can really help to reduce many of the side effects and stem off some of those emerging side effects you might start to feel very promptly before they become too much of a problem. With the right care and support, you can optimize your experience and promote real well-being during your treatment and beyond. In our next episode, we'll be investigating bladder cancer and innovative complementary medicine care. For more information on Prosper Natural Cancer Care, visit prospercancercare.co. For more information and to get in touch, please visit Carren.com. Disclaimer. This podcast is intended to be informational only and represents the opinion of the participants, but not necessarily their workplace. It is not intended to be used as medical advice and does not take the place of advice from a qualified health practitioner in a clinical setting. Please check with your healthcare practitioner before embarking upon any of the treatments or lifestyle changes discussed.