Integrative cancer support
A cancer diagnosis changes everything. The treatment that follows is often effective. It is also demanding. Fatigue settles in at a cellular level. Sleep becomes elusive. Nausea, peripheral neuropathy, joint pain, hot flashes, anxiety: the body carries an enormous load through treatment, and oncology is not always equipped to fully address the quality-of-life cost.
This is where integrative support becomes meaningful.
What I offer
I work with patients at all stages: before treatment begins, during active chemotherapy or radiation, and in recovery and survivorship. My role is not to treat cancer. It is to support the person navigating it: reducing side effects, maintaining resilience, improving sleep and daily function, and helping the body tolerate treatment as well as possible.
The Society for Integrative Oncology has published clinical practice guidelines recommending acupuncture for chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting, cancer-related fatigue, pain, chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy, anxiety, and sleep disruption, based on systematic reviews of randomized trial evidence. Memorial Sloan Kettering, MD Anderson, and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute all offer acupuncture within their integrative oncology programs. The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health maintains a current evidence summary. This is not fringe medicine. It is care that has been evaluated and integrated into leading cancer centers because it helps.
Chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy, the numbness, tingling, and pain in the hands and feet that often accompanies treatment, is one of the more undertreated side effects in conventional oncology. Clinical results vary, but many patients experience meaningful reduction in symptoms, particularly when treatment begins before neuropathy becomes severe.
How I work within your care
I time sessions to work well within chemotherapy cycles, stay current with the evidence on safe integrative care in oncology settings, and communicate with your oncologist when it is useful. Your primary care remains with your oncology team. What I offer is support for everything they cannot fully address.
For patients in survivorship, living with the aftermath of treatment and working to reclaim a sense of vitality, East Asian Medicine offers a framework for rebuilding that many find both effective and meaningful. Post-treatment fatigue, cognitive fog, sleep disruption, and the general sense of being depleted are real and often prolonged. Conventional oncology follow-up focuses on monitoring for recurrence. What I offer is support for the quality of life in between. I draw on acupuncture, Chinese herbal medicine, and moxibustion, which has a particular affinity for restoring warmth and vitality after the depleting effects of chemotherapy and radiation.
Please inform your oncologist that you are pursuing acupuncture. I am glad to communicate with your care team as needed.
If you are in treatment or recovery and looking for more support, the first visit is a good place to start that conversation.