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Your guide to integrative cancer care
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Walk with Each Other: Healing Circles

Healing Circles Global, a sister program to BCCT, offers support for all those living with cancer and their caregivers. If you have been newly diagnosed, are at the beginning, in the middle or beyond treatment, or if you have lived with cancer for a while, we invite you to join our circles.

Healing circles are safe and supportive spaces to walk with each other through these times. Together, we can find meaning in the challenge of cancer, bear witness to suffering, and explore our own individual capacity for healing.

Read the full blog post by Diana Lindsay, co-founder of Healing Circles Langley and Healing Circles Global. Diana shares her story about how social support, including through Healing Circles, has nurtured her healing.

Chemosensitivity Testing: A Patient's Story

Chemosensitivity testing evaluates cancer cells in the lab to determine which drugs and natural substances elicit the best response. Proponents say testing helps oncologists figure out which drugs a specific tumor is or isn’t sensitive to. Though promising, chemosensitivity testing is considered experimental, and the American Society for Clinical Oncology (ASCO) advises use only in clinical trials.

We recently interviewed Lindsay McDonell, an integrative oncology navigator and breast cancer survivor, about her experience pursuing chemosensitivity testing and using the results to adjust her treatment plan. Visit our new story Lindsay McDonell: Chemosensitivity Testing to read her story of testing in Austria and then working with her oncologist in the US to modify her treatment. We extend our gratitude to Lindsay for sharing her experiences and insights with us.

Learn more about chemosensitivity testing on our page Standard and Non-standard Diagnostic Approaches. We review situations in which oncologists in the US may use chemosensitivity testing results in planning treatment, and we share commentary from several BCCT advisors with varying experience with and approaches to testing.

Preparing to Be Vaccinated: An Integrative Approach

You might be wondering if there’s anything you can do to optimize your vaccination response to COVID-19. The answer is yes! The Institute for Functional Medicine (IFM) has developed a Pre-Vaccination Protocol with actions you can take by yourself, as well as with your doctor, that may improve your vaccination experience. The protocol aims to optimize lifestyle factors and pre-emptively improve immune function and reduce inflammation—all helping to improve the effectiveness of vaccination and decrease your side effects.

BCCT senior researcher Laura Pole, RN, MSN, OCNS, reviews this protocol in Preparing to be Vaccinated: An Integrative Approach. You'll learn how to optimize your nutrition and microbiome, your body terrain and your psychospiritual terrain in preparation for vaccination. Recommendations are tailored to match the expected timing of your vaccination—whether within a few days, or weeks to months away.

We send you our sincere wishes for wellness throughout this spring season.
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Beyond Conventional Cancer Therapies informs your choices in integrative cancer care. Visit our website to explore reviews of integrative approaches informed by scientific evidence—from herbs and supplements to mind-body approaches—plus resources for finding community and support, and much more.
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