When Lisa Duhl was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1982, it seemed she had two treatment options. She could have a mastectomy and undergo chemotherapy, or she could give alternative medicine a try.
Instead, the then 36-year-old Berkeley resident decided on a course of treatment that was quite unusual for the day: she decided to do both. Now, 17 years later, she's still free of cancer and hasn't had a recurrence.
Today, many people are finding that a combination of conventional and alternative therapies is the best bet for fighting serious diseases such as cancer and heart disease. It's a new brand of medicine: integrative medicine.
Ahead of her time
At the time Duhl learned of her cancer, advocates of conventional and alternative medicine were at odds with each other, leading many people to believe they had to choose between the two kinds of medicine.
Duhl didn't see the situation that way. Her life was on the line, and she was willing to try any and every approach to stay alive. She decided to combine elements of both conventional and alternative medicine into a treatment plan that best addressed her physical, mental and emotional needs.
"I felt a lot of pressure...to use alternatives instead of conventional medicine," recalls Duhl, who just completed her doctorate in psychology. "People said chemotherapy would kill me, and that if I didn't do alternative medicine, I'd die."
"I told them I had a 10-year-old daughter who wouldn't forgive me if I didn't do everything I could to save my life."
Duhl's treatment regimen included visualization, the use of mental imagery to stimulate healing responses in the body. She practiced a Chinese form of meditation called chi kung and relied on acupuncture to reduce the nausea caused by chemotherapy. She also worked with a Native American medicine woman and several spiritual healers.
The cheering section
Fortunately, Duhl had the support of her husband, who was no stranger to integrative medicine. As a professor in the University of California-Berkeley's School of Public Health, Dr. Len Duhl had always encouraged his medical students to open their minds to the world of unconventional health practices and to integrate them into a more complete approach to healing. "We depended upon the best and most advanced chemotherapy protocols available," he said. "We also found that while conventional medicine was important and excellent, it ignored certain issues that were important."
"The alternative practitioners supplemented Lisa's treatment, and as a team they were formidable."
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