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Functional Health Doctors
What is a functional health doctor?
Also known as an integrative oncologist or naturopath, these doctors can bridge the gap between standard medicine and alternative medicine, helping you with things such as supplements, re-purposed drugs, nutrition, as well as alternative therapies like PEMF and local hyperthermia. After an initial consultation they will design a program specific to you. They do often analyse blood also, to make sure the supplements are applicable to your underlying condition.
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Yes To Life website explains: "Integrative medicine is the judicious combining of conventional treatments such as chemotherapy, radiotherapy and surgery, with lifestyle and complementary therapies, to broaden patient choice, increase patient engagement, improve quality of life and extend survival. It’s a ‘best of both worlds’ scenario that has its roots in the patient perspective. Historically, it’s been an ‘either/or’ situation between conventional medicine and other approaches, which has often placed patients in an extremely difficult position at one of the most stressful points in their lives. Any open-minded patient looking for the best possible outcome is far less interested in the label attached to an approach, than in whether or not it could help them. This is the perspective that underpins Integrative medicine. Lifestyle practitioners, however, are far more preoccupied with the process of cancer – what circumstances prompted it to start, what is driving it – and overarchingly they are concerned with optimising the health and immunity of the patient. Their approach can result in a slowing or reversing of the process, which can deliver unexpectedly good outcomes in even late stage cancers."
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Dr Saskia Kloppenberg is a great resource. She is highly knowledgeable, has a lot of different treatments and can have a nurse come to your house to deliver IV treatments if you can't get to London. Whoever you choose, the doctor will look at your scans, blood tests and doctor's letters, talk with you and then design a treatment plan specifically for you. So make sure in advance to get all documentation from your oncologist and/or surgeon. The doctor cannot legally recommend that you do alternative treatments instead of conventional treatments like chemo, radiation or surgery, however many, many people do take a solely alternative route.
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More information on integrative health here.
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Where do I find one?
Heal Navigator's list of doctors.
Here are a few recommendations from Yes To Life.
How much do they cost?
You will need to have an initial consultation which costs anywhere from £350 to £650. Dana Flavin costs $3900. The costs are listed on the different websites.