Posted in Complementary Therapies

Information for GP's, Medical Oncologists and other Health Practitioners regarding the use of cannabis for chronic cancer and pain support. Most medicinal cannabis products are 'unregistered medicines' and therefore do not appear on the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods. To access unregistered medicines a doctor must make an application to the TGA on a patient's behalf. Preferably this would be a specialist in the illness being treated, but a GP can manage the ap...

How to get medical cannabis extracts in Australia - what is the process? There is conclusive and substantial evidence for prescribing medicinal cannabis in many conditions, and was made legal in Australia in 2016. But medicinal cannabis is not a first line therapy in Australia - this means that it can't be prescribed at the first signs of pain, for example.  It can only be prescribed if multiple medications have been trialled and the current medicines available for that condit...

Counsellor and Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Well the 'journey' began long before I knew it was a journey... The bones of who I am, or the work Bio, says I'm a recycled Occupational Therapist - and prior to that as an Occupational Therapy aide working in Psychiatry, I had an epiphany it wasn't like Donald Neale Walsch having a conversation with God. It was just a simple sudden knowing that my voice would be my lifes' work. I was 23.  I was walking up and down in a re...

Exercise is a safe intervention that benefits most people during and after cancer treatment and can significantly help manage some of the side effects that can occur. Research suggests that exercise can: Improve quality of life Speed up return to your usual activities Help manage some of the common side effects of treatment
The positive impacts are plentiful. Research has demonstrated that exercise can reduce side effects during different phases of breas...

  Millennials, I'm talking to you! Monday was World Cancer Day, and the media releases that I saw on that day were very interesting as they were all about a healthy and preventative lifestyle! Even the Sydney Morning Herald led with the headline "Exercise and healthy diet key to reducing cancer rates, research shows"   Two of the biggest risk factors that lead to increased risk of cancer incidence and recurrence is the combination of obesity and sede...

Following on from last week's blog post, a number of my patients with breast cancer brought up concerns about their treatment-induced symptoms. So let's talk about it a little more. Endocrine therapy side effects: It's not just survival that matters. I think we can all agree that Endocrine Therapy is useful for many breast cancer survivors: The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) recently confirmed that although endocrine therapy doesn't affect overall surv...