CLEVELAND — As a 41-year-old fitness instructor, Crystal Inglis knows how to keep her body healthy. But she never expected a breast cancer diagnosis for Christmas last year. Her invasive ductal carcinoma was treated with a double mastectomy and four rounds of chemotherapy.
"My anxiety since the beginning of this year has been quite high. I've dealt with anxiety my entire life, but the last 10 years I've really managed it with exercise, a healthy diet, and spending time outside for me is really restorative. But going through this journey, it really wasn't cutting it," Crystal said.
That's when her medical oncologist at University Hospitals Seidman Cancer Center suggested she try integrative medicine. It combines traditional and alternative therapies to treat the whole body and mind.
"He really just listened to all of my concerns and gave me lots of options and I took them in bits and pieces because it's not the type of thing you can do all at once," Crystal said.
Getting back into her fitness routine was key to helping the anxiety. Other options include supplements, acupuncture, massage and breath work.
"It really does help taking a really big breath and holding it for a moment, it just takes my nervous system from like a 10 back down to a reasonable level," Crystal said.
Dr. Santosh Rao is a medical oncologist at UH Seidman Cancer Center and the Medical Director of Integrative Oncology for UH Connor Whole Health.
"There's a lot of research in what we call mindfulness, which is a type of meditation that really focuses on awareness, on staying present and really thinking about what are those kind of things that trigger certain emotions," Dr. Rao said.
Integrative care is part of Crystal's medical care team. Her treatment is personalized for her needs.
"It's meeting the patient where they are and, it's really about patient empowerment and it's giving people a direction and choice," Dr. Rao said. "We know that not every treatment is going to work the same for every patient, but people are motivated to do things that are going to help themselves and we need to partner with them and give them ideas and tools."
Crystal says she's going to start getting acupuncture treatments soon and she's also taken advantage of mental health therapy.
"I have to cope with knowing that I may never know why this happened and, I don't know how to prevent it from coming back," Crystal said. "So I'm not sure I feel like I have control moving forward, but what I can control is how I manage my anxiety on a day-to-day basis."
Dr. Rao says most integrative services are covered by insurance but his mission is to make it affordable for those cancer patients who may need it. He says if it's not offered, patients should ask their provider for information about it. Services can range from mental health therapy, to alternative treatments, acupuncture being one of the most popular.