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Alternative Medicine Joins Cancer Fight

Woman Started With Acupuncture, Now Just Gets Tests

Updated: 3:12 pm EDT October 20, 2008

Bonnie Frisch has been battling breast and ovarian cancer for more than a decade. After multiple surgeries, chemotherapy and radiation, both cancers came back for the third time, Madison television station WISC reported.

"So that's when I started looking for other things to do. Obviously the chemo alone wasn't doing it," Frisch said.

Frisch's quest led her to Eastern medicine.

Dr. Lucille Marchand, the clinical director of integrative oncology services at the University of Wisconsin Carbone Cancer Center, helped Frisch make some important health decisions.

"Integrative medicine is not only looking at the whole person -- mind, body, spirit -- but also bringing conventional Western medicine with alternative and complementary therapies so that there's just a broader range," Marchand said.

Frisch started with acupuncture but also practices a Chinese relaxation exercise called Qi Gong several times each week at the Oriental Bodywork and Acupuncture Clinic in McFarland.

"Acupuncture is pretty benign. We put the needles in, we take the needles out. So, it's not like surgery," said Terrence Mason, owner and operator of the Oriental Bodywork and Acupuncture Clinic.

But alternative medicine comes at a price. Frisch and Marchand said that very few insurance companies cover the cost of treatment.

Despite Frisch's seemingly good health, she has recurrent ovarian cancer.

"Right now, I'm using the Western methods just for the blood tests and scans, just to kind of keep an eye on what's going on internally," Frisch said.

Although UW doctors have told Frisch she has ovarian cancer once again and she should feel sick, Frisch said she feels great, which makes her think the treatments are working.

"Of course, I'm feeling fine. I think that's really baffling (the doctors)," Frisch said.

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