Educate Me: Complementary and Alternative Medicine for Cancer-Related Infertility

Last week I was inundated with emails about complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). Requests for referrals. Questions about its viability to help with cancer, infertility and other medical conditions. Inquiries about my personal experiences and beliefs. The volume of requests in one week sent me down memory lane to a time when I was obsessed with CAM. This was, of course, when I was in the midst of my cancer crisis. I tried it all. I have my own miracle stories as well as spooky experiences. There are things I’ve incorporated into my daily life and others I’ll never do again. From my perspective, CAM doesn’t seem to be as popular in the fertility world as it is in the cancer world, but the area is growing. Where the two overlap – in our world of cancer and fertility – there seem to be a lot of unanswered questions. For example, you are born with all of the eggs you will ever have and once they are destroyed there is nothing anyone can do to bring them back. Is there a role for CAM here? Please educate me. Can CAM help cancer survivors preserve their fertility? Can it help with pregnancy after cancer? Patients, survivors and I want to know more…