People call my clinic about cancer more often than you might expect, and the calls tend to arrive in one of two states.
Some are in the middle of treatment and dealing with what treatment has done to them — numb feet, hands that drop things, a fatigue that no amount of rest touches. Others are further along, frightened, and quietly hoping that somewhere in an alternative clinic in South Louisiana there is an answer the oncologists missed.
I answer both groups the same way, and it starts with a sentence I say before anything else: we are not a cancer clinic.
I want to explain why I lead with that, because after nearly 30 years I have come to think it is the most important thing I say all day.
Why I Say It First
Because the alternative health field has a serious problem with this condition, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.
There are practitioners who will take money from a frightened person by implying that oxygen, light, frequency or a filtration machine does something to a tumour. It does not. And the cost of that implication is not measured in dollars — it is measured in the weeks somebody spends pursuing it instead of starting the treatment that would have worked.
I would rather lose the enquiry than be part of that. If somebody calls me hoping I have an alternative to oncology, my answer is that I do not, that nobody honest does, and that they should go back to their oncologist. That conversation ends some phone calls. I have made my peace with it.
What I Refuse to Say About Your Treatment
I will not tell anyone that chemotherapy is poison.
You hear that language constantly in my field, and I understand where it comes from — these treatments are hard, and the people going through them are visibly suffering. But somebody who is halfway through a course and already exhausted does not need a practitioner planting doubt about the one thing actually protecting them. Those treatments exist because they work, and adherence matters.
I also will not advise anyone about their regimen. That belongs to the oncologist who has the imaging, the pathology and the staging, and nothing I do gives me standing to weigh in. If a patient asks me whether they should stop something, my answer is always the same: ask the person managing your care, and do not make that decision based on anything you read on the internet, including anything written by me.
And Why I Do Not Offer a Theory of How Cancer Happens
This one deserves its own section, because I talk about cellular health constantly and the connection is easy to draw badly.
I think about most conditions in terms of cells that are not functioning as they should and a nervous system that has lost connection to them. That framework is useful in my work. It is not a theory of how cancer forms, and I would ask that nobody read it as one. Cancer biology is genuinely complex, it is driven by processes I am not qualified to explain, and I am not a cancer doctor.
There is a further reason I am careful here, and it is about the reader rather than about accuracy. If I imply that cancer arises from cells made unhealthy by how somebody lived, then every person reading it who has cancer now knows what I am suggesting about them. I have sat across from enough people carrying that particular weight already. I am not going to add to it.
So What Do I Actually Do?
Something narrower, and genuinely useful.
The most common thing I see is nerve damage from treatment. Numbness and tingling in the feet and hands, loss of fine motor control, unsteadiness because the feet have stopped reporting position reliably. It is one of the most frequent lasting effects of chemotherapy and one of the least well served — oncology guidance is candid that the medication options for it are limited.
That is a functional nerve problem, and functional nerve problems are what I have spent three decades on. I assess where signal is running below capacity, work on restoring what can be restored, and work on balance, strength and daily function alongside it.
Then there is everything that arrives with it: fatigue that outlasts the treatment, months of deconditioning, disrupted sleep, and a nervous system that has spent a long stretch in a protective state. Those interact with each other, and they respond better to being treated as a pattern than as separate complaints.
None of that touches the cancer. All of it touches the person’s week.
Timing, and the Things That Have to Wait
If somebody is in active treatment or has a current diagnosis, everything goes through their oncologist before we start. Not as a formality — some of what I use is not appropriate during active treatment, and light-based therapy should not be applied over a known or suspected tumour site at all.
Sometimes the outcome of that conversation is that we wait. I would rather have that conversation and lose a few months of work than skip it. Anyone in my field who treats oncologist sign-off as an obstacle to be worked around is someone I would not send a family member to.
Why Restraint Is the Point in This Field
I have watched this profession for a long time, and I have come to believe that what separates practitioners is not mainly technique. It is what they are willing to claim.
Every practitioner has a set of things they can help with and a much larger set they cannot. The honest ones know where that boundary sits and say so out loud, before anyone asks. The rest let the boundary stay comfortably vague, and vagueness in this particular condition is not a marketing decision — it is how people end up making choices that cost them time they did not have.
So I state the limit first, every time. It is also, I think, why the people who do come to me tend to trust what I say afterwards. They have already heard me turn something down.
Where I Would Start
If you are dealing with the effects of treatment, the first steps are not ones you need me for.
Movement, graded to what you can actually do and cleared with your team, does more for neuropathy symptoms, balance and fatigue than anything on a prescription pad currently does. Protect your sleep. Keep your foundations — hydration, daylight, breathing — steady, because they set the ceiling for how much capacity you have.
Keep a short weekly note of where the numbness reaches, what you can still do with your hands, and what you have stopped doing because it feels unsafe. Take it to your oncology appointments. If you are still in treatment, that record can matter for dosing decisions while those decisions are still being made.
If you want the at-home material, BodyChargers covers it — check with your team about what suits your situation. If you want a full functional assessment, the Nerve Health Institute in Lafayette is where that happens.
And if you came here looking for something to replace your oncology treatment, I hope this page has been the one that sends you back to it. That would be a good outcome too.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can supportive care after cancer treatment replace oncology care?
No, and anyone suggesting it can is not somebody to trust with your health. Supportive care addresses the effects of treatment — neuropathy, fatigue, balance, sleep, daily function. It does not act on cancer, and it sits alongside your oncology team rather than in place of them.
Do you treat cancer?
No. I am not a cancer doctor and my clinic is not a cancer clinic. If that is what you are looking for, I will tell you so on the phone rather than book you in.
What do you actually help with?
Mostly nerve function after chemotherapy — numbness, tingling, loss of fine motor control, unsteadiness — along with fatigue, deconditioning, balance and sleep. These are common, they are poorly served, and they are squarely within what I have spent my career on.
Can I see you while I am still in chemotherapy?
Sometimes, with your oncologist’s agreement and with the plan built around your treatment cycles. Some of what I use is not appropriate during active treatment, so the answer occasionally is that we wait.
Do you think cancer is caused by unhealthy cells?
I think about cellular function and nerve connection in my day-to-day work, but I do not offer that as an explanation of how cancer forms, and I would not want it read that way. Cancer biology is outside my expertise, and implying a patient’s illness came from how they lived would be both unsupported and unkind.
Why does your site say what you cannot do so prominently?
Because in this particular field it is the most useful thing I can tell you. If you know where my limits are, you can judge for yourself whether what remains is worth your time — and you will know I am not going to say something convenient later.
Want to Go Deeper?
Start with the at-home material, or book a full functional assessment at the clinic. If you are in active treatment, speak to your oncology team first.
Explore BodyChargers → bodycharger.com
Visit the Clinic → nervehealth.com/get-treatment/
