A Queenstown-based clinic is providing a handy holistic alternative to traditional cancer treatments.
Don Kim and his wife Hera, an adviser on Asian health foods, have set up the self-treatment centre in the back of their Shotover Country home to specialise in Korean Hand Therapy (KHT), among a range of self-therapy methods.
During Don’s 35 years as an acupuncturist he always felt ‘‘so sorry for cancer patients struggling with conventional treatments’’ because acupuncture can’t do much to treat cancer.
Don learned and practised various self-treatment methods throughout his career, including KHT, a discipline he was first exposed to when working at a cancer clinic in South Korea more than three decades ago.
KHT is based on the premise that each human hand contains 345 acu or reflex points that represent every part of the body.
‘‘You can treat the whole body by treating the hand,’’ Don says.
So he developed a programme around KHT and other traditional Korean heat treatment ‘moxas’ and therapeutic exercise.
The package uses cancer treatment equipment unique to New Zealand, but common in hospitals and clinics in the likes of Korea, Japan and Germany.
The programme, conducted over five consecutive days from the couple’s home clinic, comprises three parts — training patients and carers in self-treatment modes, a nutrition class, and finally the patients putting their learnings into practice.
‘‘Doing acupuncture is like selling fish, teaching Korean hand therapy and other self-treatment methods to people is like teaching them how to fish,’’ Don says.
He isn’t concerned that teaching patients self-treatment is cutting him out of repeat business.
Traditional cancer methods can cost lots of money and patients can still go downhill quickly, he says.
His goal is to equip as many patients as possible with the knowledge and tools to help themselves, before he retires.
Hera’s tailored cancer diet is based on the principles that eating more simple vegetables and fruit and fewer high-calorie carbohydrates, sugars and red meat, give people the best chance of fighting the disease.
‘‘Nutrition is very important because what we eat is what we are,’’ she says.
Christchurch-based couple Jeremy and Viane McCalla were its first customers four weeks ago.
Jeremy was diagnosed with stage four bowel cancer in 2020 and has since ‘‘tried all different types of cancer treatments’’ with carer Viane.
For the past year he’s had a break from chemotherapy which cost him ‘‘tens of thousands of dollars … [and] is not targeted, it kills everything’’.
He says he ‘‘definitely feels a lot better’’ following the custom-made programme.
‘‘It’s the change in diet … it’s the treatment Don teaches you to do yourself and all the different methods … it’s very beneficial.
‘‘[And] there’s no side effects.’’
