“It sucks,” says a friend, talking about symptoms of her chronic illness—joint pain and extreme stiffness, fatigue, depression, difficulty focusing—the worst of a host of complaints that had been misdiagnosed for many years. Medications she took did little to alleviate her symptoms. Getting the correct diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis provided better targeting of medical treatment for her symptoms.

Conventional diagnosis, treatments, and medications typically used to treat illnesses—called allopathic medicine—are often crucial in offering relief from symptoms of chronic illness. But from an allopathic perspective, chronic illness is by definition incurable. According to an integrated approach to health, it doesn’t have to be.

As Dr. Kristina Maciunas, M.D., explained to me, an integrated approach uses allopathic medicine along with complementary and alternative treatments. She says that a person is a complex being—body, mind, and spirit—and that all are involved in a person’s health and healing. With an integrated approach, many patients can diminish their symptoms dramatically, and some can even cure or put their chronic illnesses into remission.

Some medical treatments treat the root causes of the chronic illness. Acupuncture, for example, treats autoimmune disease by rebalancing the patient’s energy. Some acupuncturists have good results treating hepatitis, Lyme disease, and MS, as well as less debilitating conditions like allergies. Osteopaths manipulate the bone structure of patients to help the circulatory and nervous systems function more fully to promote healing. Traditional osteopaths have had success in healing everything from allergies and ear infections to intestinal problems.

Says Dr. Andrew Weil, in his book Spontaneous Healing, healing does not necessarily mean being free of chronic illness. It means having an inner sense of wholeness, balance, peace. Suppressing the painful and debilitating symptoms of chronic illness helps, but it is not enough.

Nutrition has a tremendous impact on our ability to heal. Alyssa Harris, an applied kinesiologist chiropractor, points out how nutrition and herbals can help diabetics increase their usability of insulin. Freeing themselves of refined foods and sugars and detoxifying their bodies, many people with a variety of illnesses find their minds clearer and their energy increased.

And our surroundings can affect chronic illness. Listening to the news and being around negative people actually can affect our well-being. Weil suggests taking day- and week-long news breaks. And there are other ways to reduce stress—breath training, meditation, visualization, massage, and exercise—especially yoga, qigong, and tai chi chuan.

Stress reducers help us relax and focus—two critical components in good health. Yoga, qigong, and tai chi chuan also move blood, lymph, and oxygen through our bodies. And they move bio-electric energy thus stimulating the vital systems to function better. For example, practicing tai chi chuan has been shown to reduce high blood pressure, improve digestion, and improve immune system and cognitive functions.

Using complementary and alternative forms of healing can also help create awareness of internal impacts on health. Yoga and meditation, for example, can help a person feel and release tension held in the neck and shoulders which is exacerbating other symptoms of chronic illness. Bringing into alignment mind, body, and spirit encourages the patient to be more self-aware and responsible for his or her own treatment and leads to better health.

Because there are now so many treatments available, choosing which healing modalities are right for you can be confusing. Dr. Maciunas believes that patients serve themselves best when they become informed about their illness and choose their own treatments.

It may help to know what others have tried. Rob has had Parkinson’s for seven years. His allopathic medication takes care of many symptoms but not all. Deep tissue massage relieves severe back pain. Alexander Technique helps him stand more upright. Through tai chi chuan practice he realizes that hunching his back is a form of self protection. He also uses his new ability to relax deeply to release frequent Charley horses and to feel his own energy to fight depression.

Pat, who has diabetes, uses qigong and ba gua to relieve joint pain and strengthen her legs, which helps her exercise more. Her energy is also increasing. Doing 100 days of the same exercise (a gong) has helped her find focus and regain a rhythm to her life.

The friend I mentioned still suffers from difficult symptoms. She has used a variety of healing modalities—yoga, acupuncture, homeopathy, karate and tai chi, dietary changes, counseling—to cope. In spite of her difficult illness, she creates fine art, works in her lovely gardens, does volunteer work, reads, knits, and keeps a household running.

Integrated approaches can improve quality and quantity of life. And sometimes they help find a measure of wholeness, peace, and balance.