How Can Acupuncture Help to Deal with the Side Effects of Chemotherapy?
Irreversible is not a word you want to hear from your Doctor but it’s a common one if you’ve been diagnosed with Chemotherapy-Induced Peripheral Neuropathy or CIPN.
Samantha survived cancer only to be living life in constant pain. He felt as though he were walking on pins and needles, becoming weaker and weaker everyday. “I was beginning to be worried that one day I would be wheelchair bound” she explained.
Nearly half of patients who undergo chemotherapy will develop CIPN.
Chemotherapy medications travel throughout the body and attack cancer cells. Sadly, they can also cause severe damage to healthy nerves. CIPN can begin within weeks of starting treatment and can worsen as treatment continues. A high number of unfortunate people will be forced to endure the symptoms associated with CIPN for months, or even years after they’ve completed chemo.
When asked how CIPN was affecting her quality of life, Samantha responded, “It was difficult to even walk up and down stairs and do other things we usually take for granted.”
The most common symptoms of Peripheral Neuropathy include: pain, tingling, burning, weakness, or numbness in arms, hands, legs or feet, sudden, sharp, stabbing or shocking pain sensations, loss of touch sensation clumsiness and trouble using hands to pick up objects or fasten clothing, loss of balance and falling.
For some, their nerves will recover over time. For most, the nerve damage is ‘irreversible.’ Samantha had been told just that by a series of doctors and specialists. Essentially they could cure her cancer but couldn’t fix the damage done by the drugs used to cure her cancer.
Then Samantha booked in for her first appointment at Yin Studio. She had heard from other people that I had been able to help them through the chemotherapy process and cancer recovery.
After a series of treatments Samantha was taking stairs in her stride!
She told me “I remember thinking ‘that’s become mighty easy for me’, I didn’t have to hold on to the hand rail or anything!”
Other side effects such as fatigue, hot flashes, diarrhoea and constipation, peripheral neuropathy and mouth sores can also be effectively managed with acupuncture. Patients also find that coming in for weekly acupuncture sessions while they are undergoing cancer treatments helps them sleep better, reduces anxiety and depression, and offers another level of support during their cancer journey.
There is also evidence to suggest that the practice can help immune function by supporting white blood cell count, and reduce the dry mouth feeling and difficulty swallowing experienced by many throat and neck cancer patients.
Research On Acupuncture In People With Breast Cancer And Other Types Of Cancer
Scientific testing - that includes monitoring patient experience with acupuncture, compared to prescribed drugs or a placebo - has slowly dispelled the once-held myth that the benefits of acupuncture were simply imagined. In fact, the results for some chemotherapy induced symptoms have been so compelling that in July this year, the American Society of Clinical Oncology listed acupuncture as a means of delivering one of the best practice methods of care for cancer-related pain.
Much research is being done on how acupuncture can help relieve some of the symptoms of cancer and side effects of cancer treatment. Acupuncture has been shown to help relieve fatigue, hot flashes, nausea, vomiting, and pain.
The most thorough study of acupuncture in breast cancer patients was published in Journal of the American Medical Association in 2000. In the study, 104 women undergoing high-dose chemotherapy were given traditional anti-nausea medication. In addition to taking the medication, the women were randomly chosen to receive 5 days of acupuncture or no acupuncture. The women who had acupuncture had significantly fewer nausea episodes than those who didn't.
Another study, completed at Duke University and published in 2002, compared the use of acupuncture to the use of Zofran (chemical name: ondansetron), an anti-nausea medication, before breast cancer surgery to reduce the nausea that can occur after surgery. The acupuncture treatment was found to work better than Zofran at controlling nausea.
In a French study published in 2003, acupuncture was examined in the treatment of cancer-related pain. Patients treated with acupuncture had a 36% reduction in pain after 2 months of acupuncture treatments, compared with a 2% reduction in pain in the patients receiving a placebo type of acupuncture.
In one very preliminary 2004 study at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, acupuncture was shown to reduce post-chemotherapy fatigue by 31% in people with various types of cancer. In 2005, another preliminary study of breast cancer patients in Sweden showed that acupuncture reduced hot flashes by half.
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Doctor of Chinese Medicine,
Registered Acupuncturist AHPRA
Yin Studio:
Founded in 2006 by Cathy Bell, Yin Studio has become a sought-after health and wellness clinic, known for its warm, inviting atmosphere and sincere, compassionate care for its patients.
Cathy Bell provides results-oriented, natural wellness care for people of all ages. Her goal with each patient is a long-term, self-sustained shift in core factors that determine health and wellness. These core factors bridge all levels of being — physical, psychological, even spiritual.
My mission is simple: To support YOUR health and goals, and help you make the most of them. Whether you want to complement your conventional medical treatments with natural support, or go with a 100% natural solution, I do my best to help you achieve the best outcome possible. Treatments are based on getting results as quickly and efficiently as possible. Results matter, and I am proud of a proven history of positive outcomes.
Your body’s natural healing intelligence never forgets how to restore balance and vitality to every cell, tissue, and organ. All you have to do is give it the right support. At Yin Studio you are an active participant in the healing process. You will be educated on the proper way to get your healing system back on track via a targeted, customised treatment plan that will include one or more of the following: acupuncture, herbs, food energetics, mindfulness techniques.