"Another potential role of acupuncture in patients with cancer is the palliation of chronic pain. Several case reports and series suggest that acupuncture may provide relief when conventional measures fail to control chronic pain resulting from underlying disease or conventional treatments (surgery or radiation). However, RCTs are needed to confirm the value of acupuncture in the management of chronic cancer-related pain.
"... In summary, RCTs to date, although limited in size, suggest that it is certainly reasonable to accept the use of acupuncture in conjunction with standard antiemetics to control chemotherapy-related nausea and vomiting and that recommendation for this purpose might be considered. Fewer data are available on the use of acupuncture in palliation of chronic cancer-related pain, but it seems reasonable to accept this approach if patients elect to try it.
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Fertility acupuncture sometimes gets presented as a narrow protocol: a handful of reproductive points applied uniformly across patients. What this case reinforced for me: The most powerful work happens when we read the whole picture. The hormone data, the constitutional tendency, the sleep, the digestion, and the menstrual pattern, so we can treat the environment the ovaries live inside.
Mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS) affects more than 15% of the U.S. population but evades most practitioners’ radar. Just five years ago, it wasn’t even on my radar, despite already having 20 years of experience as a clinician at that time. The more I dug (similar to leaky gut and post-COVID syndrome), the more I found my patients were suffering from this disorder.
The motivation behind our practice of medicine is important, impacting not just our experience but also the experiences of those we treat. It is perhaps for this reason that the aspiration to help not just some, but all beings heal, has historically been an important part of the medical tradition. To explain this, we need to consider how medicine is interwoven with other social domains.