Cancer pain can be debilitating, whether it's pain caused by the disease itself or pain related to treatment. Fortunately, research suggests acupuncture can serve as a viable, nondrug therapy to combat cancer pain, giving patients already in great physical and emotional distress much-needed relief.
An important systematic review and meta-analysis just published in JAMA Oncology suggests acupuncture and/or acupressure is effective for reducing cancer pain. Researchers examined randomized clinical trials that compared acupuncture and acupressure with a sham control, analgesic therapy or usual care for managing cancer pain.
Overall, 17 RCTs (1,111 total patients) were included in the systematic review, and 14 RCTs (920 total patients) in the meta-analysis. The primary outcome was pain intensity measured by the Brief Pain Inventory, Numerical Rating Scale, Visual Analog Scale, or Verbal Rating Scale, with findings summarized as follows:
These findings are significant because, as the authors state, more than 70 percent of cancer patients experience pain, but pain is inadequately controlled in nearly 50 percent of cases; and also because "addiction to analgesics and the adverse effects of pharmacological interventions pose critical challenges to pain management."
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.
Research supports the effectiveness of selecting the distal acupuncture points for the treatment of microtrauma and for relieving pain, particularly in cases of chronic shoulder pain. But to make the treatment results long-lasting, clinical experience and research suggest that instead of treating the most painful structure first, we identify the inhibited driver, restore reliable recruitment, confirm it with immediate re-testing, and only then address the painful area as a branch of a deeper pattern.
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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.