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Why do Acupuncture treatments relieve Chemotherapy induced nausea?

Acupuncture, as a branch of TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) is uniquely suited to counteracting nausea of all kinds, including morning sickness and chemotherapy-induced nausea, because nausea is seen as a symptom of qi moving in the wrong direction.

Qi—often loosely referred to as energy, or life force, or vital force, and these are part of qi but not its sum total, as it is a moment in time when energy becomes matter, and therefore a process rather than a measurable substance—has various natural means of movement in the environment and in our bodies. When qi moves smoothly through the body, health is balanced, and a person is free of pain. However, when qi begins to be blocked in its smooth movement, it moves in different directions—nausea is referred to as "rebellious stomach qi" because the stomach qi is naturally supposed to move downward (the path of digesting food).

With chemotherapy, from a TCM perspective, the patient is consuming drugs that are classified as energetically cold. This makess sense from a TCM perspective because cancer is classified as blood heat toxin—in other words, the patient's own body has created a mass (tumor) from blood heat that has reached an extreme (toxic) level. This idea of toxin, by the way, is different than that of the natural health movement. While environmental toxins may contribute to many health problems, a balanced body can move through whatever the environment brings it with health. The Chinese recognized that a longstanding inbalance in the body could create a tumor. So to use energetically cold drugs to counteract this heat makes sense.

However, the stomach is susceptible to cold—simpler ways people can make themselves nauseated by accident is eating too many cold foods too fast (a child getting sick off of ice cream, for example). So nausea as a result of chemotherapy points the acupuncturist to two things: open the pathways that the qi is flowing 'backwards' (rebelling) so that it moves down, tonify (support) the stomach, and if the patient normally complains of cold symptoms (getting chilled easily, cold hands and feet, etc.) warm them.

The main acupuncture points to open the extraordinary meridian that courses up the midline of the body and branches out across the chest, the Chong Mai (penetrating meridian) are Pericardium 6 (located two proporational inches up from the wrist between the tendons, over the median nerve—the median nerve is NOT to be stimulated by the needle, this creates hand numbness) and Spleen 4 (located just inferior to the head of the first metatarsal bone of the foot, along the arch of the foot).

A secondary point, which also has the effect of relieving fatigue, stimulating appetite, and strengthening the immune system is Stomach 36, in the space just lateral to the tibial crest, below the head of the tibia, below the knee. The chinese name, zusanli, means "three more miles" indicating that the point was recognized as essential to producing endurance. It supports the immune system function because it helps the body to make both qi and blood from the food (our primary source of both things throughout life).

Moxibustion (the burning of stick or cone moxa, made from mugwort/artemisia vulgaris and possibly wormwood/artemisia absinthum and sage/salvia) is a technique that warms the body and relieves pain. It can be burned over Stomach 36, or over other points, such as on the abdomen or low back, to add to the warming of the patient's entire body.

Finally, since the acupuncturist treats the entire patient, they treat the body in question, chemotherapy and all. Other points may be selected in addition to these important anti-nausea points to address the patient's constitutional imbalances (a general tendency to fatigue, or to stress, or concurrent menopause, etc.). Pain can also be treated. Dietary recommendations may be offered to deal with nausea (adding ginger in all forms to the diet, since it relieves nausea also; adding cooked rice, which is an easily assimilated food, and so on).

While the patient may not in all cases be entirely free of nausea the day of or after chemotherapy, the severity of the nausa will be drastically reduced, the recovery time will be shortened, and the appetite will be maintaned (so that a patient doesn't begin skipping meals as a result). Fatigue will be relieved, which also improves the patient's general sense of well-being and promotes optimism about their course of treatment with chemotherapy.

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