Acupuncture During Chemotherapy

This past week I was reminded how helpful community acupuncture is for folks as they undergo chemotherapy. A clinic goer first came in at the urging of her care team after having many symptoms from her chemo treatments to treat her diagnosis of breast cancer. She was skeptical that acupuncture could help with her new symptoms of bone and joint pain, fatigue, anxiety and her self-described “chemo brain”. She came in for community acupuncture twice a week for about two months. Within the first few treatments, she began to feel a bit better and was surprised that tiny needles and a nap in the recliner were bringing her relief.

She now comes in once every one to two weeks for ongoing support. As I placed her needles in this week she whispered over how she never expected that acupuncture would be so helpful. She said she had been a skeptic but now realizes that “acupuncture is the best thing I’ve done to feel better”.

I’ve treated many folks over the years with a similar story. Acupuncture tends to help folks manage their symptoms as they move through their treatments so they can feel some relief and keep doing the things they need to do. We kept our masking policy running for a while after other clinic/medical settings had removed their own policies. Our patients going through chemo felt safer and less at risk of contracting covid-19 or any other community spread illness while we were masking. Now that transmission levels in our community are down to low enough levels, we leave masking up to everyone individually but made sure our patients going through the fight with chemo were among our top priorities. We also have another blog post more generally discussing cancer care and acupuncture.

Acupuncture is a simple treatment modality in a non-medical environment that gives some relief. If you or a loved one are experiencing the effects of chemotherapy, please consider making an acupuncture appointment as soon as you can. We would love to help you feel like yourself again.

You can call/text us at (908)237-1076, or visit our booking site by clicking here. We hope to see you soon!