Typically used for nerve damage caused by diabetes or other reasons, acupuncture may also help ease the severe nerve pain associated with certain cancer drugs, suggests a small preliminary study published in Acupuncture in Medicine.
Some cancer treatments can cause nerve damage to the calves and feet, which can result in severe pain and difficulty walking. Unfortunately, there is no effective antidote as yet.
Out of 192 patients in the study, 11 developed symptoms during the course of chemotherapy, and six agreed to undergo acupuncture, attending ten 20-minute sessions over a period of three months, leaving the remaining five patients as the control group.
Nerve conduction studies were carried out before acupuncture and again six months after chemotherapy, showing five of the six patients receiving acupuncture had improvement in nerve signaling.
The authors point to previous research, which suggests that acupuncture may boost blood flow in the legs, which may in turn aid the repair of nerve damage. They concluded that the pilot study results are "encouraging" and merit further investigation in a larger study.