Acupressure May Relieve Nausea, Vomiting for Patients With Cancer

For patients with cancer grappling with nausea or vomiting due to their treatments may be able to find relief to this side effect through methods within their own reach.

Acupressure, a type of massage that involves the application of pressure to certain parts of the body, has been shown to help relieve nausea and vomiting, Linda E. Carlson explained in an interview with CURE.

“There is a type of self-acupressure that a person can do, like in preparation when they're going into chemotherapy, for example, they can do this. It's effective immediately in the moment when you're starting to feel those symptoms,” noted Carlson, who holds a doctorate in Clinical Psychology.

Pressure point P-6, also known as Neiguan, is found on the inner arm near the wrist, and applying acupressure to this point may help with nausea and prevent vomiting, according to an article posted by Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, located in New York.

Importantly, patients are advised against acupressure if the skin at or near the point is peeling or blistering or there is an open wound, a rash, redness, swelling, warmth or pus at or near the point.

Carlson, a member of CURE’s advisory board, is the Enbridge Research Chair in Psychosocial Oncology and a professor in the Department of Oncology, Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary. She is also the director of the Alberta Complementary Therapy and Integrative Oncology (ACTION) Centre and a member of the Department of Psychosocial Oncology at the Arthur Child Comprehensive Cancer Centre

Carlson spoke with CURE about the potential benefits of acupressure for patients.

Transcript

CURE: Why might nausea and vomiting be an area where patients need support?

Carlson: Unfortunately, quite a few cancer treatments cause nausea or vomiting. The term they use is emetic. So, if something's emetic, it means it makes you feel queasy and nauseous, and you can vomit. A lot of the drugs that people are given, standard chemotherapy drugs, are emetic (emetogenic agents is what they would call them). Different drugs are given a score on how emetic they are, how likely they are to make somebody feel nauseous or vomit. And so there are many drugs that are called antiemetics that are often given along with those treatments, like the different chemotherapies. So, they'll give patients an antiemetic to try and reduce that nausea and vomiting, which works for some people, but even those drugs are ineffective for some folks, and so they may feel the nausea during treatment, after treatment, but even following it for a few days, it's not uncommon to still feel queasy and such.

So, there is a type of self-acupressure that a person can do, like in preparation when they're going into chemotherapy, for example. They can do this, and it's effective immediately in the moment when you're starting to feel those symptoms. You can do this as an adjunct to the medication, and perhaps it means you don't have to take as much of the antiemetic medication, which many people prefer not to take medications if they can avoid it for side effect management.

Can you explain how acupressure works and how patients can use it safely alongside conventional treatments? 

You find this acupressure point on your wrist; it's three fingers down and it's between the tendons on the wrist. That's a point that's been identified through traditional Chinese medicine as being related to the nervous system that controls feelings of nausea. It's cool, actually. I first learned it when I was pregnant to control nausea in the first trimester. And for seasickness, they have these things called Sea-Bands, and they go around your wrist and have a little ball that pushes into that point.

Why is it important for Western medicine to integrate knowledge from traditional practices like Chinese medicine or Ayurveda?

I think Western medicine is finally starting to realize that they don't have all the answers, and it's such a young science, really. The paradigm of Western medicine used to be very arrogant and think, “Well, we know better because we have a better understanding of anatomy” or whatever. But the truth is that these ancient traditions like Ayurveda and traditional Chinese medicine have so much to offer that is evidence-based, that's been used for 2,000 or 3,000 years in many cases. And so, people in Western medicine are finally starting to become a bit more humble and say, “Gee, maybe there's something we can learn from these other medical systems,” because certainly there is, and it's folly to write that all off as just a bunch of bunk or whatever.

Transcript has been edited for clarity and conciseness.

Reference:

“Acupressure for Nausea and Vomiting,” by Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. https://www.mskcc.org/cancer-care/patient-education/acupressure-nausea-and-vomiting

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