I read here about acupuncture helping improve saliva production. I don't recall seeing number of treatments.

Is there a prevailing estimate of the number of treatments one needs for even some improvement?

I am on #5 I think. The doc said ten then see what is happening. He is also working on my BP in the same session.

Same for zinc and tastebudes. I read you can only do 3 times a day 50mg for 20 days..... Then what?

This is totally second hand info, but;
I heard in my support group that you need to wait about a year before acupuncture treatments will work.

I asked my oncologists and ENT, and they said that they see no evidence of that. There was something I read about acupuncture reducing side-effects of radiation, but I haven't tried that. My neighbor owns a place that has acupuncturist on staff keeps telling me how great it is for cancer patients, but I can't help but think that she just wants my money.

There is no empirical data in any peer reviewed published study that shows measurable salivary function changes from acupuncture. We have had numerous people here try it. While some felt that there was some minor improvement, it was a highly subjective feeling. There were collateral issues influencing their opinions - like they were still in the first year after the end of treatments, when things in small ways do get measurably better, and then there is the whole " I think there is some improvement" kind of comment, but that is hardly evidence it is opinion.

Everyone (me included) would like relief from acute xerostomia. But the truth is that the glands have literally been destroyed, beyond their ability to regenerate function. This is not a function that any professionals know how to correct today. Our biggest improvements in oral cancer patients have come from things that avoid the damage in the first place, like IMRT radiation that can be mapped around the parotid glands some times completely, or at least partially. There have been experimental surgeries to move the glands out of the field of radiation and then transplant them back into place afterwards. But taking a gland which has been destroyed on a cellular level and getting it to work again, given our current state of understanding (less stem cell interventions being tried in experiments now) makes regeneration of function a physical impossibility.

Acupuncture it seems, is more likely to financially help your acupuncturist than it is to help you regain salivary function. The gland is dead. Lazarus it is not.

Don B -your comment would be consistent in what we normally tell patients. That the natural return of some function tops out at about a year to 18 months after treatment - what you have then is what you will have forever after.

I had high hopes for this based on what I have read here. IT is also a common belief on other sites. Maybe you are right about the doc too. He has not been submitting my treatments to the insurance company. At least not the first 6 treatments.

After the cancer everything is a downer. I hear more and more of the sideaffects and losses which seem to be a reality. Statements and testomonials on relief of symptoms and healing are generally false it seems.

I complained to my psych that the worst thing about this experience is that no one official has stepped forward to tell me what to expect and how to live after surgery and radiation.

I get the feeling no one wants to step into the unknown. Unknown is the feeling I get from all of my doctors.
I can guess that everyone thinks I am naive but I am not the only cancer patient. I expected more help or information.
Sorry... I am still slipping up and down with my moods...

I did the accupuncture. My MO suggested it. He tells me that somewhere on his desk is a study that shows 60% get possitive results. (if you could see he desk!) My thoughts were WTH why not. I paid $35 per treatment. I was given 6 treatments. I am also of the believe that if the sugar pill works, well than take the sugar pill. It doesn't hurt, and it just might help. I was also treated for lower back pain for the same $35.

The same subject was discussed on this forum probably last year (before you joined) and so many of us were of the exact same opinion - we just felt like we were abandoned after treatments.

Unfortunately, I believe that is because OC has very little awareness and sometimes it can leave us with irreversable life changing issues that we have to deal with. It can have such a huge impact on just going about our day to day living. Swallowing, eating and speaking just to mention a couple.

Healing, both physically and mentally from this disease can take months after treatments have actually finished.

Karen

I made an appointment with the shrink I was seeing again. She held me together when my blood pressure dropped low and my fluids were low. But my best experience with doctors came from her just calling me the other day and for no other reason but to see how I was doing. That is what made want to see her again before I get too far away from all of this.
I am going to start work tomorrow. Insurance gave me another week but I need to see people and do something. I hope this will lift my spirits. I am going to let the acupuncture doc finish these treatments. Then wait and research for a second acupuncture professional. Get a second opinion.

Thanks again to all of you.

If there was a report that 60% of people with xerostomia were cured of it by accupunture, we would all be doing it, and like everything else that is too good to be true, we are not. Just did a Medline data base search for it, and nothing comes up, that has metrics at the end of it that is not completely subjective and published in some minor journal. If you feel you want to try this and spend the money on it.... go for it, there has never been any harm done by accupunture.

As stated by someone, this has all been discussed here before, and searching with the forum search engine will bring it all up.