Looking to see if anyone has experience treating tremors with dry needling in patients who are post cancer treatment.
I have a patient who came in for a consultation and is approximately three years out from cancer treatment but continues to experience persistent tremors. The onset appears to be related to specific cancer infusions. The patient has seen multiple neurologists, and treatment to date has focused primarily on medications, including seizure medications, with minimal improvement.
For additional context, the tremors appear to start in the feet and lower legs and then progressively work their way upward into the arms and hands.
Given that symptoms have persisted for three years without meaningful improvement, I am exploring whether dry needling could be a reasonable adjunct or trial option. Before attempting any intervention, I wanted to gather feedback from others who may have experience, research insight, or clinical considerations related to dry needling in this population.
Any thoughts on precautions, muscle selection, treatment rationale, or outcomes you have observed would be greatly appreciated.
Hi!
I do not have experience with dry needling specifically for tremors post cancer treatment, but have effectively used homeostatic points to dull Parkinson’s tremors pretty reliably. Coming from that thought process, I would encourage you to think more globally and start with bilateral UE/LE homeostatics like (deep/superficial radial and maybe saphenous, common fibular/deep fibular) depending on the tremor mechanisms. I would also encourage you to consider T6/T7 region because of its influence on autonomic ganglion.
I hope this is helpful to you for this patient!
Hi Tyler!
I haven't had experience with tremors post cancer treatment, but I have seen dry needling be helpful in patients with essential tremors. In your case, it appears to be a centrally driven mechanism, so emphasizing homeostatic points in the UE/LEs and trunk to target the CNS would be my first course of action (as Nina mentioned above).
If the first session went well, I'd add ENS to the trunk homeostatics or extremities that were the most affected. In my experience with essential tremors, dry needling helped temporarily, but they always returned.
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