Common TCM and Western Medicine Treatments for Cancer Pain
Cancer pain is a common symptom in patients with advanced tumors and seriously affects their quality of life. Western medicine treats cancer pain mainly with the "three-step analgesic ladder," dividing medication into three steps according to the patient's pain intensity. For mild pain in the first step, first-step drugs such as ibuprofen (Fenbid) and celecoxib (Celebrex) suffice; if not very severe, some calming medicines such as estazolam may also help. When these drugs cease to work, second-step analgesics (such as tramadol) are used. Second-step analgesics have side effects such as hallucination and constipation. The third step relies mainly on morphine and the like.
The "three-step analgesic ladder" has improved the quality of life of many end-stage patients and is very meaningful. But some patients do not respond to the three-step ladder and cannot tolerate Western analgesics. For such patients, treating them according to TCM pattern differentiation and disease differentiation, or using certain TCM formulas and patent medicines, can also improve quality of life. If used properly, treatment can even prolong survival and create miracles.
TCM pain relief is mainly divided into external and internal use. External use consists of various plasters. I have previously introduced an empirical pain-relieving formula from veteran TCM doctor Duan Fengwu; the formula and method are as follows:
Drugs: Realgar (Xionghuang) 60 g, alum (Mingfan) 60 g, Borneol (Bingpian) 10 g, Indigo naturalis (Qingdai) 10 g, Glauber's salt (Pixiao) 60 g, Frankincense (Ruxiang) 60 g, Myrrh (Moyao) 60 g, and Daemonorops (Xuejie) 30 g.
Preparation: Grind all the above drugs into a fine powder, mix well, and divide into 60-g packets (or 30-g packets).
Administration: Use equal parts of rice vinegar and pig bile (if the skin is too irritated, use a smaller proportion of rice vinegar than pig bile). Mix one packet into a paste and apply externally to the affected area; once the medicine dries, dab it with the vinegar-bile mixture to keep the surface moist. Once a day for eight hours each time. If the patient has more pain in the evening, choose to apply it in the evening for better effect.
This method is better than ordinary external plasters, because it avoids skin allergy caused by overly tight application. This formula can be used for pain caused by tumors such as liver cancer and pancreatic cancer. Pain-relieving patches produced by some commercial Chinese patent medicine factories may also be considered. Based on my own clinical experience, for patients with bone metastasis, even common bone-spur patches can relieve pain. Toad-black dog plaster (Chanwu babu gao, now called "Chanwu gel plaster") and the like can be used for pain caused by tumors. When using such plasters, take care to prevent skin allergy. In my experience, have the patient cut a large plaster into small pieces and apply them only at the most painful spots, so as not to cause a large area of skin allergy. In addition, when pain eases, consider applying bedsore ointment to the dressed area to protect the skin.
For stomach pain in patients with gastric cancer and other cancers, Yuanhu Zhitong Tablets may be considered.
To be continued.