Acupuncture for Chronic Dry Mouth & Eyes

The medical term for dry mouth is Xerostomia. The medical term for dry eyes is Xerophthalmia. 

If you’ve got chronic dry mouth, eating has become a major chore. Simply swallowing can be a nightmare. It causes bad breath, nutritional problems and can even cause cavities and other dental problems.  

If you suffer from chronic dry eyes, you've got problems, too! If you're plagued by dry eyes, you've quite likely been a slave to eye drops.  However, they have been most likely not been curative, providing only temporary symptomatic relief. If you've been trying artificial tears, humidifiers, prescription drugs, and/or surgical interventions without success, this may be the exciting and literally tear jerking and mouth-watering article you will read!    

Contrary to  popular belief, dry mouth/eyes is not a normal part of aging.  It’s actually an extremely common side effect of more than 1,800 prescription and over-the-counter medications. 

According to radiation oncologist, Dr. Richard Niemtzow, dry mouth/eyes is an extremely common side effect of chemotherapy and radiation treatments for cancer. While the drugs typically do not harm the salivary glands directly; they do impair their nerve supply.    

Dry mouth or eyes can also be caused by underlying disease, such as Sjogren’s syndrome, Lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, thyroid dysfunction, or poorly controlled diabetes. 

Head or neck trauma, or direct injury to the salivary glands can be a factor.  Treatment failure rate of both dry mouth and eyes has been notoriously high. 

But there’s good news. 

Years ago, Dr. Richard Niemtzow developed a stunningly effective treatment approach, which involves ear and hand acupuncture. He found it to be effective even after treatments with the traditional medication, Pilocarpine had failed. The treatment can be done with or without needles. Although it certainly does not work for every patient, the success rate is extraordinarily high. Most cases require one or two treatments. I have proudly helped people with this treatment approach over many years. 

This treatment has been studied at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center of the University of Texas. It was published in several medical journals including, Cancer, the International Journal of Radiation Oncology Biology Physics, Clinical Journal of Oncological Nursing, the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, and the Journal of Palliative Care. 

Origins of Ear/Hand Acupuncture for Chronic Dry Mouth/Eyes

During the Vietnam War, there was some American exposure to acupuncture, but never an official government program to make use of the ancient healing art. It wasn't until 1998 that Colonel/Dr. RIchard Niemtzow was appointed as the United States Military’s first full-time acupuncturist. He is a traditionally trained radiation oncologist, researcher, forensic examiner. Dr. Niemtzow has served as a Chief Flight Surgeon in support of Operation Desert Shield/Storm. Around 1994, while stationed at McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey, he began studying acupuncture. 

In 2000, Dr. Niemztow was invited by M.D. Anderson Cancer Center to go to Shanghai to introduce his innovative dry mouth/eyes acupuncture approach to the Chinese. This was a historic event—an American doctor showing the Chinese how to do acupuncture! The Chinese’s reception to Dr. Niemtzow was cold, even mocking—until he delivered stunning results on some of their worst cases of dry mouth! Dr. Niemtzow told me that through his interpreters the Chinese remarked, “We should be ashamed of ourselves… after 3,000 years, it took an American to discover this!”  

"We found incorporating acupuncture alongside radiation therapy diminished the incidence and severity of this side effect,” 

- Lorenzo Cohen, Ph.D., professor in MD Anderson’s departments of General Oncology and Behavioral Science, director of the Integrative Medicine Program, Principal Study Investigator (Source: mdanderson.org)

This actually wasn't the first time the Chinese were exposed to a new application of acupuncture by a foreigner. In the 1950s, Paul Nogier, M.D. of France introduced the Chinese to the principles of ear acupuncture (auricular therapy), as a total-body system of treatment. The dry mouth acupuncture protocol is a combination of Nogier's ear discoveries and Chinese acupuncture.   

 By 2002, Dr. Niemtzow became Consultant for Alternative and Complementary Medicine to the Air Force Surgeon General. He established the acupuncture clinic at Andrews Air Force Base. I have been privileged to one of the few civilian doctors to be personally trained by Dr. Niemtzow. When I met the Colonel many years ago, I had already been successfully practicing auricular therapy for several years. I was thrilled to add Dr. Niemtzow’s dry mouth and eyes protocol immediately in my practice. It is always thrilling to be able to have new applications for old, or in the case of acupuncture, ancient technologies, as part of a holistic approach to health care.    

Anybody who is considering this treatment for dry mouth and/or eyes should understand that it is a complementary or supportive treatment and not a replacement for comprehensive medical evaluation and treatment.  We are using a holistic approach to enable your body to restore normal function. It is not technically a direct treatment for any medical condition.  Nevertheless, it is incredibly effective to trigger normal salivary and eye tear function. 

In most cases, one or two treatment sessions are needed. Each treatment session takes 30-60 minutes.  In 2010, our extraordinary results with chronic cases of dry mouth prompted WAVY-TV 10 to interview my patients and me. Watch the video of the news segment!