05:51 PM PDT on Sunday, June 20, 2004

By JEAN ENERSEN / KING 5 News

File

Michele Voso looks like she's having a relaxing spa treatment, and if anyone deserves some pampering, it's this four time cancer survivor.

"I had Hodgkin's disease, lung cancer and twice I had breast cancer," she said.

A keystone of most cancer treatment is chemotherapy, which has well known side effects, including hair loss, nausea and sever anemia, what's not well known is what chemo does to your energy.

"Fatigue really doesn't say it. There's a heaviness about you and a discomfort that is very hard to deal with. You don't have a zest in your life. It's hard to get yourself motivated," said Michelle.

Almost every single patient undergoing chemotherapy experiences fatigue," said Dr. Andrew Vickers of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

Exercise can help. So can stimulant drugs but not for every patient.

"A small minority, maybe 8 to 12 percent, really never get their energy levels back again," said Dr. Vickers.

That's where acupuncture comes in. It's now being tried as a relief for chemo-fatigue. A small study of 30 cancer patients at Memorial Sloan-Kettering used acupuncture for 6 to 8 weeks.

"On average their fatigue scores fell by 30 or 40 percent and that's what we targeted to be a promising improvement," said Dr. Vickers.

While it didn't immediately restore Michelle's energy, the treatment has helped.

"A little more lighter in your mental attitude and when your mental attitude feels better you tend to want to explore more and do more and that translates into energy," she said.

The next step is to do what's called a placebo-controlled study, meaning some cancer survivors get real acupuncture and others get needles inserted in places that are not true acupuncture sites for comparison.