Acupunctures’ efficacy in treating neuromas

Neuromas are a benign growth of a nerve or nerve cell, usually in the foot, and usually between the 4th and 5th digit of the foot but can occur between any of the toes.  Another common spot is between the first (BIG) toe and the second toe.  For reasons unknown the nerve body starts to get inflamed, swell up, and send tingling or shooting pain down or up the foot.  It is uncomfortable and seems to have something to do with the comfort and practicality of the shoes that we were.  There are more cases in women than men and the high heels is presumed to be responsible in most cases.  High heels aren’t the only culprit however as sometimes one of our feet may be slightly bigger than the other feet, and given most shoes are mirror images and exact same size, this can sometimes precipitate the neuroma generation by squeezing that foot for extended periods of time while the other one is relatively less squeezed, and so the flow of qi becomes hindered over time.  Restoring this diminished flow of qi results in reduction in size of the neuroma.  Reduction in size makes the symptoms get better or completely go away.

That was the case with my neuroma.  It was a particularly stressful time, I had just gotten a new pair of shoes, and been walking a lot.  All of a sudden I find that Im getting this uncomfortable shooting pain down my foot from between my toes, and its painful and quite disruptive to everyday activities.

I was just graduating from acupuncture school and the stress level was high due to a number of reasons, and I knew from my studies that my liver qi had gotten stagnated and not “flowing” freely.  I also knew that the area of the pain was the source point for liver ( avery important and strong point for moving liver qi), so I started to insert a couple of these hair thin acupuncture needles and didnt notice much pain reduction over the first day or two but by the third or the fourth treatment, the pain was so intermittent that I would forget I was working on this.

Its been ten years since that problem started, and it still acts up once in a while (related to stress and the shoes I wear), and when it does act up, a needle in the correct area will make the problem out of mind again for months.  Try acupuncture before embarking on more serious and non reversible foot surgery.