Page 126 - September 2015

. . . ancient Chinese physicians knew that acupuncture was physiologically based, affecting blood, breath, and nerve functions.
by Heather Smith Thomas
Agrowing number of veterinarians are using non-traditional and complementary tech- niques in treating animals, often combining these with traditional western medicine. One of the most useful of these modalities is acupuncture. Dr. Tia Nelson of Helena, Montana, has been using acu- puncture for about 15 years in her practice, often in conjunction with chiropractic care. “Acupuncture can be done in many different ways. We can use needles, lasers, or simple pressure with fingertips or a pencil,” she says. Acupuncture accompanies other techniques. For instance, chiropractic and acupuncture work very well together, with better results than either one by itself. They are synergistic. You get a more beneficial effect; it’s like 2 plus 2 equals 5. “Acupuncture is also completely different from our traditional treatments and is often very helpful,” Nelson says.
Controversial treatment
Acupuncture is a controversial modality because it doesn’t fit readily into the science of western medicine where studies can be done with treated animals versus a control group, or with some given a treatment and others a placebo, doing comparisons to see if a certain treatment really works.
It’s hard to quantify or measure effectiveness of acupuncture with trials and study models. “Some people are hesitant to use any kind of treatment that can’t be proven with a placebo/control double-blinded study,” Nelson says.
Dr. Tia Nelson has been using acupuncture for around 15 years in her practice, often using it
in conjunction with chiropractic care.
There is still controversy regarding its use in veterinary medicine. Some people think acupuncture is not a valid treatment, but Nelson credits acupunc- ture with saving numerous animals in her practice. “I’ve had horses, dogs and cats respond to acupunc- ture when nothing else worked. I had severe colics in horses that needed surgery, but surgery was not an option. We tried acupuncture, and they got better. Those horses are still alive and doing well,” she says.
She has been participating in an on-line veterinary discussion about acupuncture and its uses. “Some of these veterinarians are old-timers (practicing since
the 1960’s), who were skeptical about acupuncture and then decided to take a course in it so they could understand it. They were surprised to find out how much of this philosophy they already use. They had been trained in western medicine and hadn’t even thought about Chinese medicine,” says Nelson.
“When I took an acupuncture course at Colorado State University in 1999, I thought it would be just some ‘New Age’ people taking it. But, one man from eastern Montana was an old cow doctor. He decided to take the course because he was interested in many things, and curious. He said he’d had a pony brought to him that was choking. He treated it for 24 hours with traditional/conventional medicine protocols and was at the point of putting the pony down because the condition was not resolving. But, he had an acupuncture book he’d ordered that he hadn’t had a chance to look at, so as a last resort he consulted that book,” Nelson says.
“There wasn’t anything about choke, but there was information about acupuncture points for treat- ing megaesophagus (failure of the sphincter between the esophagus and stomach to relax when the animal
TreATing Horses wiTH AcupuncTure
124 SPEEDHORSE, September 2015
equine health