Acupuncture Treatment for Pets

For over 4,000 years, acupuncture has been used by medical practitioners in China to help with a variety of ailments. Did you know its use in animals goes back at least 2,000 years? Pet acupuncture is practiced all over the world, either on its own or in conjunction with standard veterinary medicine, to treat a wide variety of ailments in animals. Here at Cobequid Animal Hospital, we are happy to provide this proven therapy for our patients. To learn more about how acupuncture can help your furry friend, please call us at (902) 865-8110.

Can acupuncture help my pet?

The short answer is yes. For many years, acupuncture has been effective in helping treat a number of medical conditions in cats, dogs and other animals. Some of the problems it can help with are:

Musculoskeletal problems such as arthritis or vertebral disk pathology, paralysis

Epilepsy

Chronic diarrhea or irritable bowel syndrome

Neurological deficits (paralysis, hind end weakness, urinary incontinence, etc.)

Asthma

Geriatric issues (it can help stabilize aging animals and control senile behaviour)

Prevention of injury (especially in working and sporting dogs).

What is acupuncture?

Essentially, acupuncture is the insertion of needles into specific points of the body to induce healing. Acupuncture is a therapeutic technique of what the west has defined as Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). In animal medicine, we use the term Traditional Chinese Veterinary Medicine (TCVM). Acupuncture is to TCVM what surgery is to western medicine. In modern western medicine, the application of surgery is the result of a thorough diagnosis and analysis of a case. Similarly, the application of acupuncture is the result of a thorough TCVM diagnosis.

Is acupuncture safe for my pet?

Your veterinarian here at Cobequid Animal Hospital will be conduct a thorough assessment on your pet to see if they are a good candidate for acupuncture. Some factors that will be considered are age, medical history (some pressure points cannot be activated in pets with cardiac problems), pregnancy (some points cannot be triggered in pregnant animals), any medications your pet is currently on and more.