From Ancient Traditions to Modern Practice: Veterinary Acupuncture Demystified
Join Dr. Sugerman and special guest Dr. Megan Wiltzius as they explore the ancient practice of acupuncture in veterinary medicine. Discover its origins in traditional Chinese veterinary medicine, its role in promoting balance and health in pets, and its effectiveness in treating musculoskeletal and neurological conditions. Gain insights into how acupuncture integrates with Western medicine to provide holistic care for furry companions.
What You’ll Learn:
The origins and history of acupuncture in veterinary medicine, tracing back to traditional Chinese veterinary medicine
The principles of acupuncture and how it aims to restore balance and health in pets through the stimulation of specific points on the body
The differences between Eastern and Western medicine approaches, particularly in understanding and treating various conditions
Insights into the training required for veterinarians to perform acupuncture and the certification process involved
Common conditions treated with acupuncture, including musculoskeletal issues, neurological disorders, and pain management
The mechanisms of action behind acupuncture and how it works to alleviate pain, improve mobility, and enhance overall well-being in pets
The integration of acupuncture with other modalities of treatment, such as Western medicine and cold laser therapy
Practical considerations, including the duration of acupuncture sessions, frequency of treatments, and potential side effects
Ideas Worth Sharing:
"Acupuncture is part of traditional Chinese veterinary medicine that involves inserting small needles along various points on the body called acupuncture points and the goal being to maintain and restore balance and health of the pet or person essentially." - Dr. Megan Wiltzius
"Western medicine tends to focus on one disease, one organ system, kind of one condition at a time, whereas Eastern medicine is really about the whole body and the body systems and how everything's functioning together." - Dr. Megan Wiltzius
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Read The Transcript:
Dr. Sugerman: [00:00:00] Hi, and welcome to Vetsplanation. I'm your veterinary host, Dr. Sugerman, and I'm going to teach you about veterinary medicine. In this podcast, we can dive deeper into the understanding of what our pets are going through and break down medical terms into easier to understand chunks of information. Just a quick disclaimer, this podcast is for informational purposes only.
This is not meant to be a diagnosis for your pet. If you have questions about diagnostics or treatment options, please talk to your veterinarian about those things. Remember, we are all practicing veterinary medicine and medicine is not an exact science. Your veterinarian may have different treatment options and different opinions.
The information I provide here is to help pet parents have a better understanding about their pets. If you like our podcast, please consider sharing this podcast with at least one friend or just somebody else who has pets as well. Now, let's jump into this week's episode.
Hey everybody. Welcome back to Vetsplanation. I am your veterinary host, Dr. Sugerman, and I have a [00:01:00] very special guest with me today, Dr. Wiltzius. Very excited to have you on, so thank you for coming on.
Dr. Megan Wiltzius: Yeah, thank you for having me.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah, so today we're gonna be talking about acupuncture, 'cause that is definitely something you do and I'm super excited for this 'cause there's lots of stuff that I don't know about acupuncture.
Dr. Megan Wiltzius: Yeah. Most people don't.
Dr. Sugerman: Yes, exactly. Yeah. So let's talk about what is acupuncture in general?
Dr. Megan Wiltzius: Yeah, so acupuncture is part of traditional Chinese veterinary medicine that involves inserting small needles along various points on the body called acupuncture points and the goal being to maintain and restore balance and health of the pet or person essentially, that's the basis of it.
Dr. Sugerman: You make it seem so much simpler.
Dr. Megan Wiltzius: That's the, that's the very brief version.
Dr. Sugerman: So you said it originates from Chinese medicine. Is that correct? How did that come about?
Dr. Megan Wiltzius: Yeah. It's been, I think the exact origin is still unknown, but I think it goes back even like 5,000 years ago or something like that to ancient China. And there's manuscripts talking about certain points on the [00:02:00] body with, energy points and, and stimulating those points with needles and even shards of bone they used to use.
Dr. Sugerman: Oh, wow.
Dr. Megan Wiltzius: I think that's, as much as we know about it, it was used a lot in their war horses and war animals to keep them healthy.
Dr. Sugerman: That's really cool.
People don't really think about it, but that type of medicine has actually been around a lot longer than our Western medicine.
Dr. Megan Wiltzius: Much longer, mm hmm.
Dr. Sugerman: And can you explain the difference between Eastern and Western medicine then?
Dr. Megan Wiltzius: Yeah. I'd say the main difference between Eastern and Western medicine, Western medicine tends to focus on one disease, one organ system, kind of one condition at a time, whereas Eastern medicine is really about the whole body and the body systems and how everything's functioning together.
So one of the good examples is in Chinese medicine, the spleen, an organ in the abdomen actually is involved in the gastrointestinal tract in Chinese medicine, whereas in Western medicine, it doesn't have anything to do with it.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah, it's a completely separate organ.
Dr. Megan Wiltzius: Completely separate.
So if you have an animal that we say has dampness in [00:03:00] the spleen, It usually has diarrhea. It has nothing to do with the spleen, but because of where the energy channels and the meridians lie in the body that are related to the spleen. It's very closely associated with the GI tract.
Dr. Sugerman: Huh, that is really cool It's also really interesting like you had mentioned like the dampness of the spleen, right? A lot of the diagnoses are very different in Eastern medicine and western medicine. Right?
Dr. Megan Wiltzius: Yeah. Yeah, I mean in Chinese medicine, they don't use diagnostics, like blood work and x rays, they go based off of appearance and feel. We feel pulse qualities, we look at tongue color and appearance, the temperature of the animal, things like their sleep patterns, preferences of hard versus soft surfaces. Things like that.
Dr. Sugerman: I had even my friend, Dr. Nelson, she had done acupuncture on my chameleon at one point.
Yeah, and it was interesting just to learn about whether he preferred the heat or whether he preferred the cold and how that played into it as well. Yeah, just a lot about the environmental things and not [00:04:00] necessarily a lot about the I guess the symptom of it, right?
Dr. Megan Wiltzius: Yep, exactly. And it's all about the interaction, not only of the systems within the body, but also how, like you mentioned, the environment and how the body interacts with the environment.
Another part I think is really interesting is in Western medicine, I feel like I tend to see clusters of certain conditions during certain times of year, and I can't explain it. Except in Eastern medicine I can, like in the late spring, early summer, when the temperatures start to warm up, I feel like I see a ton of autoimmune diseases, hemolytic anemias, that type of stuff, and that's the rising heat in the environment. According to Chinese medicine, the rising heat is creating too much heat in the body, which is causing these autoimmune conditions.
Western medicine, can I explain that? No, Eastern Medicine makes perfect sense.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah, exactly. Western Medicine's; I don't know, it just happens.
Dr. Megan Wiltzius: It's just coincidental. They're just all happening at once.
Dr. Sugerman: Exactly. Yeah, we think of the same thing with blocked cats, when it rains. There's like always a ton of blocked cats that come in, but I'm sure it probably has something to do with the temperature and stuff, and the humidity and stuff as well.
Dr. Megan Wiltzius: Yep, [00:05:00] exactly. Blocked cats urinary tract is associated with the kidney system in Chinese medicine. Kidneys are related to winter, winter time. That's the season that controls kidneys and urinary tract health. So lots of blocked kiddies, lots of UTIs, lots of urinary incontinence.
Dr. Sugerman: That's so cool.
I've like never realized that that was like a, it was like a time of year thing. That you could pull that back to.
Dr. Megan Wiltzius: And we're coming up into spring, which is the liver/gallbladder. So expect to see a lot of hepatic issues.
Dr. Sugerman: I've already seen a couple.
Dr. Megan Wiltzius: There you go, they're ahead of the game.
Dr. Sugerman: Yep. Alright, and then what kind of training goes into you being able to perform acupuncture?
Dr. Megan Wiltzius: You have to be a licensed veterinarian, and then after that, there are multiple programs in the U.S. that do acupuncture training. The one I went to is the Chi Institute, which is in Florida. That one is very much about the Chinese medicine itself, whereas some of the other ones are more medical acupuncture focused.
So at Chi Institute, they do a lot of not just straight acupuncture but herbal therapy, food [00:06:00] therapy, Tui Na, which is body manipulation. And they talk a lot about the elements of the body, the meridians, and more of the Chinese medicine as opposed to just straight acupuncture. The course itself it takes about six months of a combination of online and in person learning.
And then there's clinical hours you have to do, case reports to write, and a final exam before you can be certified.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah, so you have to have a certification for it. It's not just going to the classes, right?
Dr. Megan Wiltzius: Correct. Yes.
I mean any license can technically legally put acupuncture needles in.
But to say you're an acupuncturist, you have to go to that certified program and complete the certification.
Dr. Sugerman: I've definitely done acupuncture needles. I'm not sure I always did in the right spot.
Dr. Megan Wiltzius: Yeah, and that's the hard part. I can't claim to know anywhere near all the acupuncture points I have my set few that I really like and I use commonly but to learn all of them and all their uses and how they connect. Years and years of study and lifetime of doing it and you can keep learning.
Dr. Sugerman: And it's so interesting you can use it for so many different things. Like I was taught how to use a couple of them just [00:07:00] for emergency cases. Which I thought was amazing. Before I'd never even have known that you could use acupuncture for emergencies.
Dr. Megan Wiltzius: Yeah, absolutely.
Dr. Sugerman: And then how long did it take you to get that certificate?
Dr. Megan Wiltzius: \ It was six months of actual classwork. And then I was a slacker because I had a general practice job at the time, so I didn't get right into my case reports and clinical hours. So it probably took me another year after that. You could theoretically do it much faster. I just had a lot of other things going on, so it took me a bit longer.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah. Nice. And then can you describe what one of these needles looks like?
Dr. Megan Wiltzius: Yeah.
Dr. Sugerman: People think of like really big needles.
Dr. Megan Wiltzius: People get very scared about needles, but they are very, very small, very thin, flexible needles. You can even rub them across your hand or your leg and hardly feel them. The ones I like are 0.22 millimeters. So they're very, very thin. Yep. And they're different from your traditional hypodermic needles that have the, what's it called, a lumen?
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah, lumen and a bevel.
Dr. Megan Wiltzius: Yeah, lumen and a bevel. Yep, they don't have that, they're just solid pieces of stainless steel. But they're very thin and flexible. Another thing people worry about is when I [00:08:00] put the acupuncture needles in, they say, are they going to get lost in there? Are they going to shove down deep in there? But they have stoppers on them so they don't go.
Dr. Sugerman: The little ball that's at the end.
Dr. Megan Wiltzius: The little ball at the end, little coils, depending on the type of needle. So they don't go in further than you put them.
Dr. Sugerman: And you don't put them in very far. It's not like you're putting them all the way down to that little stopper, right?
Dr. Megan Wiltzius: No.
Well, Sometimes. Not usually, though. But sometimes, depending on which point. Points along the back, there's a lot more flesh there so you can put the needle a lot deeper, but points like on the feet and head, there's not a lot there so you're not going in very deep.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah. People get really like worried about the needle portion of it.
Dr. Megan Wiltzius: They do.
Yeah, I've actually just had a new client yesterday that was like, I don't know if I want to watch this. I'm terrified of needles. And she decided to be brave and stayed for it. And after the first one she was like, Oh, that's nothing.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah. It's nothing.
Dr. Megan Wiltzius: Nothing at all.
Dr. Sugerman: It's it's like just brushing them.
Dr. Megan Wiltzius: Exactly.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah. It's like you're probably going just the same sensation.
Dr. Megan Wiltzius: Yeah.
They hardly ever notice unless it's a super sensitive spot and they're like, oh, that was weird.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah. Funny enough, like my great dane had it done a couple times now, right? But she always [00:09:00] notices. But if you try it on any other dog I don't know why she's just so sensitive.
Dr. Megan Wiltzius: I should actually say I can't acupuncture either of my dogs. They won't allow it. They're like absolutely not. Not every dog, but yeah.
Dr. Sugerman: But I feel like a lot of them are pretty amenable to it, like a lot of them do really well with just sitting there. And I've definitely seen ones that were very anxious dogs. And as soon as you put in those needles, they became very calm.
Dr. Megan Wiltzius: Absolutely. Most dogs tolerate it really, really well. A lot of clients that are worried that their dogs are anxious. I don't know how they're going to tolerate it. And after the first session, they're like, Oh, that was really nothing. That was no big deal.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah, Like I said, with my dog, she didn't do great with it, but I was like, Oh, she'll do fine. And then afterwards they were like, no, she did not do fine. Too stressed out.
Dr. Megan Wiltzius: Sometimes.
Dr. Sugerman: Okay. Then what are the most common things you use acupuncture for?
Dr. Megan Wiltzius: Gosh, musculoskeletal and neurologic conditions. One of the sayings in acupuncture is if it's not broken or bleeding, you can treat it.
So that said, the ones [00:10:00] I see most are the orthopedic issues. So arthritic dogs, dogs with tendon and ligament issues, dogs with cancer that have a cancer pain that affects their mobility. And then neurologic conditions. A lot of French Bulldogs and dachshunds with back issues, they are, they're paralyzed in the hind legs. Those types of things I see very commonly.
Dr. Sugerman: That's really nice too, because we have Ken here, so you guys can definitely do both of your modalities to try to help a lot of these patients.
Dr. Megan Wiltzius: Yeah. And they work really hand in hand with Ken doing, especially the cold laser therapy. That's a really good compliment to acupuncture. They work really well together.
Dr. Sugerman: Do you do cold laser therapy and stuff as well?
Dr. Megan Wiltzius: I do.
Dr. Sugerman: Nice. And then, with our paralyzed dogs, like our temporarily paralyzed, which we call IVDD dogs, but just means we have a problem with the disc inside the spine; how well do they do just with acupuncture?
Dr. Megan Wiltzius: Most dogs do incredibly well. I don't remember the exact numbers. There's been a study comparing dogs [00:11:00] that did not have surgery and had either just medical management or medical and acupuncture as well. And I don't know the numbers, but it did show that the ones that received acupuncture did significantly better recovery wise than the ones that just got medication.
That being said, it really depends on the dog, the severity of the injury. There's some dogs that come in acutely down, they have no, no deep pain in their legs, no, no function at all. And some of those dogs don't respond no matter what we do to medication, acupuncture, laser.
Dr. Sugerman: Even surgery.
Dr. Megan Wiltzius: Even surgery, exactly.
So we do have those, those patients, but in general, I have seen a huge improvement in these dogs with their ability to regain function when we add acupuncture.
Dr. Sugerman: I was told before that with dachshunds, that they actually do extremely well, just because of their different type of IVDD, they do extremely well with acupuncture.
Do you feel the same?
Dr. Megan Wiltzius: I do. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if I can explain it, but yes. Dachshund versus Frenchie, those are the two most common ones I see. Dachshunds do tend to respond better.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah. [00:12:00] How long do you think one of these acupuncture sessions usually takes like how long is your appointment time and then how long does it usually take for an IVDD dog?
Dr. Megan Wiltzius: Yeah, when I schedule my appointments, the first time I schedule for an hour just because I like to have plenty of time to talk to the clients, get to know the dog, feel everything, check all their organ systems. Once I put the needles in, I usually let them sit for anywhere from, 12 to 18 minutes, usually around 15.
With with IVDD dogs, if it's an acute injury, it just happened, I like to see them every week for a few sessions at least. And then after the first three, four sessions, I'll stretch them out to maybe let's go every two to three weeks, every four to six, just depending on how they're doing. With more chronic conditions like arthritis, I will usually start them at every other week for a few sessions and then extend from there depending on their response.
Dr. Sugerman: And are you still using a lot of western medicine stuff as well? Are you using pain medications and anti inflammatories, and stuff in between?
Dr. Megan Wiltzius: Yep, I very much believe in integrative medicine. So there [00:13:00] is western medicine absolutely has a time and place and it, it works extremely well for what it does.
So I think of acupuncture as a really good complimentary or adjunctive therapy to that. So oftentimes we can use acupuncture to lower doses of pain medications or provide more pain management than we can get with pain meds alone. And also just to speed up the recovery process. So yes, absolutely.
Dr. Sugerman: And when you're doing like the acupuncture stuff, is there any side effects to it? Like with drugs, like when we use our Western medicine medications there are side effects to a lot of things. So are there side effects to acupuncture?
Dr. Megan Wiltzius: Very rarely. Some dogs will be very tired after the first treatment and most owners are grateful for that. But really there's no, no longterm side effects from it.
Dr. Sugerman: So really, it can only do good. It's not going to be harmful.
Dr. Megan Wiltzius: Yeah.
Dr. Sugerman: It's just going to help.
Dr. Megan Wiltzius: Exactly. Yeah.
Dr. Sugerman: Nice. And then can you explain like just how the acupuncture does help with pain management?
Dr. Megan Wiltzius: [00:14:00] So the exact mechanism of action of acupuncture. It's not fully understood, but the few different theories out there. So one is the gate theory of pain. And that's basically saying, something on your body hurts, and if we stimulate another part of the body with a painful stimulus, such as inserting a needle, it tricks the brain into saying, okay I'm going to pay attention to this thing now because it's new and it blocks the other pain signals. So that's one theory for it.
The other is that it releases the body's neurotransmitters, like endorphins and serotonin, that are responsible for pain management. So it works in that regard. Also really helps with, with blood flow. So when we put a needle in, we're telling the body, pay attention to this area.
And so the body's response is, oh, we need to bring blood to that area because there's something going on here. And the blood brings with it all of the cytokines and chemicals that help with pain management and healing.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah. So when you're doing it, let's say like on an IVDD dog, are you doing it in the spot that they have the problem with the [00:15:00] disc or are you doing that away from the spot that they have a disc problem.
Dr. Megan Wiltzius: So there are local and distant points in acupuncture. So I often treat IVDD dogs where we don't know exactly which disc is the problem. We can make a guess but don't totally know so I treat them based on; one, if they have any areas of pain, I do local points for the pain itself.
But there's other protocols that involve different points just along the whole length of the back and the hind legs that connect the acupuncture points and those meridians that's been shown to help with those dogs.
Dr. Sugerman: Okay. And then what about with like liver dogs? You're talking about like liver problems, gallbladder problems.
So how does doing something like that help, because it's not a pain response thing. So what is that?
Dr. Megan Wiltzius: So that's generally more related with the blood flow. Bringing blood flow to certain areas, and something I actually read not too long ago that I thought was really interesting was this theory that the acupuncture points are associated with the fascial planes, so when an animal's developing the way the fascial planes stretch and move and form [00:16:00] different organs. So things like tissue that is in the front leg is connected by a fascial plane to the small intestine, and so we can use the distant points like the front leg to affect things like the small intestinal tract from a distant aspect.
And a lot of that's done through the change of blood flow, but also in Chinese medicine, we talk a lot about meridians and chi, which is energy and the flow of that. And, and that's. by stimulating those points we're helping to rebalance that flow and help, help remove any blockages.
Dr. Sugerman: And when you're doing your diagnosis if I come back to that, I remember there was something like, you have to do a chi diagnosis, there's different things that you have to write in there, right? For like sort of a diagnosis.
Dr. Megan Wiltzius: Yeah, there, there are Chinese medicine diagnoses. They're very different than Western medicine. So something like anxiety is generally called a Shen disturbance. And we talked about urinary tract infections are a bladder heat toxin. So there's different, different verbiage for diagnosis.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah. Super [00:17:00] interesting.
Dr. Megan Wiltzius: It sounds like a totally different language, but if you, if you think about it and learn what it's actually saying, it's very similar to what we would be doing in Western medicine, just from a different wording, different language and just a different way to approach it.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah. Very cool.
I'm going to ask you a question real quick.
Dr. Megan Wiltzius: Sure.
Dr. Sugerman: So why did you get into acupuncture?
Dr. Megan Wiltzius: That's a great question. I've always been interested in alternative therapies. I've had a lot of health issues myself and Western medicine has saved my life multiple times, but there's also limitations to it and things that it hasn't helped me with.
And so I've just always had an interest in, what else can we do to help these animals when Western medicine isn't cutting it or it's not.
Dr. Sugerman: Can't explain it like the seasons.
Dr. Megan Wiltzius: Yeah. The seasonal things or even, just dogs that have side effects to every medication that you give them. They just get sick. The more you do to try to help them. So what else can we do to help them?
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah. Very cool. I think that a lot of people that I've met who do [00:18:00] acupuncture, that is the exact reason why is because they've had a bunch of health problems themselves and they've looked for alternatives like how to help them.
Dr. Megan Wiltzius: Yeah. Western medicine is wonderful. It does amazing things. It saves lives, but there are certain things where it just, it, it's not enough.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah. And I think all of these different types of medicines just compliment each other, right? Like I say, chiropractor, I love my chiropractor, like it's definitely like.
That's one part of it, plus doing like strength training for back, and all these other things. There's so many things going into it, not just like pain medication.
Dr. Megan Wiltzius: Absolutely.
Dr. Sugerman: Yep. Okay. Cool.
Thank you so much, everybody. We really appreciate you joining us for this episode of Vetsplanation.
I was really excited to learn about a lot of these things. And there was so much that I really did not know about acupuncture.
Dr. Megan Wiltzius: And I could talk to you about it for probably another two hours. There's so much, there's so much to learn. And I have a lot more.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah.
Dr. Megan Wiltzius: It's just, it's really fascinating.
Dr. Sugerman: Yeah. Thank you so much again Dr. Wiltzius, I really appreciate it. Yeah. And so as always, everybody, please keep your pets happy, healthy, and safe. Thank you guys.
Thank you [00:19:00] guys for listening this week. If you have any questions, comments, suggestions, or you just want to say hi, you can email me at Suggs, S U G G S @ VetsplanationPodcast.com or visit the website at VetsplanationPodcast.com or find us on Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok at Vetsplanation. Thank you all for listening and I'll see you back here next week.