SERVICES

 What happens during an animal acupuncture treatment?

After chatting to you about your animal, and thoroughly examining him or her Lindsay feels key points all over the body (palpating) to decide where to insert needles during the treatment. Very fine, single use stainless steel needles needles are introduced through the skin to varying depths, and are left in place for 10-20 minutes.
The number of needles used varies according to how the animal feels to palpate and how they have responded previously.
Animals will often fall asleep during treatment, and can be very sleepy for the rest of the day after treatment.

How many treatments will my animal need? 

Sometimes animals respond to one off acupuncture treatments. However it is more common to require a course of between 2 and 4 treatments initially, to get a feel for whether your animal is likely to benefit from acupuncture. After the initial course most animals who respond well come back for top up treatments. The interval between treatment is a very individual thing, and Lindsay works with owners to establish what works best for each animal.

Acupuncture for pain relief

Approximately 70% of Lindsay's case load involves acupuncture for pain relief, especially in older animals that struggle with arthritis or other painful conditions. Treatment is often done alongside conventional veterinary treatment, and acupuncture is an excellent compliment to  pain relieving drugs. Pain relieving medications can often be stopped or reduced for a period whilst the animal is being treated with acupuncture.

Acupuncture for performance

Many animals have improved biomechanics function after treatment with acupuncture, and performance animals such as dressage horses, show jumpers and eventers, benefit from acupuncture during their work seasons. Agility and obedience dogs, as well as working dogs also benefit from acupuncture in order to help their athletic performance.

Acupuncture in cats

Cats are surprisingly responsive to acupuncture. Pain in cats can be difficult to detect and subsequently manage. Some cats are very sensitive to medicines that can be used to control pain, and acupuncture is an excellent alternative. Older cats having difficulty with jumping and using the litter tray often improve with acupuncture as part of a pain relief protocol, even if an underlying painful cause was not suspected.

Acupuncture for fertility and related problems

although not the bulk of her case load, Lindsay has treated several animals for fertility related issues. She has had success with colts with retained testicles, and tends to be involved in those cases prior to Thoroughbred sales.

Acupuncture for medical problems

Acupuncture has been used successfully as part of management protocols for conditions such as neurological conditions, digestive problems such as irritable bowel syndrome and many longstanding chronic diseases such as liver, kidney and skin disease. With these conditions it can be very difficult to predict whether acupuncture will be helpful, and Lindsay has been surprised on many occasions in the positive response in patients which she really thought would not be likely to improve following acupuncture. She now adopts a "never say never" open minded approach to the sort of cases that can benefit from acupuncture.
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