East meets West: An integrative approach to pet care
CONCORD, CA (Sept. 29, 2024) – Despite being a veterinary internist by training, I found myself unexpectedly drawn to learning veterinary acupuncture several years ago. This curiosity led me to what has become a passionate journey into integrative medicine that will always be a work in progress.
Learning Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is somewhat involved. It requires an open mind, excitement to learn new things and a willingness to “get out of your head.” Having said that, it is the single most exciting training I have done in my career.
Without a doubt, adding TCM to my practice has humbled me by what can be accomplished. It has extended the well-being and quality lifespan of many of my patients – and made me a better clinician.
Integrative medicine is garnering a great deal of attention in and out of the medical community. People are looking at their own health from a body-mind-spirit point of view.
Psychosomatic illnesses are becoming more and more recognized entities. Stress-induced illness plays a role in human health care every day, and likely does in our animal family as well. Even Western practitioners are acknowledging that health often requires a bigger picture vantage point, and this is where TCM shines.
Traditional Chinese Medicine encompasses a five-fold approach to healing that can be adapted for our pets:
- Acupuncture: Known to cause endorphin release, oxytocin and other hormone release, blood flow changes, and more.
- Herbal medicine: Very powerful but gentle therapy. Works more slowly than typical Western medications, but often with fewer side effects. This allows the clinician to tailor treatment more directly to each individual patient.
- Food therapy: Emphasizing fresh foods. In particular, try to stay away from processed carbohydrates like those found in kibble. This is much like the general trend in people toward less processed, fresher foods and fewer simple carbohydrates.
- Tai Chi: Loosely translated into “exercise” for our pet population.
- Tui Na: This Chinese therapeutic massage has a place in veterinary care.
Traditional Chinese Medicine has been used for more than two millennia in China and for hundreds of years in many other countries. In the early 1970s, President Richard Nixon was instrumental in its “discovery” by the U.S. public when a reporter traveling with Nixon had an emergency appendectomy performed in China. He had perioperative acupuncture and was impressed with the pain modulation it provided.
A beautiful nuance of TCM is that the practitioner also considers “unrelated” clinical signs, such as a patient’s demeanor, behavioral issues, digestive issues, tendency toward being too hot or too cold, seasonal changes in symptoms and what makes the patient better or worse. All these seemingly esoteric pieces of information help guide treatment toward the pet to possibly exceed response to therapy, as compared to a patient treated with Western therapy alone.
TCM tends to be more proactive in supporting all systems rather than reactive, oftentimes peeling away at clinical signs and exposing a deeper root to the underlying issue. TCM allows one to support the whole body rather than having to treat one ailing area at the expense of another.
Many medical practitioners are willing to entertain the use of acupuncture or TCM for painful joints but have trouble extending its use beyond pain management. Though it may be hard to wrap a Western mind around the concept of meridians and acupoints that can have effects on distant parts of the body, acupuncture has been shown to improve pain scores, relieve nausea, decrease edema and effect distinct change in endorphin levels in patients.
Another way in which an integrative approach can be useful is when a patient has side effects from Western medications. Acupuncture and herbal support can help reduce some side effects and sometimes accomplish good results with lower drug doses.
As an internist, herbal medicine was one of the hardest but also one of the most rewarding aspects of TCM for me to embrace. But I came to realize that this ancient modality is becoming cutting edge in our society.
Here are some questions one doesn’t ask in Western medicine that can be answered satisfactorily with TCM: Does my arthritic patient pant excessively at night and appear agitated? Is he/she chilly all the time? Does an older cat yowl at night as if distressed or confused? TCM can support your pet and work in tandem with a Western practice in exciting and rewarding ways.
If you have an interest in seeking help for your pet with a veterinary acupuncturist, they will welcome working with you and your primary care veterinarian. I don’t think you will be disappointed.
Micki McCabe
Micki McCabe, DVM, DACVIM, FAAVA, is a long-time Clayton resident. The recently retired local veterinarian has an interest in internal and integrative medicine.