Is Acupuncture Effective in Pets?
Acupuncture has been used in humans for at least 1000 years. It now is widely used in animals as well.
Some of my acquaintances from veterinary school perform acupuncture on animals. They are convinced it is effective. They also make a tidy profit from performing the procedure.
To this day, nobody can prove, nor disprove, that acupuncture truly works. Some studies have shown significant effects when acupuncture is used in specific circumstances. Others have shown no effect whatsoever. Many studies have been equivocal: they provide some evidence that acupuncture might be effective, but they don’t prove it conclusively.
Acupuncture therefore is perennially controversial.
The theory behind the traditional practice of acupuncture involves the flow of energy through the body. Our current understanding of anatomy and physiology does not back that theory up. Other theories of acupuncture state that the procedure leads to the release of endorphins (morphine-like chemicals that occur naturally in the body).
Plenty of people are willing to offer testimonials in favor of the effects of acupuncture in humans and animals. Many such people may comment on this post. But, as any student of science or medicine knows, personal testimonials are notoriously unreliable sources of information. They are highly subject to bias and confounding factors. Honest-to-goodness scientific studies are needed to verify clinical claims. When it comes to acupuncture, such studies generally have yielded conflicting results.
Some experts believe that acupuncture works mainly through the placebo effect. Acupuncture is not alone in this regard: some recent studies have suggested that Prozac’s effect in many people may be spurious.
Other experts point to some well run clinical studies that show significant effects from acupuncture when it is used to treat specific syndromes. In all, neither side can prove conclusively that it is right.
I personally don’t care why or how a treatment such as acupuncture may work. I care only whether it works. The information I have seen to date is equivocal.
I was therefore excited by a grippingly titled article in the May 1, 2009 Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association (JAVMA): “Effects of adjunct electroacupuncture on severity of postoperative pain in dogs undergoing hemilaminectomy because of acute thoracolumbar intervertebral disc disease.”
The paper discusses the study of a special form of acupuncture used to treat pain in dogs recovering from back surgery. From the article:
Conclusions and Clinical Relevance–Results provided equivocal evidence that [acupuncture] might provide some mild benefit in severity of postoperative pain in dogs undergoing [back surgery] because of [slipped discs]. (J Am Vet Med Assoc 2009;234:1141-1146)
In other words, the study determined that acupuncture might have sort of worked to reduce pain after back surgery. But the study authors weren’t sure.
Suffice it to say that I was disappointed by the results of the study. I have been waiting my entire career for some hard science to back up or refute the practice of acupuncture. This study, like so many before it, did neither.
At this point, the only answer I can give to the question posed in this post’s title is I don’t know.
You have questions. 
Dr. Farr in Des Moines – http://www.dmacuvet.com – has used acupuncture to help my English mastiff with Wobbler’s Syndrome. It definitely helps!
Since dogs can’t tell us (in words) whether they feel better after any treatment, how would a scientist determine the effectiveness of acupuncture? Presumably there are some behavior markers? I THINK my dog has told me (by her enthusiastic reaction to the treatment) that it makes her feel better. But for sure it could be a placebo effect (or the vet’s yummy treats…)
I’m not sure if there is such a thing as placebo effect in dogs, as I don’t think they have the concept of “doing A will make me feel better about B” the way humans do.
Several years ago my family started doing acupuncture therapy on our aging dog, who was having difficulty moving around due to pain in his hips and shoulders. The acupuncture worked wonderfully for the first 3 or 4 weekly sessions, but then the affect dropped of dramatically. We ended up putting him on prednisone, which had the same effect, though had a number of unwanted side effects.
I certainly wouldn’t declare acupuncture a surefire cure for pain, but I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it to a friend with a pet in need.
Both of my senior dogs are currently being treated with acupuncture. One of them is 13 years old and suffers from spondylosis and hind-end weakness. When she gets a treatment, we notice that she isn’t walking “back on her heels” and that she loses the “sway-backed” look. She also seems to move more freely.
My other dog (age 12) has lymphoma, which was diagnosed a year ago, but the vet noted enlarged lymph nodes at least a year before that. He received acupuncture every two weeks for the first few months after diagnosis, and monthly treatments thereafter. He’s still doing amazingly well and, despite what appears to be a bit of throat discomfort from growing nodes, he has the same energy and spirit he has always had — walks happily every day, plays with toys and loves to eat. If you met him, you’d never know he was sick. No chemo, no drugs. Just acupuncture, herbal supplements and his life-long raw diet.
Traditional chinese medicine, including acupuncture has been effective with my cats. Minxy had CRF and her appetite always picked up for a couple of days after her acupuncture treatments. Jester was diagnosed with IBD but because she was 18 and borderline diabetic prednisone wasn’t a good option. Within 2 months of diet changes, herbs and acupuncture she started to improve. I could see the effect of the acupuncture as when she started to get better her stool would improve for a day or 2 after each session then go back to the chronic diarrhea. She got back to a totally normal stool. Freckles also had chronic diarrhea for ages and I used the TCM vet again and her stool is back to normal again.
I don’t think cats can really experience a placebo effect like people but acupuncture seems to make them feel good and I’ve seen it work with my pets. I’d definitely recommend trying it.
I’ve always seen a DVM vet who is also trained in traditional chinese medicine as I don’t know how effective acupuncture alone would be. My cats also saw their regular vet for routine monitoring and meds as needed for CRF.
Pets don’t have a placebo effect but it is difficult to separate the owner’s placebo effect from the true effects of the acupuncture. The pet owners want it to work so they may think they are seeing results that really aren’t there. That being said, I do believe acupucture works. I worked at an acupuncture clinic in the early ’80s. When I started, I was skeptical but was won over by the results.
I know a lot of holistic vets that use actupunture on different types of animals and it does work and several animal communicators will tell you that they have had pets that have had acuputure and how much better they are feeling after having it done.
A number of years ago I had a dog that was being treated for lymphoma. In order to have as little time away from work as possible, I would take my dog to the office wuth me so I could go directly from work to her vet appointments. Besides the chemotherapy the vet also did accupuncture treatments. When I would go back to the office, the people would want to know what he had done to my dog because she was so much better after the appointments. That only happened when she had the accupuncture, not when she had chemotherapy alone. My dog convinced me that acupuncture worked.