# Not sure what to expect-accupuncture?



## Traveler's Mom (Sep 24, 2012)

Hi,

My current vet and I believe my 6 year old GSD male has a pinched nerve or something and rather than just drug him with pain meds, we wanted to try alternative medicine.

Traveler's symptom is a sudden onset of apparent pain after shaking his toys really hard or if he overshoots a thrown ball and kind of flips around to go back to it. All of the sudden he cowers away from me and hides. After 15 min. or so he's apparently worked thru the pain and is ready to play. This first happened last August but it has been getting more and frequent.

I have an appointment next Tuesday (2/5/13)at a new vets office that has a vat trained in acupuncture and herbs.

I'm not sure what to expect. How would I know if her suggestions make sense? Are there any real downsides to going in this direction? 

I tried to look the vet up on the sites listed on the sticky notes at the beginning of this forum but had no luck finding her name.

Thank you for any help or suggestions.


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## NancyJ (Jun 15, 2003)

WE did acupuncture with Grim. He is well behaved at the vet and, while it was hard, we had to keep him still for the approximately 15 minutes she left the needles in place. I sat there with him, she played music. They put a calming needle in the top of the head. It really seemed to help him a lot. 

Chiropractic may be another option. For us, with the arthritis in the spine, the vet did not feel we should go that way.


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## JeanKBBMMMAAN (May 11, 2005)

Here is a blog post on it:
Big Dogs, Big Heartworm: Needles Everywhere!

There are more links in that post. 

I have used it on a couple of dogs and Mila above and was happy with the results. For my one dog, similar to Mila in the desire to keep moving, I froze peanut butter up and he worked on that. My other dog just really loved it and was happy to hold still. 

Really good information here on back stuff: Dodgerslist: canine back problems home page

Have they done an x-ray of the back?

ETA - I just re-read your old threads and is he still intact? Could it be prostatitis? (sp) UTIs can also cause weird pains. 

Good luck though!


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## Traveler's Mom (Sep 24, 2012)

Thank you Jocoyn and Jeankbbmmmaan for your replies.

Yes, Traveler is still intact. It's funny you mentioned UTI's since his last urine tests showed Mag/Phosp. crystals. The vet wasn't particularly worried but said Traveler should drink more and take cranberry supplements. He pees and poops fine and only eats when he's hungry. I'll look up about prostate and see if that leads me anywhere. Thanks for that suggestion.

We did 2 x-rays and there was no apparent impingement. All his other tests came out great.

As an aside, Traveler is not involved in any protection or agility sports so it's pretty disappointing to have him hurting just from playing with me. I'm fairly certain this injury isn't a heredity issue as he's Pink papered and going back 5 generations I see all his lineage has excellent hips and elbows.

Thank you both for the input and if you think of any thing else, let me know.


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## Traveler's Mom (Sep 24, 2012)

An update to our first acupuncture visit.

On Monday 2/4 we had our first consultation and subsequent acupuncture treatment with Traveler. It was a long visit since we had so many questions before we were comfortable with the doctor and her treatment plan for his apparent neck nerve injury. She performed some ortho tests and it appears he is uncomfortable lifting his nose straight up in the air and he resisted her attempts to fully extend out both his front paws. 
Traveler was a little restless at the start of the procedure even with the first "calming" needle insertion in the middle of his head. The part that scared me and totally surprised the doctor was when she inserted a needle on the top of head right by where his ear connects to his head. Traveler jumped up yelping in pain and cowered in a corner of the office hiding behind my husband. The doctor said she never had that kind of reaction before. I certainly wasn't ready for it! Traveler eventually settled down and let her reinstall some needles that flew out and he also allowed her to do some electrical stimulation to a couple of the needles. 
Yesterday Traveler seemed to be fine and today he is happy and full of life. 

The doctor suggested one or two more appointments to see if acupuncture is going to help Traveler with his neck pain but I'm really concerned after having such a scary incident the first time. 

Any thoughts about this or am I being silly?


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