Are You Ready to Thrive?

Portland is one of the pet-friendliest cities in the US and Spot Magazine's Top Dog Competition helps highlight Portland's best pet-friendly businesses!  The competition is by popular vote, one vote per person, please.

You can do your part to help - vote Thrive Acupuncture as one of Portland's Top Dogs!

It's pretty easy, here's what you do:

• Go to http://www.spotmagazine.net/top-dog-voting-form/
• Enter "Thrive Acupuncture" in the "Holistic Wellness Practitioner" category
• Enter your other favorite businesses under the appropriate categories
• Click "submit"
• Tell everyone you know to do the same!

Thanks for showing Portland that there is more to living than just surviving!

This is video of Benny getting his bi-weekly acupuncture treatment.

Benny had knee surgery to repair a torn ACL.  Unfortunately for Benny, this isn't the first time he's required this surgery.  LAST spring he had the same injury and same surgery on his OTHER knee!  

With Acupuncture and Chinese herbs, Benny healed extremely quickly from his surgery last year.  He was walking on it with very little limping after only about a month.  The usual recovery time is around 3 months!

Here's what Bridget, Benny's treat-hander-outer, had to say about Benny's surgery recovery last year:

"Two of my dogs are prone to orthopedic injuries, and both of them have had to have major surgeries to their knees. I took them to Thrive
acupuncture because my human family has had great outcomes from Becca Seitz's acupuncture prowess.

I was concerned that my husky mix and my pit bull would both be weird about the acupuncture needles. Becca was able to put them at ease, and needle them without stressing them out. Imagine my surprise to watch my big dog just fall asleep right after the needles went in.  Both Benny (the husky mix) and Olive (the pit bull) experienced faster healing times and much less post-surgical pain than is typical. They were able to go off of their pain medications very quickly. I was expecting them to have long recoveries, and both of them were walking normally within a month of their surgeries. This is just unheard of.

Big thanks to Becca Seitz and Thrive Acupuncture for making my dogs' post-surgery experience much less painful for them.

You saved our summer!"

Hope you enjoy this video of Benny's latest treatment! (Provided by Bridget Pilloud, Benny's treat-hander-outer) 

PS I hope you don't fall asleep watching it - I promise you, there are no dog attack scenes! ;)

This is Toby.  He's coming to see me for arthritis.  He's 16 years old - he looks GREAT for his age, right?

People ask me, all the time, HOW I do acupuncture on pets.

Don't they move around?

Do they bite you?

Do you have to anesthetize them?

Nope!  Just look at Toby!  He hardly even notices that the needles are in!  Some dogs will lay down and fall asleep.  Some do move around (and this is fine!).  My main goal (aside from making them feel better via acupuncture and herbs, of course) is to make sure that they're comfortable and unstressed when they come visit me.

A stressed animal is preventing the acupuncture from working to its full potential, so keeping a relaxed environment is KEY to speedy healing.

Stay tuned for video of my buddy Benny who's being treated for post-surgical pain in his knee, and you'll see just how relaxed most dogs are during their treatments!

So by now, you've heard a ton about how great acupuncture is for humans.  Here's a story of how well it has worked in man's best friend!

I've treated several pets with various types and stages of paralysis and in every case the pet has experienced at least some amount of relief from their symptoms.

Acupuncture is often used to treat chronic, long-standing conditions, but there are many cases where it can be used to treat emergency-type conditions with great success!

Incontinence is a very common condition in older dogs, particularly females.  It’s often called “spay incontinence” with the assumption that it’s due to the lack of hormones caused by the removal of the ovaries and uterus in female dogs.

Common biomedical treatment is with a drug called Proin, and while some owners have found that it works for their dogs, other see little difference in the “leaking” experienced by their dogs.  This can be a very frustrating condition, as the dog has no control over her bladder, but the owner has been used to a potty-trained dog up until this point! 

I’ve found that an integrative approach has been best for the dogs that I’ve worked with who have this condition.  Proin, with the addition of acupuncture and Chinese herbs works beautifully for helping a dog regain control of her bladder!

In Chinese medicine, the Kidneys are responsible for many bodily functions, including bladder control, hormone regulation and aging, just to list those that factor into incontinence.  As we age, our Kidney energy declines, giving rise to a propensity to incontinence.  Treatment consists of increasing Kidney Qi through acupuncture and herbal formulas.

Herbal formulas, specific to each dog’s exact health situation, are key to the treatment of incontinence.  While acupuncture can increase Kidney energy, it tends to be slow, while herbs are much quicker at achieving appropriate levels of Kidney Qi.

What I have noticed is that with acupuncture and herbal treatment, many dogs’ doses of Proin are able to be severely reduced in order to control their incontinence; some are able to come off of the medication completely! 

It’s such a relief when a solution is found to help your dog stop leaking urine! No longer do they have to be embarrassed by their lack of control, and no longer do you have to clean up the endless drips of urine!

Arthritis in dogs is one of the main health concerns that I see.  As pet owners, we’ve all been there.  We’ve had a long, lovely life with our dog, and they’re getting a bit older.  They’re starting to have difficulties getting up from lying down, especially in the morning after lying there for a while.  They have trouble getting in the car to go to the park.  They don’t run like they used to at the park, and then that evening they’re super stiff.

I see this scene play out on a regular basis, and very often, the owner/friend/treat-hander-outer has brought them to me as a last resort.  Is there anything that can be done to keep our beloved dog comfortable just a bit longer?  I always get excited at this point, because yes!  Almost without fail (there have been a few cases where we just couldn’t make enough of a difference in the pup’s pain levels) we can get that old dog moving more smoothly again.

In Chinese medicine, our Kidneys play a huge role in the aging process.  I’m not talking about the biomedical kidneys here, so if I say your dog has weak kidneys, there’s no need to panic.  I’m talking about the Chinese medical Kidneys.  These are the jobs that are attributed to the Kidneys in Chinese Medicine:  bone health, aging, some aspects of the urinary tract, menstruation in women – just to name a few.

When our dogs (and us, for that matter!) get older, their Kidney’s ability to manage all of the jobs mentioned above starts to decline.  This is when we start seeing arthritis, graying of hair, and incontinence (and in human women – menopause).  The process for treating arthritis in dogs involves strengthening the Kidneys, and making sure that their Qi flows smoothly throughout their bodies.

It’s always exciting to see that dog who previously hobbled into my office come bounding up the stairs to give me a kiss hello before their next treatment.  Yep, there’s no better reward than that!

My dog suffers from hip dysplasia -- will acupuncture help her?

In acupuncture, the body is like a freeway system, with Qi flowing through energy pathways called Meridians.  In this analogy, the cars are the Qi and the freeways themselves are the Meridians.  Pain is kind of like a car accident on the freeway.  When there is an accident on the freeway, the rest of the cars trying to travel through aren’t able to, which makes drivers cranky.  In your body, when there is a blockage to the natural flow of Qi, energy can’t travel through the Meridians properly, and the result is a cranky body - pain.

While acupuncture can’t fix the fact that a dog with hip dysplasia has a malformed hip socket, it can reduce the amount of pain associated with this disorder by removing the blockages to the flow of Qi.  Acupuncture relaxes muscle tension that has accumulated through chronic compensation for this loose joint, easing a lot of the aches and pains that a dog will experience.

I often find that after seeing a dog for 3-10 visits (depending on the severity of their condition and how their bodies respond to acupuncture) that they are pain-free and only require “tune-ups” every couple of months to maintain their pain-free status!

Is acupuncture ever used to treat canine cancer?

In the US, Chinese medicine is mostly used with the intention of aiding a pet through treatment.  Often symptoms such as fatigue, nausea, vomiting, dry-mouth and more can be severe enough to require treatments to be discontinued.  Acupuncture and Chinese herbal medicine are very effective at easing these symptoms, allowing a pet to finish their course of treatments.  On the other hand, in Chinese medicine, every patient is treated as a whole.  Cancer cannot be ignored, as it is part of the pet’s health picture, and so it will always be addressed. 

As far as Chinese medicine being used exclusively to treat cancer in pets- this is a gray area.

In China, Chinese medicine is often used as the sole treatment for cancer (as well as many other diseases) with reportedly very positive results.  However, as far as research goes, there have been no reputable studies done to observe the outcomes of Chinese-medicine-only cancer treatments.

In the US, Chinese medicine is usually seen as an adjunctive therapy; one to be used in conjunction with biomedical treatments, so the research that exists comes from the viewpoint of “how can Chinese medicine assist with or ease the side effects of biomedical treatments?”  We just haven’t looked at the ability of Chinese medicine to treat cancer directly.

In reality, cancer, in pets, is often not discovered until it is advanced because they are masters at hiding discomfort, and thus, disease.  At this point, there usually isn’t enough time to let Chinese medicine work.  If the pet’s owner decides to go through with biomedical treatments, Chinese medicine can ease the side effects associated with chemo and radiation.  If the pet’s owner decides not to go through with biomedical treatments, Chinese medicine can help make the pet comfortable and perhaps slow the progression of the disease, giving them more symptom-free time.

My dog has skin allergies – what can acupuncture do for him?

A LOT!  Acupuncture and Chinese herbs are very effective at treating all sorts of allergies!  I’ve treated many patients (both 2- and 4-legged) with allergies to all sorts of substances: grasses, pollens, pets, foods, etc.

In Chinese medicine, the allergic reaction itself (the stuffy nose, runny eyes or itchy skin) is due to Wind combining with either heat or cold.  Now, I know this sounds funny to our Western ear, but hear me out!  The term wind simply refers to a condition that comes and goes quickly, moves around, or causes itching.  The heat and cold refers to what the symptoms look like. Are your pet’s eyes red and itchy?  Is the skin where they itch red and hot?  These would be symptoms of heat.  Do their eyes just look like they’re crying clear tears?  Is the skin where they itch normal colored? These would be signs of cold.

Treatment of allergies has two phases.  In the first phase, we are treating the wind-heat or wind-cold directly.  We are getting your pet to be symptom-free and comfortable.  But treatment can’t stop here.  After symptom relief occurs, we move on to the second phase.

In the second phase we are treating the reason WHY your pet has allergies.  And this is the key to Chinese medicine.  We don’t just treat the symptoms every time you or your pet has them.  We get to the bottom of the problem and remind the body how NOT to have the symptoms in the first place!

In Chinese medical theory, some people and pets are what we call Qi deficient – meaning they don’t have enough energy to have a nice, strong immune system that responds properly to allergens.  In the second phase of treatment we must strengthen the body so that it can respond properly to whatever challenges it may face. 

When the body has enough Qi, and the body is reminded of its functions, we have true health!

Benny is a LOVELY guy. A giant, big-hearted teddy bear of a pup. Benny came to see me after rupturing his cruxiate ligament. Poor guy hurt his knee and was hobbling around like an old man! (Benny's only 7 years-old, by the way, he's got a LONG time left of playing with his pet and human family!) You see, Benny had done what MANY other dogs do during this time of year. It's FINALLY nice outside and when you get the chance to run after a long, shut-in winter, you RUN. Benny was going to have to wait with hurting knee for a month for his surgery because of all the other dogs ahead of him in line!

The vet gave him pain meds to help get him through the pain until surgery day, but his treat-hander-outer was hoping to keep him on lower doses of the medications. So we started doing acupuncture twice a week to keep his pain under control and to prepare him for his upcoming surgery. Benny also went home with an herbal formula that would do the same.

During the time prior to surgery, Benny's treat-hander-outer noticed that he was in good spirits! He was also in very little pain, which required lower doses of pain meds, just like they were hoping.

Benny's surgery day finally came and went and when I saw him for the first time after (a week after his surgery) I couldn't believe my eyes! Not only was he walking on his knee, he wasn't limping very much, either. On his second visit post-surgery, Benny waltzed right in with barely a hitch in his giddyup! The surgery that Benny had is pretty extensive, including reshaping of the bone in his knee. I've seen many pets who've had this surgery (while working at a vet clinic that performed such surgeries), and I've NEVER seen a dog with such a speedy recovery before!

I think this is a great case where biomedicine and natural medicine have worked together. While there was nothing that acupuncture could do to repair the torn ligament, acupuncture and Chinese herbs significantly reduced the amount of pain that was experienced, as well as prepared Benny's body for the surgery. His energy was already flowing smoothly pre-surgery, so it took very little to get back to that point.

Now, if only acupuncture could help keep this rearing-to-go pup calmer while his knee completely heals!