Must. Resist. Punny. Title. Horses and Acupuncture

Just stumbled across the story of Ed Millhouse, an American vet who uses acupuncture techniques on horses that "there aren't any other options for."

He's not the first doing this. According to the newspaper article linked below, Millhouse says the practice has been becoming common over the past 10-15 years. He himself got the idea after graduating from vet college and getting the chance to shadow a more experienced vet.

“I didn’t know anything about it,” he said. “But he was a good vet. And it was amazing some of the things that he did. It intrigued me, so a few years later I took that course.”

He chuckled as he remembered sitting skeptically through the first class, looking for signs of “voodoo.”

“I went from ‘don’t believe in it’ to ‘wow,’” he said. “It’s opened my eyes to how it really benefits.”

Since then, he said he’s found acupuncture especially helpful for controlling colic and musculoskeletal problems that cause back soreness and joint pain in his equine patients. He said it’s also helpful in treating lame horses.

“Acupuncture can help pinpoint where the lameness is,” he said. “You can trace their body and find the sore points, which represent patterns that you see. It can help diagnose where the (problem) is and how to treat it.”

He said horses make very good patients overall.

“They have big muscles, and they get big knots in those muscles,” he said. “They’re well-mapped-out, and they don’t lie to you. There’s no placebo effect with animals.”

The acupuncture is often combined with chiropractic, and the frequency of treatment depends on the horse, he said. Combining the two treatments often results in a major difference in the horse’s muscles within just a few hours.

“The muscles on horses are so strong and tight (that) the acupuncture lasts a lot longer,” he said. “I can go three to four weeks between treatments instead of three days.”

For more on Millhouse, read the full article at the St. Croix Valley Area Lowdown.