Veterinary Acupuncture

We had a mini lesson in veterinary acupuncture during anatomy lab this morning. Dr. Sage brought all of her dogs in for us to try it out on. She gave a very brief overview of what we believe is going on when acupuncture is used in animals. She had more of a Western explanation for acupuncture for us. At Virginia Tech, I attended a few lectures about equine acupuncture by Dr. Crisman at VMRCVM. He typically explained everything from the Chinese perspective (although he has a background in internal medicine). It was really neat hearing the other view and matching things up with what I have previously learned. We also enjoyed practicing :).

The acupuncture needles we used were VERY tiny (32G). Contrary to common belief, needle diameters decrease in size as guage size increases (for instance, an 18G needle is very big), and this has nothing to do with length. An acupuncture needle is on the left, typical injection needles are on the right (though this is a bit zoomed in so don't freak out too much!).