Re: 06/19 J.D. PMPS 426 Acupuncture vs Laser Therapy Opinion
we tried both of them. i thought both helped punkin initially. I stopped doing the acupuncture because the vet had decided to add electrical stimulation, and punkin just went nuts with it. i guess it feels like buzzing. he tolerated the basic needles (video of one session in my signature) for a couple of months, but when the vet hooked him up to the electrical stimulation machine, he set it on a low setting and left the room. punkin almost immediately started getting agitated, trying to bite at the wires and pull them out. i had to try to hang onto him while calling the vet's office on my cell phone :shock: , because no one could hear me and i didn't want to let go of punkin. i didn't know how to turn off the machine.
After that, he had one more session without the electrical stimulation, i think, but he had gotten so he trembled as we went into the vet's office. i just couldn't stand it so i switched to laser. Same vet office, different vet.
The laser therapy also seemed like it helped right away. he was jumping up on tables that he hadn't been on in months. i don't know if you remember, but i felt like it played a part in whatever happened that ended up with him dying. i don't want to scare you, but i think you should know. I do think it helped him. Initially we started out going multiple times a week - i don't remember how much it cost because i basically looked away and handed over my credit card! :roll: anything for my sweet punkin, you know? They sold the laser therapy in a block - i want to say you bought 6 sessions. We started out 3 times in a week, then 2 times, then once a week, then once every other week. we could tell that the benefit didn't last more than a week, because after a week when his legs were moved, he reacted as though it hurt.
So we did once a week for a long time, maybe several months.
They aimed the laser beam at his spine for a couple of minutes, then on each hip socket for a few minutes, and the same on his hocks. Not sure you remember, but after his second to last laser appt, the next morning punkin had terrible bloody diarrhea. DH took him to the on call vet while i went to work, and the vet gave him metronidazole and said no big deal. When i talked to the regular vet after that, she said it was a coincidence that it happened after the laser treatment. He got better and seemed ok by the next week. The following week, we had the regular laser appt. The morning after the laser, the same bloody diarrhea everywhere. Took him to the vet, started back on metronidazole and something else, i think, but he didn't recover from it, and just went downhill for the next 3 days til we had him euthanized. After the second time, the regular vet agreed it wasn't just a coincidence.
So . . . here's the hard part. It definitely helped him. He moved better than he had in months. We don't know why he had that reaction to the laser when he did. i think it caused the bloody diarrhea, but we don't know - maybe he had something wrong with his gut, like cancer, and the laser made it worse. I thought that perhaps the aim was too much on his intestines - if you think about the laser angle from his spine down, and from each hip inward, it seems like it might all have ended up in the same spot.
Doing it over again, i think i'd still do it, but i would be wary of having it too often, or having all those rays aimed like i described above. And maybe punkin's death afterwards wasn't directly caused by it, but he'd recovered from the first episode and the second one just overwhelmed him. Ultimately his body had filled up with a lot of fluid and it was squishing his lungs so much he couldn't breathe. So . . . was it the laser or not? i don't know.
I just want you to know our experience so you can watch for anything and ask enough questions. it doesn't mean you shouldn't do it, though, dyana. it really gave him a lot of relief. i hope it was ok that i'm sharing all of that - you might not remember it from when it happened. i just wouldn't want it to happen to JD. Like any medical procedure, even injecting insulin, there are pros and cons - you just want to know what to be aware of.
I'm so glad to hear that he ate all LC last night. I hope that he'll continue with that trend for you, and bring down those #s. Try and have a good day, and hang in there. :YMHUG:
I'll see your novel and raise you one novel! :lol: