Rosie Starts Acupuncture (Day 20)

This afternoon, Connie came to take us for Rosie’s acupuncture session and a consultation with the vet (who is also a qualified acupuncturist).

As expected, Rosie complained all the way there.

She was curious at the clinic.

Any way to escape?

Peek-a-boo!

I must say I am absolutely impressed with the accuracy of TCM techniques in diagnosis and am grateful for the detailed and very informative explanation by the vet.

Here’s what I remember (I take full responsibility for any incorrect information here, if any):

The vet checked the following for diagnosis and was able to give me a spot-on description of Rosie’s habits and character (I am amazed!):

The tongue – red and yellowish – heaty.
The body – ear is warm, body is warm – heaty.
The pulse – left is fast and threading – yin deficiency; right is strong and fast – heatiness.

TCM looks at five organs – the heart, the lungs, the spleen, the liver and the kidneys.

Rosie’s problem started with her spleen (probably sometime ago). Her normal appetite has never been too good (that’s true) to begin with. The spleen then affected the liver and the gall bladder and this gave rise to the jaundice and blood deficiency (yes, all correct).

Rosie has spleen qi deficiency (characterised by the poor appetite and poor body score now), gall bladder damp heat and liver yin deficiency.

The vet was able to tell me that Rosie isn’t very sociable with other cats (correct) and does not like hot places. She prefers shady places (all correct).

In TCM, the subject of cancer (or not) does not arise. TCM just identifies which of the five organs are deficiency and seeks to treat the deficiencies.

So, for Rosie, her spleen needs to be strengthened while her liver needs to be cleansed. Treatment is by acupuncture and Chinese herbs.

So we immediately started on Rosie’s first acupuncture session. Rosie was very, very good – even the vet said so. She stayed still while the vet put 10 needles into various points. Didn’t struggle or try to move throughout the 20 minutes while I held her lightly and the vet stayed with her.

After the initial 20 min session, the vet wanted to do another session of digit points (on the paws) which would be painful, but Rosie “said no”. She hissed.  So the vet said perhaps the next round (next week).

Rosie would have to take two types of Chinese medicines twice a day. One is already in capsules while the other is in powder form – the vet gave me empty capsules for this one. The former is meant for long term while the latter is for the short term (for the gall bladder).

Since Rosie is “heaty”, fish would be a better choice of food for her (not chicken). She cannot eat all the Chinese “po” which are heaty. No ginseng. No chicken essence (luckily I only gave this once – Rosie didn’t like it, anyway).

Rosie should also always eat warm food, not cold. I have noticed that Rosie has an natural preference for warm foods too.

However, the vet palpated Rosie’s liver and she said edges felt hard and she is worried cirrhosis may have set in. It had probably taken some time for all this to happen before we even saw any symptoms.

We’re done and you’ve been really good.
Let’s go home, Rosie!

On the way back, Rosie urinated in the carrier and the urine was extremely yellow. In the last two days, Rosie’s gums and eyes have got very, very yellow too.

We came home and I had to clean Rosie up as there was a lot of urine in the carrier.  She was quite upset by all this and refused to eat after that.

I gave her her TCM herbs without problems.  The vet says to continue all her western medicines as most of them are supplements.  The Doxy and Baytril are both necessary as well.  The Prednisolone is fine too.  I’m glad this vet allows a combination of western and eastern medicines.

We thank all of you again for your kind wishes and prayers for Rosie.  Special thanks to Connie for taking us there. I would never have been able to make it there myself and it would have been a nightmare with Rosie complaining in the car (I am directionally dyslexic and Waze always fails on me – even if it doesn’t, I cannot quite compute).

One day at a time….

Source: https://myanimalcare.org/2017/03/10/rosie-starts-acupuncture..

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