Poll: Veterinary alternative medicine

[jim_p]

So I managed to snag an appointment and take Mickey the rabbit to the vet today. This guy is awesome. He keeps his patient histories online, and takes a digipic every time they come in. This way, in addition to the rest of the history, any visual changes are obvious.

After poking and prodding the bunny for a bit, we decide to take an X-ray. What it showed was that the poor bun has severe scoliosis, which produced a shift in the spinal column that's pinching the spinal cord. This means that his stiffness is probably less about arthritis than about paralysis. I'm kicking myself ever so slightly, because we opted not to spring for the X-ray a year ago when this first showed up. If we'd caught it back then we probably could have managed it much better and he wouldn't be nearly so bad off today [/guilt].

In any case, with an injury like this the treatment options would be surgery, chiropractic, or accupuncture. Surgery is Right Out for a bun this old. So the question is, which would be more likely to restore at least partial function to his three currently-useless limbs? The doctor determined that they have a lot more range of motion than he's exhibiting, so the problem is primarily neurological; the arthritis is a relatively minor component (hey, maybe all that expensive Cosequin I've been feeding him has in fact been working!)

So who would probably do best for my bunbun... chiropractor or accupuncturist?

Comments

[muffyjo]

Um...why choose? They are not exactly mutually exclusive. I would opt for both for teh short term and over the long term, you could discuss it with each one and see which one's treatments were more effective.

[jim-p.livejournal.com]

Probably because any trip at this point is pretty traumatic for the little guy (new userpic, BTW - that's him!), so I want to at least start out with what might do him more good... plus I'd like to hear if anyone else has any experience with one or the other...

[muffyjo]

I wonder if there is a vet who either specializes in both or whose clinic has both available. I can imagine that being the case. My vet travels to my home (which makes things so much nicer). unfortunately i don't think that's her area of expertise. But maybe there is a travelling vet who does? I can ask my Chiropractor if he knows of anyone.

[angelovernh.livejournal.com]

I haven't tried acupuncture yet, though I hope to some day. I have had good results being treated by a chiropractor. I think I'd opt for the chiropractor first and then the acupuncturist a few weeks later. I don't know what the success rates are for acupuncture..

btw, I didn't know they had bunny chiropractors, let alone bunny acupuncturists!!!

acupuncture

[madbodger.livejournal.com]

Acupuncture has been around for a very long time, and has a solid history
of scholarship and study. Chiropractic was invented by a quack in the 1800s
who wrote a (dumb) book, and it sort of took off. Makes as much sense as
reflexology.