Getting to the Point: Equine Acupuncture

by Carlos E. Medina

The new University of Florida Equine Acupuncture Center in northwest Marion County will focus on treatment, education and research of the ancient healing art.

Dr. Huisheng Xie grew up in a family of Chinese herbalists who prescribed custom mixtures of herbs and plants to treat any number of human maladies. But he decided to apply the ancient practice of traditional Chinese medicine to the veterinary field, particularly to horses.

After 35 years practicing acupuncture and refining herbal medicines for animals, the doctor of veterinary medicine and a clinical professor of integrative medicine with the UF Department of Comparative, Diagnostic & Population Medicine, is celebrating the newly opened University of Florida Equine Acupuncture Center in northwest Marion County.

The center, a partnership between Xie and the UF College of Veterinary Medicine, includes a 6,240-square-foot barn with an attached 12,500-square-foot arena. It is located between Irvine and Flemington, on County Road 318.

For Xie, the growing acceptance of traditional Chinese medicine by the West is in stark contrast to what he faced when he started as a professor at the university in 1998.

"When I first started the job at the University of Florida, people talked about acupuncture like it was a joke. Now, over 90 percent of the faculty accepts it and refers cases to us," Xie said.

In the 20 years since he started with the university, a growing number of studies and continued research back the anecdotal benefits of acupuncture.

"If we had no results, my job would be finished. But when you have a dog that comes in paralyzed and, after treatment, it walks out, or a horse that comes in limping and now is sound or a horse can not sweat and now it sweats, it's black and white. The results speak for themselves," Xie said.

But anecdotes only go so far without scientific evidence to back it up. He hopes to conduct research at the center to get a better understanding of how the therapies work.

Studies, so far, show acupuncture may indeed trigger the release of endorphins, which help with pain and provide a calming effect.

"We just found out acupuncture mobilizes stem cells from the fatty tissues to the blood and the blood circulates the stem cells to the affected areas to help healing," Xie said.

Acupuncture involves inserting thin needles at different, specific points in the body with the goal of bringing the body's energy back into balance. The belief is that external and internal factors cause the body's energy to fall out of balance. That part is where things move out of the scientific realm and into the esoteric. Traditionally, acupuncture helps to put things right by restoring the proper flow of energy to achieve balance.

"It's an ancient analogy about the universe and the balance of energy," Xie said. "I don't know how it works, but it works."

For Lousia Flaig, the prospect of making her horse sound is what brought her to the center. Songline, a 14-year-old German Trakehner, suffered a tendon injury and underwent surgery. But the results were less than she'd hoped and the horse continues to suffer from lameness issues.

Songline was a renowned eventer and Trakehner stallion before the injury. Now, Flaig just wants to give the horse relief and, if possible, a new life as a dressage horse.

"We were looking for an alternative. He already had surgery once. I feel doing this, we can't go wrong, and with surgery we can make it worse," said Flaig, who traveled from Tampa for Songline to have the treatment.

Xie recently inserted several needles into Songline's back and affected leg, then connected some of the needles to an electrical current. Within minutes the horses lower lip began to droop, a sign of a relaxed horse.

"The endorphins released have a morphine-like effect. It's called acupuncture analgesia," Xie said.  

Dr. Emily Roth, a recent veterinary school graduate, is doing an internship at the center. She is also a graduate of Xie's Chi Institute of Traditional Chinese Veterinary Medicine, which is on the same property. But her introduction to veterinary acupuncture came as an undergraduate veterinary student at Ohio State University. 

"I really saw very profound results. Predominantly, pain relief in a lot of lameness cases and chronic pain issues. It treats the whole body and helps the body heal itself and ultimately that should be the goal in medicine versus using more invasive techniques," Roth said.

Xie said acupuncture is not a cure-all. Patients see different results, but that is true of traditional medicine as well.

"It is another option. We can treat performance injuries, pain from chronic diseases like arthritis, and issues that Western medicine has no treatment for, like heaves and anhidrosis (when a horse stops sweating)," Xie said.

He hopes the facility will become an international center for treatment, education and research into acupuncture and non-traditional veterinary medicine.

This article originally appeared in the Ocala Star Banner at ocala.com and is published here with permission. Find out more about the University of Florida Equine Acupuncture Center and all kinds of treatments on our Therapy page.