IMNAHA — Acupuncture for humans is growing in acceptance and popularity, but acupuncture for animals?

That, too, is gaining traction and it’s part of the mobile veterinary service Liz Neveau of Imnaha has set up for Northeastern Oregon.

Based out of her Imnaha home, Liberty Veterinary Services provides mobile vet services throughout Wallowa, Union and Umatilla counties that, in addition to standard vet care, provides animal acupuncture, vet relief (in clinics only) and end-of-life care for pets and large animals.

The familyNeveau has been practicing veterinary medicine in urban and rural settings for 20 years.

She graduated in 2004 from Texas A&M University College of Veterinary Medicine then followed that with a year-long internship in the Equine Clinic at Louisiana State University. Following her internship, she spent a year in private equine practice then began working in small-animal general practice for the next seven years.

After moving to Oregon in 2014, she joined a mixed-animal practice in Eastern Oregon. A job transition with her husband, Charles, led the family — along with kids aged 11 and 14 — to relocate to Pendleton, where she has been practicing part-time at the Pendleton Veterinary Clinic. She has been studying to become a certified veterinary acupuncturist for the past year to offer her patients more options for their unusual problems, neuromuscular injuries and pain management. She also does laser therapy.

“I’m offering mobile or in-home acupuncture, pain management, quality of care, kind of like hospice opportunities and in-home euthanasia for pets and horses and some large animals,” she said Wednesday, April 24, during an interview at the ranch of Jason and Emily Cunningham east of Enterprise.

Neveau also spoke of her work on pets at the Pendleton clinic.

“I treat dogs and cats there a lot and I’ve worked on patients that have nonhealing wounds or have back disk disease where they lose some of the sensation in their feet,” she said. “It’s not uncommon in dogs as they age and acupuncture can be a great tool for that. It helps with the pain management and it also helps the nerves to find their pathways again. Sometimes the damage is too much or it’s been too chronic (persistent), but it can be a great help for them.”

Neveau told of her own cat, which had a leg wound that refused to heal until she tried acupuncture. She also discussed the hip dysplasia that often occurs in larger dogs as they age.

“It can be treated,” she said. “I wouldn’t say that we can necessarily cure it. It depends on how much bony changes you have and how the arthritis has had time to develop. We’re not going to get rid of bone, but can we help patients feel more comfortable with it? Yes. It can also help with some of the nerves to improve their signal pathways.”

There are times when acupuncture cures, she said.

“There are some dogs that, with physical therapy, if they still have the ability to feel, can regain some of it,” she said. “I don’t want to over-promise, but that’s why over a year ago I started taking some courses and working toward being acupuncture certified.”

She said she still has a couple of case reports to submit before becoming fully certified by the International Veterinary Association Acupuncture Society.

“It’s not a huge association or group, but it’s growing,” she said. “The class I took, there were about 40 students in it and they were all veterinarians. Some of them had been out, like myself, for 20 years and some people had just gotten out of vet school.”

The treatmentNeveau started working on the Cunninghams’ 17-year-old quarterhorse, Hank, by using a probe to locate sensitive areas on his body. Then she began inserting thin needles into the areas she had located.

“Notice how he kind-of flinches there,” as she sticks a needle in a muscle, Neveau said. “These are pretty small needles,” adding that they’re smaller than hypodermic needles used to give injections.

She leaves the needles in place 15-20 minutes, though sometimes a needle will fall out or a muscle contracts and ejects it.

“They say that if one falls out before that, the energy’s been released and it’s done,” she said. “It’s been studied for thousands of years and some of the older texts would say that. Coming at it from a Western mindset, if it’s fallen out after just putting it in, I usually replace it because I feel that we’re putting it in for a reason.”

With as many needles as she places in a horse, it can be a wonder she doesn’t lose track of them all.

“That’s why I … sometimes write them down and take notes,” she said.

While the needles are doing their work, Neveau gets out her laser unit to add to the treatment.

“Laser therapy helps increase the blood supply in the cells,” she said. “There’s lots of uses that even physical therapists (for humans) can use some laser therapy for muscle and tendon healing, so it’s the same concept as the ones they use on humans. The photons go into the mitochondria to increase the production of ATP (adenosine triphosphate where chemical energy is stored) and we’re using it on a focal point to help induce healing and release tension and help improve blood supply there. I’m using it in specific locations so that it will help on this horse.”

Neveau usually charges about $150 for the initial examination and treatment of a horse with another $100 for a followup exam. Given the wide area she practices in, she also charges travel fees beyond the Imnaha-Joseph-Enterprise areas.

But she doesn’t pretend that acupuncture is a miracle cure.

“It’s not a cure-all and I’d never say that it was,” she said. “But I’ve been really happy with it.”

Liberty Veterinary Services

Who: Liz Neveau, DVM

What: Mobile veterinary services

Where: 79054 Hartshorn Road, Imnaha

Phone: 541-398-8093.

Online: https://www.libertyvetservices.com/

Email: Liz@libertyvetservices.com

Also:

Where: Pendleton Veterinary Clinic, 625 SW Emigrant Ave., Pendleton

Phone: 541-276-3141

Online: https://pendletonveterinaryclinic.com/