Animal acupuncture

I've been receiving lots of requests to treat animals this year, mostly dogs but also a few cats, horses and even two goats! Although the feedback from the treatments has been positive, I realise I could be providing a much better service with some further training..
..so I've enrolled to do a post-graduate certificate in Animal Acupuncture and I start in two weeks. I can't wait!
Watch this space for updates on how my studies are progressing and details of what conditions I'm able to treat and how you can book in for treatment.
Bye for now,
David.

My 22nd birthday present to myself, otherwise known as Arncha. My first ever animal patient!

Update: Spending 5 days in Byron Bay hanging out with a bunch of horses and learning with a great group of students was hard but someone had to do it! 

I learnt so much about horses - anatomy and where the acupuncture points are, general handling and management (how to not get kicked!), and common horse diseases and their treatment.

It was a nice environment to learn in, Byron Bay and surrounds is always a great place to visit, and the lessons were held on a property with plenty of trees and grass. Myself and 5 other students spent our time treating 20 different horses that are utilised by a local tourist operator offering rides on the beach.

Tom is an excellent teacher having had 18 years experience with treating animals and has plenty of knowledge to share.  I'm really looking forward to going back again next year to learn more.

I'll have the full diploma completed midway through 2015. Until then I'll be available for animal acupuncture treatments at student prices ie. by donation only.

Best classroom ever!

Painkillers make a million headaches worse

This article initially appeared in the Bellingen Courier Sun on Wednesday 20th March 2013.

Painkillers 'make a million people's headaches worse':
Acupuncture can be used for prevention.
Research from the UK

A million headache sufferers who take common painkillers on a regular basis are actually intensifying their pain by making their brains ‘immune’ to the drugs’ effects, UK doctors have recently warned. They are aggravating their symptoms by relying on medications like aspirin, paracetamol and ibuprofen on an almost daily basis. Instead of taking these over-the-counter drugs to combat symptoms when they flare up, sufferers should try treatments that help prevent headaches in the first place - including acupuncture - according to official advice from the British National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE).It has recently launched a new guideline this week to help doctors better diagnose and treat different types of headache, which can be difficult to tell apart.


Dr Manjit Matharu, a consultant neurologist who helped develop the NICE guidelines, said: “Patients with frequent tension-type headaches or migraines can get themselves into a vicious cycle, where their headaches are getting increasingly worse.”Taking normal dose aspirin, paracetamol or anti-inflammatory painkillers like ibuprofen for 15 days or more a month could lead to these headaches, he said.


Taking opioids like codeine, or other powerful painkillers like triptans, ergots or combination analgesic medications for 10 days or more a month could also exacerbate headaches or migraines, he said.
Dr Matharu explained that frequent use of painkillers desensitised the brain to their effects, "and that leads to more pain". Patients who thought this was happening to them should consult their GPs about preventative medication, he said.
There was strong evidence that the drugs propranolol, topiramate and gabapentin worked to prevent migraines, he advised, but preventing tension headaches was more difficult. “Acupuncture is the only treatment that we’ve got a good evidence base for.” The eastern technique was “often not taken seriously enough”, claimed the neurologist, but trials showed it had a real beneficial effect.


Alchemy in Bellingen’s resident Acupuncturist, David Whitmore, agrees, “tension headaches usually respond quite well to acupuncture treatment. Research shows half of the patients who try acupuncture have a larger than 50% decrease in headache frequency, and in clinic I often see the severity of any remaining headaches decrease as well. For such a small rural area the residents of Bellingen shire have access to a large range of experienced and professional Acupuncturists so there is every opportunity to treat headaches naturally and successfully.”