Channel Episode: Expert Advice on Acupuncture for Cats with Dr. Nancy Scanlan

Hey cat lovers! Recently I had the pleasure of chatting with Dr. Scanlan, a holistic veterinarian with over 50 years of experience. Dr. Scanlan has dedicated her career to teaching, authoring, and practicing holistic veterinary medicine, and she currently works at the College of Integrative Veterinary Therapies. We're diving into fascinating topics like acupuncture for cats, cat trigger points, and so much more. Get ready to learn how holistic approaches can transform your cat's health and happiness. If you’re interested in learning more from Dr. Scanlan, consider becoming a member of the College of Integrative Veterinary Therapies for access to webinars, courses, and more. Use code CATS25 to receive a $25 discount. Now, let’s jump in!

TRANSCRIPTION

Petra Luna  0:00  

Hey cat lovers! This is Petra Luna and you're watching the CatCrazy Channel. My guest today is Dr. Scanlan. Dr. Scanlan has been a holistic veterinarian for more than 50 years. She has been a practicing vet and a teacher and author for vets, vet technicians, animal health professionals, and pet owners. She currently works for the College of Integrative Veterinary Therapies, which has webinars and courses for vets, vet technicians, animal health professionals, and pet owners. Okay, Dr. Scanlan, I am so happy to see you today, and thank you for coming onto our show here at CatCrazy.

Dr. Scanlan  0:34  

And I'm very glad to be here. Thank you for inviting me.

Petra Luna  0:36  

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I have so many questions. You have been a holistic veterinarian for a long time—trying to heal cats in a more natural way and not only masking the pain. So I have a few questions. Okay. You're doing acupuncture on cats? How do you make them stay still?

Dr. Scanlan  1:01  

Cats are very smart and they figure out really quickly that it makes them feel good. And so usually in their very first meeting, I might have to scruff them by the neck initially, to put the first one or two needles in. And then usually they either don't feel it go in, or they barely feel it, they kind of twitch a little and then that's it. And then once it's in, it very often starts working almost immediately, especially on cats. And so they start relaxing. And they realize, oh, this is good stuff, you know, and then they'd let me put the rest in. And after that first time, it's not a problem

Petra Luna  1:37  

So those needles don't come out. I mean, they're not shaking the needles out?

Dr. Scanlan  1:41  

The only time that they'll shake them out, is if it's in a place that's especially painful. And if that happens, and if they shake it out or twitch it out, then what I'll do instead of putting it right in that point, I put it on each side of the point. That's called surrounding the point. And so it's not as painful as the main part. And then I leave that in, and then it'll be okay. But they don't get up and shake. They relax so quickly that they don't mind having them in. 

Petra Luna  2:14  

Wow. So that was my next question. Does it hurt? I mean, obviously, then it doesn't—it makes them feel better. Right?

Dr. Scanlan  2:20  

That's right. That's right. Yeah. Rarely there’s sometimes when it can hurt, like I just said if there's a spot that's very painful. Also, I had a cat patient who had nerve damage, and the type of nerve damage she had made her paws tingle. I'm sure because I had a friend who had similar nerve damage. So it feels like when you're when your hand or your foot, you know, is waking back up if it fell asleep because you had it in the wrong [position], then that's very irritating. And so the one cat that I had to help that way, she did not appreciate me, because I'm putting needles in the tingly places, you know. And so it worked, it took a while but I actually got her feeling better enough that she quit trying to chew on her feet all the time. But normally, that's very, very rare. Normally, if it's muscle pain, joint pain, whatever, it doesn't hurt.

Petra Luna  3:13  

Wow, that's really interesting. So now, the needles that you use are those the same needles that you use on humans? I'm asking because I know from experience that the skin of cats is thicker, so for other medications you use thicker needles. How is that with acupuncture?

Dr. Scanlan  3:35  

We use the same needles as we do for humans and for dogs. It's all the same needles. The shorter needles are a little stiffer than the longer needles even though it's the same diameter. If they have especially tough skin, I might use a little bit of a shorter needle, but it'll still be the same very, very small thickness—the size of the hair almost. 

Petra Luna  4:02  

Wow. And how do you know that it is actually helping the cat? How can you tell? 

Dr. Scanlan  4:07  

Right. The most obvious one is if they immediately relaxed you know that they're a very good responder. Before I started doing acupuncture, cats had kind of the same reaction to me. I'm pretty good with cats, I can calm them down and so on, but they were still a little tense. But with acupuncture, they relax immediately. They may start purring. They sometimes, when it's over, they rub against me. And that was very rare before acupuncture. I mean, they liked me—I was an okay person. But when you see that kind of a reaction as a veterinarian, the same person thatt doing the same kind of other veterinarian things including giving injections—they forgive me for that. You know? Because they remember the acupuncture 

Petra Luna  5:00  

Oh, that's so cute. Tell me a little bit about trigger points. How do you find them? What are they?

Dr. Scanlan  5:08  

Cats have more trigger points than most people imagine. In fact, there's a lot of veterinarians who do not know about trigger points and cats, because they react in a in a different way. But what a trigger point is a painful, small part. In a human, a trigger point is about the size of the end of my thumb. And in a cat, it can be that small or sometimes even smaller, but it's a painful point. So if you are petting your cat, and all of a sudden, she flinches when you get over a trigger point, or if you're kind of gently massaging or rubbing or whatever, and you find a point that is either sensitive or it can feel like a little hard place—a hard rubber place in the middle of their muscle, that's how you find it, and it does hurt. And so you have to find them, they don't often draw your attention to it. Except for maybe they don't want you to pet them in a certain place. The most common trigger points that I've found in cats are along their necks, the front of their shoulders, and then along the back, especially towards the end of their back where it joins into the pelvis. And so if you're petting your cat, and you ever find that they don't want you to pet in those areas, they just get up and, you know, move away, that's a good chance that there's a trigger point there. 

Petra Luna  6:37  

And why are these the most dominant trigger points in cats? Is that because of the jumping, falling…

Dr. Scanlan  6:45  

Yes, yes, exactly. The places that a cat is the most active, that's the place where the trigger points are most likely to happen. And with the neck, they move their necks up, down, around, and so on. And if they were in the wild, they wouldn't be looking up nearly as much as they look up at us as part of our household. So they're going to put more stress on that. It doesn't seem like that should be stressful, but if you consider the way their heads are supposed to be like this, and if they're holding it up like that all the time, then these muscles here going to get kind of overworked. 

Petra Luna  7:21  

That makes so much sense. So what do you think about…because now it's so trendy to have these elevated cat bowls that are also a little slanted? Is that something that helps?

Dr. Scanlan  7:34  

It can. Yeah. Because it's so slanted, it’s not as extreme as, you know, straight up. And also, if they are more likely to use their body in a way that is not as straight up and down type of thing or whatever, then that can strengthen those muscles without putting so much pressure on it. So that would be less likely to develop a trigger point.

Petra Luna  8:02  

Yeah, that makes sense. Okay, so now one more question. You work with CIVT. Tell me a little bit about what you do there. And what that is—the organization? 

Dr. Scanlan  8:14  

Okay, so CIVT is a college that teaches holistic medicine principles, and they give webinars that give short courses, they give certificate courses, and they give Graduate Diploma courses. And they were originally founded to help certify veterinarians in things like acupuncture, herbal therapy, and so on. But then they started expanding to veterinary technicians, and then to animal health professionals like yourself that work with the public and then now they also give courses for pet owners too, and it's everything from quick webinars to three-year programs. And everything in between. It’s veterinarians who teach this. We're all holistic veterinarians, and it promotes holistic health for cats and dogs, and sometimes horses.

Petra Luna  9:10  

And horses? Wow, I love that. So if somebody would like to take their course what's the website?

Dr. Scanlan  9:17  

The website is civtedu.org.

Petra Luna  9:24  

Awesome. I think that might be interesting for some of my viewers, and they might want to take one of those courses. 

Dr. Scanlan  9:30  

We would love to see them come. Yes, we have all kinds of things. 

Petra Luna  9:35  

That's fantastic. So there's all kinds of courses that you can check out?

Dr. Scanlan  9:40  

That's right. Yeah. There’s a lot of introductory webinars and there's also webinars on very short but interesting things that you might not know about. There's a webinar on essential oils and there's a short course on essential oils. So there's one example. So you can look at a webinar and if that sounds interesting, and then if that looks good, then you can look and see if we've got a course for that. And continue on from there. 

Petra Luna  10:11  

I love it. I love it. Well, thank you so much Dr. Scanlan for your time today. Thank you for coming on and I hope to see you again very soon.

Dr. Scanlan  10:19  

Oh, I would love to come again. Yes. Thank you very much for having me.

Petra Luna  10:23  

Thank you have a great rest of your day. Bye-bye and Stay CatCrazy!