Wholistic Medicine Is The #1 Answer to Stop Your Horse From Chronic Pain Due To Ulcers.

How To Find Success in Managing Your Horse’s Ulcers

Wholistic medicine can treat ulcers and be very successful at it. However, most are conditioned by our allopathic medical system that #1 only western medicine can treat disease (all others are being called inferior despite western medicine being responsible for far more deaths and iatrogenic injuries than any wholistic medicine) and #2 that each health problem should be reduced down to the smallest working part (reductionism) and that symptom should be treated. This is how western medicine works. Have ulcers, use omeprazole, a proton pump inhibitor to reduce acid produced by the stomach to give the stomach lining time to heal. This is just one example as there are several drugs and combinations of drugs that can be used to treat ulcers in horses.

This is just treating the symptom. And often requires repeat treatment with its host of side effects including rebound acid production, hind gut ulcers etc. Now, there is no judgement if someone chooses to go this route.  That’s why we have choices.   However, if you think that acupuncture can’t treat stomach ulcers, we need clarification. If a horse owner/trainer is looking to symptomatically treat stomach ulcers then in the short term they will get results with drugs from your western medical veterinarian.  But there is a better way.

Sadly, in this country, acupuncture in the veterinary community has been watered down because most vets take acupuncture and fit it into their western medical training and their reductionist thinking thereby ruining the very essence of its wholistic principles. They use acupuncture to treat symptoms and most veterinarians are using it to treat musculo-skeletal symptomatic treatment.   Sore hocks? Use these hock diagnostic and treatment points. This is pain management. This is Sinew Channel treatment. This is just a very superficial way of using the tenets of Chinese Medicine.  This is why most owners and trainers believe that chronic pain in their horse from stomach ulcers must be treated with drugs.

And I understand why. Most clients are calling the acupuncturist for 2 reasons. To treat a symptom and to help diagnose when they have come up against a brick wall with western medicine. Chinese medicine (which acupuncture is one branch) was not developed nor intended to work this way.

Chinese medicine looks at each symptom as the bodies way of saying that there is a inherent imbalance in the body. We look at the conglomeration of symptoms to determine the syndrome and looks at the relationship between syndromes, elements, body fluids etc (this gets a little beyond the point of this post) for our treament strategy. Syndromes are a categorization of symptoms and their relationship to one another like Liver Qi stagnation creating heat, Spleen Qi deficiency, Invasion of Cold Damp, Blood deficiency, Wood overacting on Earth to name a few. That is the underlying imbalance causing the symptoms. These imbalances can be caused by internal and external forces beyond the scope of this post. However, if you just treat the symptom, you do nothing to change the underlying imbalance and that symptom or a new symptom will re-appear. When we state (in the wholistic community) that we want the body to be able to heal itself, we are working to give the body what it needs to change the underlying issue. Whether that be herbs, dietary therapy, acupuncture, management changes etc. And while you can apply reductionist thinking to each of these it would be incorrect to do so and actually deter from the power of wholistic medicine.

While this is foreign to the western trained mind, this is a very strong differentiation that should not be forgotten. This is an important distinction that is rarely made in the equine world. So you could just as successfully use Chinese Medicine for ulcers as you could western medicine and dare I say without all the side effects. Being a practitioner for 20 years, I have seen acupuncture be successful with an array of more complicated diseases than just body pain. Including Liver disease, COPD, immune hyper-activity or deficiency, metabolic issues and many more not to mention that it can also treat mental emotional disorders and other hard to treat problems that allopathic medicine struggles with.

Disappointedly, we are squashed from saying this in our western world and I may get a lot of push back but it doesn’t make it any less true. Each complicated disease treatment for true “healing” takes a wholistic approach. So even if one decides to use omeprazole or any other allopathic drug, looking at the whole horse is an important concept for a cure instead of management. You will see this presented by many wholistic practitioners not just by Chinese medicine and acupuncture practitioners.

Treating the musculo-skeletal presentation of ulcers in the horse will never work on the actual ulcers that are causing the musculo-skeletal presentation, with that I totally agree. However it is really important to understand how wholistic medicine (and in particular acupuncture) works in the equine world or medicine at large. Chinese medicine can in fact work with not just the musculo-skeletal system (fascia/bones/muscles/nerves/ligaments/tendons…) but also each organ system and their inter-relationship. It all depends on how you work with it. And it also depends on whether the owner wants a quick fix (albeit temporary) or a lasting change in their horse mind, body and spirit.

If you are on the merry go round of repetitive medication while managing your horse’s ulcers and your horse is developing chronic pain from ulcers, know that there is another way.

If you want to learn more about how YOU can Holistically Treat Your Horses Digestive System for lasting change check out our courses here.  If this course is not currently available get on the waitlist today!