Acupuncture treatment of torticollis in a foal

Kim, Duck-Hwan; Liu, Jianzhu; Lee, Jung-Yeon; MacManus, Philip; Jennings, Padraic; Darcy, Karl; Burke, Fiona; Rogers, Philip A.M.

Korean Journal of Veterinary Research 2006;46(1):43-46.

Duck-Hwan Kim¹, Jianzhu Liu¹, Jung-Yeon Lee², Philip MacManus³, Padraic Jennings³, Karl Darcy³, Fiona Burke³, Philip A.M. Rogers⁴

¹College of Veterinary Medicine, Chungnam National University
²Obihiro University of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine, Obihiro
³Glenina Veterinary Clinic, Galway, Co.
⁴Teagasc Grange Research Centre, Dunsany, Co.

Abstract

A 6-month-old thoroughbred filly foal had torticollis and circled towards the right side. A local veterinarian treated her twice using dexamethasone for 1 week but there was little clinical improvement. Needles were inserted into Ting points of both hind limb and one ocular acupoint (shang jiao area from GB01). Injection acupuncture (dexamethasone, twice/week) was used at GV16, GB20, BL10 and LU07, for the neck and head. Acupoint GB34 was added to those points at session 4. In addition, a trigger point in the left neck was injected with 0.2 ml ($200{mu}g$ of apitoxin) of bee-venom diluted with 1 ml of 2% lidocaine from session 1 to session 3. At session 2, the symptoms had ameliorated a little. At session 3, they were much improved; the right ear was completely normal and the neck could be moved about 60% of normal range. At session 4, nodding was possible and stiffness of the neck was much improved, having returned to about 80% of normal range. Three days after session 4, the symptom of torticollis had disappeared completely and the foal could walk in a straight line. In conclusion, the present patient was a case with equine torticollis which showed favourable therapeutic response by combination of needle-acupuncture plus injection-acupuncture with dexamethasone and apitoxin.

Key Words: horse, injection-acupuncture, oculo-acupuncture, torticollis