Veterinary technicians are often the first members of a care team to notice a pattern before it becomes a diagnosis. They observe how a dog shifts its weight before the veterinarian enters the room, or how a senior cat has become reluctant to climb into her carrier in a way she wasn’t a year earlier. When an owner reports that a pet “is eating fine,” a technician is frequently the one who registers that the animal’s posture is telling a somewhat different story.
That observational habit is part of what makes technicians well positioned to ask the next clinical question, and for many, acupuncture becomes one of those questions. It tends to surface around a specific kind of case: a patient with chronic pain that has not responded fully to a standard medication protocol, a postoperative animal recovering more slowly than expected, or a client who asks whether there is anything else to consider beyond another change in prescription. We spoke with “Jess,” a composite veterinary technician built from the recurring questions technicians raise when they first become curious about acupuncture, and used the conversation as a frame for reviewing what the current research actually shows.
You mentioned that your interest in acupuncture started with a particular kind of case. Can you describe that?
It typically began with a pain management case. A common pattern was an older dog presenting every few weeks, with an owner who was already doing everything reasonably available to them: adhering to the prescribed medication regimen, modifying the home environment, and adjusting the dog’s routine to reduce strain. Despite that effort, the animal’s condition would plateau or continue to decline.
When acupuncture was raised as an option in those cases, my initial reaction was curiosity paired with real skepticism. I wanted to know what the evidence actually supported rather than accept a general impression that it might help. That question turned out to be more complicated than I expected. Several major professional bodies, including the American Animal Hospital Association, the American Association of Feline Practitioners, and the World Small Animal Veterinary Association, have endorsed acupuncture in their pain management guidelines as a treatment that should be strongly considered as part of a broader, multimodal approach to pain in dogs and cats. That gave me a more substantive foundation to reason from than a vague sense of plausibility.
What role do you think veterinary technicians play in these conversations with clients?
Technicians often function as translators between the clinical plan and the client’s daily experience of caring for their animal. While the veterinarian is responsible for diagnosis, prescribing, and performing the treatment itself, the technician is frequently the person who helps the client understand how that plan will actually unfold at home. Clients tend to ask practical questions: how frequently the treatment would occur, whether their pet is likely to tolerate it, whether it would replace or supplement existing medication, and what changes they should watch for.
Those conversations tend to go more smoothly when the technician can speak from something more specific than general reassurance. It is useful, for instance, to be able to explain that acupuncture is generally regarded as a safe, non-pharmacologic intervention with a low rate of adverse effects and that most patients tolerate it well. Because safety is usually the first concern a client raises before considering an unfamiliar treatment, being able to answer that question directly and specifically changes the tone of the whole discussion.
If you were pursuing further training in this area, what would you want to understand first?
I would want to begin with the underlying physiological mechanisms rather than with technique. The research in this area is more developed than I initially assumed. Several studies suggest that acupuncture activates afferent nerve fibers and influences the regulation of signaling molecules such as opioid peptides, glutamate, serotonin, and cholecystokinin, which appears to contribute to its analgesic effects. There is also evidence, drawn primarily from human and laboratory animal studies, of increased concentrations of endogenous opioids in both plasma and cerebrospinal fluid following treatment. More recent research has examined whether repeated treatment produces longer-term changes in the central nervous system, with some evidence suggesting that electroacupuncture may help reverse certain neurochemical changes associated with chronic pain.
That is a considerably different starting point than a framework built around energy or flow, and it is one I could reasonably use to inform both client communication and clinical judgment.
Do you believe acupuncture has an established place in mainstream veterinary medicine?
I think it belongs wherever the evidence actually supports its use, and I think that is a more accurate answer than either a blanket endorsement or a blanket dismissal. The evidence base is not uniform. A 2024 evidence review published in Veterinary Evidence examined four placebo-controlled trials involving dogs with chronic pain and found the overall evidence weak. Three of the four trials found no meaningful difference between acupuncture and placebo in reducing pain or improving function, while a fourth trial involving gold bead implantation for hip dysplasia reported improved pain relief and locomotion based on combined owner and veterinarian assessment. The reviewers concluded that current evidence is insufficient to recommend acupuncture as a sole method of managing chronic pain in dogs.
A separate, more rigorously designed trial involving naturally occurring osteoarthritis in dogs encountered a limitation that recurs throughout this body of research. As the trial’s authors noted, acupuncture studies are difficult to blind effectively, in both human and veterinary contexts, because the treatment itself involves the physically apparent act of inserting and manipulating needles. That methodological constraint makes it harder to isolate a specific treatment effect from a placebo response.
None of this suggests that acupuncture is ineffective. It suggests that an accurate account of the evidence is more nuanced than a promotional description would imply, and that nuance is something a competent technician should be comfortable communicating.
What would make you cautious about pursuing certification in this area?
Scope of practice is the first concern. What a technician is permitted to do depends on jurisdiction, on the specific license or credential held, and on what the supervising veterinarian is willing to delegate. Personal interest in a modality is not equivalent to legal authorization to perform it.
I would also be cautious of any program that overstates the evidence in either direction. A course that presents acupuncture as settled science overlooks studies like the ones described above. A course that dismisses it entirely overlooks both the mechanistic research and the fact that major veterinary organizations have endorsed it as a component of multimodal pain management. What I would look for is an educational program that represents the evidence honestly, including the areas that remain genuinely unresolved.
What kinds of patients tend to prompt you to consider acupuncture as an option?
Chronic pain patients are the most obvious category, particularly senior dogs and cats with mobility limitations, since these are cases where owners often notice day-to-day changes in quality of life. Beyond that, I think about postoperative patients, neurologic cases, and animals that cannot tolerate certain medications well. Reviews of the literature indicate that acupuncture has demonstrated effects across several categories of pain, including inflammatory, neuropathic, cancer-related, and visceral pain, and that it may support recovery from acute surgical or injury-related pain as well as chronic spinal and osteoarthritic conditions. That range helps explain why the modality draws sustained interest from technicians across different areas of practice, since comfort has downstream effects on sleep, appetite, mobility, behavior, and the relationship between an animal and its owner.
How do clients typically respond when acupuncture is explained clearly?
Most clients are more receptive than one might expect, particularly when the explanation avoids overstatement and is honest about the current limits of the evidence. Clients generally want a direct account of why the treatment is being recommended, what a typical appointment involves, how progress will be assessed, and how the treatment fits within the broader plan of care. When a care team can communicate that clearly, including the point that acupuncture typically functions best as one component of a larger treatment strategy rather than a standalone solution, the recommendation tends to read as a considered clinical decision rather than a leap of faith.
What advice would you offer another technician who is curious about this field?
I would encourage them to build enough foundational knowledge to read the primary research directly, rather than relying entirely on secondhand summaries. That shift affects how a technician takes a history, what they notice during an appointment, and how precisely they can communicate with clients. It is worth seeking out education that presents both sides of the evidence fairly, the studies indicating benefit and those showing limited or mixed results. Technicians do not require a simplified account of the field; they are capable of engaging with the evidence as it actually stands, provided the material is taught in a way that respects both their clinical role and the current state of the science.
For a technician looking for a grounded entry point, CuraCore’s medical acupuncture course for veterinary technicians is one option worth investigating, since it is designed to introduce acupuncture from a medical, evidence-informed perspective rather than a purely traditional one.
What do you hope further education in this area would change about your day-to-day practice?
I think it would make me more confident in conversations I am already having, and more precise in how I conduct them. Clients are already raising questions about pain, aging, mobility, and treatment options beyond a first-line plan. Veterinarians are already weighing complex cases against a research landscape that includes both promising mechanistic findings and mixed clinical trial results. And patients are already communicating, through behavior and posture, where their discomfort lies.
A better understanding of the actual state of the evidence, rather than either the theoretical framework or an assumption of certainty, would let me function as a more useful part of that process. It would reduce client confusion and allow me to reinforce accurate information for the veterinarian rather than offering only a surface-level response. Most people enter this profession because they want to help animals in a direct, meaningful way, and a more rigorous understanding of the research behind acupuncture is, in that sense, simply another way of doing that work well.
