Western and Eastern Medicine Come Together for Pet Health
Walnut Creek Veterinary Hospital, located in Shadelands on Lennon Lane since March 2021.
We first met Walnut Creek Veterinary Hospital (WCVH) in the September 2021 issue of The Shadelands Scene. Owner Jill Christofferson, DVM, had relocated her thriving Walnut Creek practice to a purpose-built clinic and hospital in Shadelands, launching the first and only veterinary hospital open to the public in Shadelands Wanut Creek. WCVH continues to grow and expand its services to dogs and cats and their people, making its mark in pet health care in Walnut Creek.
Beth Schneider, a state-licensed acupuncturist, with 20 years’ experience, treats Cal, a three-year-old collie experiencing physical pain and symptoms of anxiety.
Beth Schneider, MS, LAc, a state-licensed acupuncturist with a degree in Eastern medicine and close to 20 years' experience in the field, joined WCVH in June 2022, offering long held Eastern medicine practices that complement the hospital’s extensive, state-of-the-art Western veterinary medical services.
Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), a complete healing system thousands of years old, approaches each individual as an integrated whole by observing the relationships between the physical body, emotions, and external environment. TCM theory states that a form of universal life energy known as Qi circulates throughout the body along specific pathways known as meridians, where blood vessels and nerves convene, traveling closely together.
As long as this energy flows freely through the meridians, health is maintained; when the flow of energy is blocked or deficient, the system is disrupted, and pain and illness occur.
As a practitioner of TCM and a licensed human acupuncturist with a keen passion for helping animals live the best lives they can, Beth works with companion animals through veterinary hospitals throughout the San Francisco Bay Area,
Using fine needles inserted at specific points along the Cal’s body, Beth works to unblock energy flow and spark natural healing responses.
The use of veterinary acupuncture is focused on helping an animal’s body heal itself by resetting the balance of energy throughout the body, done with a series of fine needles inserted at specific points in the body along the meridians, triggering the body’s natural biological healing responses.
“Eastern and Western medicine complement each other by approaching the body differently,” said Beth. “Western medicine is excellent with diagnostic, blood work, and medications. Eastern medicine treats the body holistically, looking at long-term chronic care to bring an imbalanced body into balance."
Beth treats dogs and cats with a variety of acute and chronic issues, including orthopedic, neurological, digestive, and immune disorders. She sees animals for allergies, facial paralysis, and inner ear disorders that affect their spatial orientation. Her geriatric patients come in most often with arthritis. All have benefited from acupuncture and the integration of Eastern and Western medicine.
Beth treats 16-year-old Banjo, who suffers from multiple health issues, with acupuncture and Chinese herbs.
Banjo is a 16-year-old Jack Russell terrier, deaf, with a complicated medical history, including arthritis and degenerative disc disease that make standing and walking difficult; diminished nerve function; and the loss of his right eye. Banjo’s people, Judy and Al, have been taking him to Beth for the past two years and notice with every visit how Beth’s expertise and gentle hands improve Banjo’s health and spirit.
“After every treatment, he’s a new dog,” said Judy, “with renewed energy and bounce, despite his many aches and pains. When we see him so relaxed and so calm, we always say it’s as though we’ve just taken him to a spa — he is clearly in a good place.”
"My goal is to help animals regain their balance — to keep their appetites up and their digestion working, to open up the flow of energy and unblock that which causes illness and pain,” said Beth. “My focus is always on their quality of life."
