ASHEBORO, N.C. -- The North Carolina Zoo is taking a different approach to helping their animals feel well. They're doing that by using acupuncture on two Patas monkeys who suffer from osteoarthritis.
This is the first time this type of alternative medicine has been used at the zoo, but veterinarians hope the treatment will be so successful that this won't be last time.
As these animals get older, it gets harder to monkey around, even using conventional medicines.
“We steadily have to increase the doses every year to keep them comfortable, so we are trying to incorporate new treatments to keep them comfortable and hopefully wean them off some of the other drugs that we have,” explained Sathya Chinnadurai, a veterinarian at the North Carolina Zoo.
One of those new treatments is acupuncture, the process of inserting needles into specific points on the body to release natural pain killers.
“I'm feeling for acupuncture points or areas where they might have particular sensitivity or soreness or areas that I need to concentrate on during the exam,” said Dr. Christine Eckermann-Ross. “We'll then insert the needles and what we are using today is just adding a little bit of electrical stimulation. It's a very mild electrical stimulus just to give some extra stimulation and longer term pain control.”
Zoo veterinarians say they're always looking for new way to treat their aging animals and they hope to see great results from acupuncture.
“Our real goal is to try and keep them as comfortable as long as we can,” added Chinnadurai. “They've done a lot for the zoo by being ambassadors to the public and being display animals for a long period of time, and I think that we owe it to them to keep them as comfortable as we can while we have them here.”
This is the first time the zoo has used acupuncture on any of its animals and it's also a first for Dr. Eckermann-Ross.
“This is my first zoo experience and I am thrilled that the North Carolina Zoo is embracing adding acupuncture to their treatment regimes for their animals,” Ross said.
Veterinarians say they will keep a close eye on the two monkeys that underwent acupuncture and look for signs that it was successful. If the acupuncture is successful, they plan to expand the alternative medicine to other aging primates who are also being treated for pain.