Acupuncture stimulates muscles and nerves to increase blood flow to the area. It's basically controlled damaging / stimulating of a nerve pathway which gets the body to wake up and start fixing things. It's made a big difference to Teddy with his spine injury. I can feel the muscle knots where the pins were in his legs for example. The vet uses a laser on the spots that he doesn't tolerate the needles at this stage. Acupuncture therapy is used more on horses and dogs, for example Dactshunds with slipped disks. In Teddy's case, his spine injury has led to muscle weakness and nerve pain which causes spasms. It's not the kind of thing you can massage to get better, and although he can be on lifelong anti-inflammatories it won't address the muscle weakness and the Meds ultimately shorten his lifespan. He has been for physio and we do try to keep up with his exercises but sometimes he manages to hurt himself in a way that only very small, specific spot treatments can help. And thats where acupuncture comes in. It's not something that can be fixed 100%. I don't expect him to ever be able to jump over a wall like Flash can. But we can strengthen him and make sure he isn't in pain.