Dr. Kate Long

Compassion and Prevention

Hello and welcome to Living Balance!  Thank you for taking the time to have a look around. Please let me know if you cannot find what you need here, I will do my very best to help.  In the meantime, I will share a bit of my background with you, and how I evolved from critical care to preventative and integrative medicine.   

Since graduating from the University of California at Davis School of Veterinary Medicine in 1997, my primary focus has been emergency medicine.  Additional intensive training and experience in critical care gave me a deep appreciation for early intervention in crisis situations as well as the importance of long-term strategies for keeping pets healthy and out of the hospital.

One of my passions as a criticalist has always been reducing stress and pain in the ICU wherever possible. Unfortunately, many emergency patients have severe pain and stress in addition to their primary medical problem(s), which are difficult to control with medications alone, even with advanced interventions.  More options are always needed, ideally more effective and less invasive solutions, without common negative side effects such as GI ulceration, renal failure, nausea or hypotension.  

In 2006 I had the great fortune to work with Dr. Cheryl Adams, who worked with me on critical patients and demonstrated that acupuncture, when combined with conventional medicine, is a powerful treatment of the whole patient, both in crisis and wellness situations. We found repeatedly that stress, pain, organ function and appetite all improved far beyond what was normally expected with conventional medicine alone. This experience launched my interest and training in acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine.

Since then, I have studied human Classical Five Element Acupuncture for two years, received certification as a Veterinary Medical Acupuncturist from Colorado State University, and then went on to complete the Small Animal Acupuncture program at the Chi Institute of Traditional Chinese Veterinary Medicine in Reddick, FL.  

Acupuncture and herbal therapy are not new practices; they have been used and refined as healing arts in eastern cultures over thousands of years.  In western medicine, they are just now beginning to be rediscovered as powerful modalities for pain relief, healing and prevention.  It is my heartfelt goal to use these skills, combined with innovative technology such as the therapeutic laser, to benefit and improve the quality and quantity of life for as many of our small animal friends and their guardians as possible.