Frank Akawi, DVM
The Pet Health Renaissance Man
-World-leading nutraceutical researcher and alternative medicine veterinary consultant
-Director, of Acupuncture unit at the saratoga area
-Board certified, Chi- Institute for pets
-Editor, and Lecturer and practitioner in acupuncture and herbs in small animals
-Director, of Acupuncture unit at the saratoga area
-Board certified, Chi- Institute for pets
-Editor, and Lecturer and practitioner in acupuncture and herbs in small animals
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Anyone who has written a book or has a veterinary medical degree with a few courses in acupuncture and herbs today has become a self-proclaimed pet health expert. Some understand nutrition, some herbs, and others, folk remedies for specific illnesses.
Dr. Frank Akawi is one of the rare exceptions: after 25 years of experience in veterinary practice, he has discovered, tested, and formulated hidden health secrets from China to the Middle east and brought them to the public.
The story of his life is one filled with passion, exploration, and perseverance. The discoveries he reveals throughout his quest for natural, powerful, remedies is now shared with pet owners and Alternative oriented veterinarians. Once the worlds best-kept secret, today thousands of veterinarians are practicing Dr. Frank Akawi Methods and discovering miraculous health results for the pets.
What makes Dr. Frank Akawi so different?
Five thousand years ago in China, when valiant horses carried soldiers defending their borders into battle, the freedom fighters documented an extraordinary phenomenon: The lame horses that trotted painfully into battle and were pierced with arrows emerged stronger not more crippled by the assault.
In a sense, the arrows were gigantic metal needles that, by luck, hit some of the 360 points that stimulate the energy that carries healing messages throughout the body, explains Frank Akawi, one of the very few regional veterinarians who practice the specialized ancient healing form on animals.
Acupoints some start at the extremities, connect to the head, and then to the balance ailing organ.
Acupuncture attends to all aspects of a being: emotions, mind, and spirit. Akawi refers to it as the cosmic qi the air we breathe that distributes through our bodies and that we need to stay nourished, vibrant, active and healthy. Any disruption of qi results in disease.He gets literal: Imagine a freeway. There's an accident near an exit and everything has to be rerouted. When you free the qi, it opens the stagnation.
This technique relaxes muscular tension and balances the vital life forces of the body, Akawi says. I was very skeptical when I heard about it and even when I read about it, but when I saw it work, when I read the results of empirical studies and when I had the opportunity to observe and try it on pets in my own Saratoga Springs practices well, now I am a believer.
A native Jordanian, Akawi has been in the United States for more than two decades. He speaks four major world languages and 22 dialects of Middle east, studied animal science as an undergraduate in Baghdad, and then, in the United States, earned a masters in reproductive physiology, an MBA, a Ph.D. in pet health management; and a veterinary degree from ross University. He landed in Saratoga Springs serendipitously in 1999, in response to an ad in a professional journal seeking a veterinarian where he now spends most of his time.
A scientist who has had the energy and imagination to pursue the gamut of intellectual scientific and business principals, Akawi is in the perfect situation, running and practicing in small-animal clinics, where he can manage and sometimes cure disease, and, at the very least, improve the quality of life of an ailing animal.
I am fascinated by medicine, I love knowing the way a body works and how to interpret it. Its always a challenge to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it, whether by adding 1+1 and getting 2, being very analytical, or by some unorthodox method that involves intuition, emotion and interaction with a pet.
But the practice of contemporary veterinary medicine has its limits. Akawi was finding himself frustrated and depressed when Western medicine stopped helping and I had to deal with bad outcomes for my patients or referring cats and dogs out to other specialists, where the outcomes probably weren't going to be much better.
He heard that Florida based Chi-Institute an alternative medicine center for pets offered a few non-traditional medicine classes and attended them as part of his continuing medical education and certification process as an acupuncturist. There, he realized that homeopathic remedies (a medical science based on the use of natural substances) were both gentler and more effective in some cases than the rigorous surgical and drug-based methods he had been trained to use.
I definitely saw animals with osteoarthritis, hip dysplasia, neurological disease and cancer improve when veterinarians used non-Western approached, Akawi states.
Discouraged with just fixing symptoms and eager to balance the body and heal disease, Akawi embarked on a distant quest, traveling to China ten times for three weeks each time to examine the achievements of herbal medicine and acupuncture on animals and learn advance methods at the university of Sichuan, south of china.
It was powerful, Akawi remembers. I saw a doctor put five very sharp, small-gauge needles into a cow in a lot of pain, and he was able to do surgery on her without any other anesthesia.
(On one of these trips Akawi fell in love, and brought back an effervescent bride, Xin, a native of Beijing, who had witnessed the effects of acupuncture performed on people but was surprised she says, to see her husband practice it on animals. In her youth, Xin was cured of a facial palsy, and her grandfather's ability to walk was improved by acupuncture. In both cases, she remembers everyone being very relaxed. Now, in America, she relies on herbs to sustain her excellent health.
The couple and his daughter, Jazmine, enjoy a gracious, secluded home in Charlton with two cats.) After that, he dedicated himself to learning every one of the 320 points on the body that lead to the restoration of health and soundness. One giant departure from what Akawi saw in China and what he practices himself, is that in China attention is paid most closely to the needs of larger farm animals like horses and cows, while his own commitment is to dogs, cats, bunnies and birds.
He remarks that this is a culture-bound difference, based on the more intimate relationships Americans develop with their domestic pets which they cherish and care for as family members. This has led to the handcuffs being taken off, he notes. People want me to do anything, everything possible when their pet is sick or hurt. Veterinary medicine is a $20 billion industry in this country 10 years ago it was a $5 billion industry. I don't hear: Oh no, that costs too much, let him suffer, let him die. I hear: Do what you have to do. Sometimes it's unconventional.
He recalls the first time he called his new skills into use in the United States: I saw a Basenji (a beautiful, barkless African dog) once, which had fallen off a porch chasing a squirrel. He was paralyzed from the waist down. It was dreadful. The owner was resistant to surgery which could have cost up to $5,000 and may still failed or massive steroid treatment, and gave me the go-ahead for acupuncture. I didn't know what we were in for and I prepared to have to walk her through the worst. Now he has trouble talking through his emotion: In five days the dog was walking. Five days. It was amazing. My satisfaction with this outcome is immeasurable.
He never hesitated to suggest acupuncture as an alternative again in cases where he believes it might be an effective treatment, as long as the spinal chord is not irretrievably damaged. He calls animals with pain from inflammation particularly excellent candidates.
Akawi is used to distraught pet owners coming to his office as a last resort, having been told by other veterinarians that their beloved companion is close to death, beyond repair, too sick to treat, and even hopeless. One woman was informed by a veterinarian that her animal was too lazy to walk again. The poor thing had sores on him from being immobilized so bad we could see the bone. He had no control over his bowels or his urine either, Akawi recalls with a deep shudder.
After an intensive course of acupuncture, Akawi had him on his feet in 3 months. I am honest with clients, he says. I had one person come to me with a pet that had been down for four months. Its body was atrophied. I didn't think that dog would make it. We worked on that dog twice a week for five months. Then I was away at a conference and my beeper went off. It was him. The dog had walked, again, Akawi is so moved his voice cracks when he sums it simply: It was good.
Now he sees that animal every two to three months to maintain its health and mobility.
Akawi sees an 70%-75% positive response to the treatments, and a particular dramatic increase in positive outcomes in cancer, which he calls, almost the same as what you will get with radiation and chemotherapy in some cases, but the important thing is the animal is more relaxed and has a better quality of life at the end of its life. Acupuncture can't heal everything, but it can keep the pets quieter, more comfortable.
By no means has Akawi completely converted his practice to a non-Western animal haven. In fact, he emphasizes that his approach now is integrative, that Western tools and equipment are far superior for diagnosing disease immediately, and that they are quicker and better in an emergency. Eastern medicine requires patience and time and is built around a careful physical exam, including touching, smelling and a through feeling of the animal, examinations Akawi performs regardless of whether he plans a traditional or non-traditional approach to treatment.
You can't underestimate those elements of an assessment, he points out. What do you think vets did before there were stethoscopes?
And sometimes all the medicine on earth can't help. One 3 a.m. emergency call spurred Akawi to his clinic to see a dog in an unremitting coughing fit that was bringing up blood. He had been on antibiotics for a respiratory infection which were totally unsuccessful and now the poor creature seemed to be choking to death. The owner was frantic. Akawi pried open the dog's mouth to see if he could see an obstruction and then, following his finely tuned intuition, ventured a hand down the suffering dog's gullet. Miraculous success! He grabbed and extricated the dog's tags, which it had swallowed and which had lodged under it's tongue and pointed toward his esophagus.
This treatment is without x-ray and surgery, Akawi says.
This is with physical exam, looking, touching, and listening. He believes in a close view of the tongue, and especially its secretions and color, which are clues to the condition of the heart and liver, and hints about how the spleen and stomach are digesting. He takes the animals pulse in six femoral locations, and considers the qi while deciding which Western and which Eastern treatments to suggest.
I will never have a 100% Western or Eastern practice now, Akawi says. You need both. About 20% of my patients try acupuncture and some come from as far away as New Jersey and Plattsburgh. On the other hand, some people laugh at me when I mention it. I try not to judge. I educate. I know it's complicated and people need time to think about it.
With remote relatives, an exotic influence impacting his career path, and a foreign-born wife (who loves the four seasons in Saratoga County), is there a move far away in Akawi's future?
I admit it took a while to make the transition but now I find myself in this eclectic, artistic, friendly community where I am surrounded by good restaurants and natural beauty. Where else would I go and be as happy?
