Holistic Actions! for Itchy Pets

Holistic Actions! for Itchy Pets

by | HA! for Diseases, HA! Skin

Is Your Pet Allergic (and why)?

Itching, scratching and chewing to distraction. Some pets may even itch all day and night. Their quality of life (and our sleep) can be seriously affected. Many very itchy pets are generically labelled as “allergic”.

Are allergies even a real disease? Are they “incurable” as the dermatology specialists say? Can chronically itchy pets be helped without drugs?

Dogs and cats that itch excessively have a a common problem. They have imbalanced immune systems. Itchy skin is just one allergic manifestation. Seasonal rhinitis is a more common manifestation of this immune hypersensitivity in humans.

In my experience, with patience and perseverance the underlying allergic problem can often be resolved. Often many drugs have already been used. This makes resolution even more difficult.

Is There Hope for the Severely Itchy Pet?

Homeopathic treatment has helped many allergic pets. Relief of my own lifelong severe allergic rhinitis is one of the minor miracles which brought me to homeopathy in the first place.

Help your own pet get relief with these 5 steps:
1. After your local vet rules out parasites like fleas and mites, find a vet homeopath to **help interpret signs and symptoms  in contextand guide you through this process.

2. Feed a species-appropriate diet. Ideally a raw and meat-based variety. Almost any food upgrade can help however. Fresh food feeding alone will help avoid artificial dietary triggers and increase immune health.

3. Brush your pet daily. Even better is to first use a mild shampoo such as the lavender-containing Tranquility from Zen Dog or spray with a skin moisturizer like Hy-Lyt. Dry skin is a big itch trigger.

4. Supplement the diet when needed. Natural antihistamines like Bio-C (vitamin C) and grape seed extract. Ultra-EFA and other balanced fatty acids + zinc are very useful.

5. Reduce stress. Increase exercise and environmental stimulation. Some pets scratch, over groom pull out their fur, etc. strictly from boredom. Itching can also be caused by treatable anxieties.

These five steps have helped over 90% of the itchy pets that I have seen in almost thirty years of practice.

Be well.

Dr. Jeff

Can My Pets Eat Tofu?

by | HA! Nutrition, HA! Staying Healthy

Amy (my wife) asked about giving her uneaten Tofu to Vanya (our pup).

My short answer? “Absolutely!”

The less satisfying and longer answer is “it depends”.

Ideally you want to consider these factors before you try Tofu:

  1. Feed tofu ONLY if the soy is certified organic or not from genetically modified (GM) soy.
  2. Minimize or avoid tofu as a nutritional source in some cases (based on context). For example, if the mild synthetic estrogenic effect of the tofu is contraindicated (ask your vet if you’re unsure).
  3. Tofu and soy are actually beneficial for managing incontinence. Because of the effect mentioned above. Tofu will help tighten up the urinary passage and reduce, and even stop, urine leakage. Especially In female dogs that were spayed when immature.

Bottom line?

Tofu is usually fine to feed. Just not large amounts. As part of feeding variety.

Variety. Moderation. Fresh. That’s almost always the answer.

Holistic Actions! and Dr. Jeff’s Lyme Story

Holistic Actions! and Dr. Jeff’s Lyme Story

by | HA! for Diseases, HA! Holistic Vet, HA! Lyme, HA! Videos

The fateful weekend


Over Father’s Day weekend of 2001 we had a house full of company. Little did I know that it would be a fateful weekend (my Dad’s last Father’s Day + my Lyme).

That Friday, I started feeling flu-like symptoms of heavy eyes, decreased appetite, muscle soreness, weakness, and was running a low-grade fever. I typically ignored such minor deviations from health since I trusted my body to do what was best for it.

I typically ignored such minor deviations from health since I trusted my body to do what was best for it.


Tincture of time almost always worked in my favor. Unfortunately, not this time. I had forgotten about the attached deer tick and bullseye rash which I had found on my right thigh the prior week.

My family was visiting from Philadelphia and Cherry Hill and we were having a lovely weekend. I’m so glad that no one knew that I felt “blah” so that I got to spend this time with my parents (they both passed away in 2002).

By that Sunday when everyone was set to depart, I felt exceptionally weak and a little disoriented. I decided to take my temperature even though I rarely bothered with such things. It was 103. This was particularly significant as my baseline temp is often below 98 degrees.

 

I was very wrong…

 

“OK, fine” I thought, so I’m run down from catering to my guests and playing tennis this weekend. “I’ll just rest and I’ll be ready to see my patients tomorrow”. I was very wrong.

Within a few hours of taking to my bed to rest, my temp went up to 104. I became so weak that I was barely able to get up. When I tried to stand, my equilibrium was off and I could barely walk straight. I still wasn’t overly concerned, but my darling wife was ready to call the ambulance.

I don’t have much recollection of the next few days. I know that my temperature kept rising but I couldn’t (rise). At the 105 degree point my wife was frantic. I wouldn’t let her take me to the ER. I still had faith in the healing abilities of my body.

At the 105 degree point my wife was frantic.

Fortunately, I was already working with an expert ND homeopath, Dr. Howard Fine. I had also recently become certified in veterinary homeopathy (after cure of my lifelong allergies, but that’s a story for a different day). My wife left a message for him Sunday night.

Monday morning, he called and evaluated my symptoms in detail. Not just the common symptoms seen with Lyme, but the totality of my specific symptom picture. He needed to know the exact locations of the pains, whether I was thirsty, restless, feeling hot, chilled, etc.? He then prescribed a homeopathic remedy designed to help my body rally its’ defenses.

 

Trial and error

 

With a few repetitions of this first homeopathic medicine, I felt better, but kept relapsing. Later that day, Dr. Fine prescribed a different homeopathic medicine. I again felt better, but by Wednesday my temperature was back up to over 104. I still had no appetite, horrible chills, and debilitating vertigo that prevented me from getting out of bed (had I wanted to get up). My wife was even more frantic.

Around noon that day I spoke with Dr. Fine again and he prescribed a new remedy. He had been pondering my case and had a fresh take on my symptom manifestations. Well, I’ll tell you. Had I not already seen miraculous responses to homeopathic medicines, I would not have believed the changes that I felt.

 

Is it magic?

 

I took the remedy and within moments I could feel some of the tension and heat leaving my body. When I felt my improvement stop, I redosed the remedy. Kind of like building a fire. No need to add logs (or dose) as long as the fire was growing.

By that evening my appetite had returned, I was out of bed, and my fever was minimal. By the next day I was back on the tennis court (though unfortunately still playing poorly)!

Since then I have removed many ticks from myself but have never had a similar problem. My immune system and resistance seem to have been strengthened by working through the dis-ease. A wonderful “side-effect”!

A few weeks later I went to the doctor for a routine checkup and mentioned my experience. He found it amusing (since I obviously didn’t have Lyme). Imagine his surprise when my Lyme titer (antibody level) came back so high that it was off the charts.

I owe a debt of gratitude to Dr. Howard Fine who both treated me and was a mentor of mine in my studies of homeopathy. Since then I have helped resolve Lyme in many of my own patients.

Prevent Lyme through Holistic Actions! Build a strong immune system and preserve vitality.

 

Watch this video of molecular biology and my personal journey with acute Lyme disease and genetic dis-ease symptoms. The same strategies I used also work for pets

  • 00:00 Introductions
  • 03:30 Inspiration for webinar / Vanya’s & Archie’s story / happiness
  • 06:30 Tonight’s mission, agenda
  • 08:00 Roadmap to approaching any disease / one health
  •  13:15 Optimizing inner and outer terrain
  • 14:20 Dr. Jeff’s personal Lyme experience / homeopathy / Describing Dr. Jeff’s symptoms
  • 22:00 The beginning of happiness protocol  / laughter yoga / positive thinking
  • 31:00 Archie’s healing journey
  • 32:45 Vitality, balance and science / P4 medicine / exposome / individuality / energy flow
  • 41:30 Flow and happiness
  • 46:20 Overall strategies to reduce Lyme risk and manage symptoms
  • 56:00 Communication and flow between cells

Holistic Actions for Pets That Vomit

Holistic Actions for Pets That Vomit

by | HA! Digestion, HA! for Diseases

What Throwing Up Can Mean for Your Pets

If you have a dog or cat who has a history of throwing up (vomiting), you may be worried. You want to stop the vomiting and help. This is natural and important.

You can help the most by learning more about the symptom of vomiting. Once you know more, you can use that information to make better decisions about what to do. Both quickly and through your companion animal’s life.

There is a difference between healing and just resolving the immediate problem. Healing both relieves symptoms and improves the patient’s life. 

 In all ways. Not only symptomatic relief.

For example, in our recent Lyme webinar, we discovered that Lyme is an over diagnosed and over treated disease. Overall healthy dogs exposed to Lyme don’t get sick. The strong immune system neutralizes any harmful effects from the Lyme bacteria. Anti-biotics may relieve the acute symptom, but they also can contribute to future problems.

In patients who throw up, using Prilosec or Pepcid to temporarily relieve symptoms is common practice. Proton pump inhibitors and H2 blocking anti-histamines may (or may not) relieve the symptoms. But your pets deserve longer term relief without the potential side-effects of medications. The holistic and homeopathic methods of understanding your pets are here to help. Their scientific framework can even help predict which patients may benefit from or suffer a side-effect from any medicine.

Any dis-ease symptom may resolve in the short term, but the quick fix doesn’t improve future health or dis-ease resistance.

Why is closely examining specific symptoms so important? Because understanding them is a way of learning more about the body and the healing process. The more we understand the signs and symptoms produced by the body, the more we understand how the body works. 

Symptoms are a clue that there may be a deeper issue.

Let’s start our understanding of “vomiting” by differentiating it from regurgitation.



The Difference Between Vomiting and Regurgitation

Vomiting is active. It may appear as though the whole body is involved in the effort and you’ll see the stomach muscles contract. Often, they’ll vomit several times in a row.

Regurgitation is passive. It does not involve the forceful contraction of stomach muscles. Both vomiting and regurgitation can occur right after eating or drinking, or up to several hours later. In both cases the vomitus can look just like the food that was eaten.

If you don’t observe the act, then you can’t tell the difference. In order to fully describe vomiting, you have to observe it. Could there be an environmental modification or other holistic action that could stop the symptom (vomiting)? Perhaps you can just move a houseplant or switch food batches.

Other environmental and preventable causes include “garbage gut”, consumable toys (and toy parts-especially eyes and squeakers), strings, ribbon. garland, etc.

Another consideration is the frequency. Is the vomiting sporadic? Is it common (but not “normal”, even for cats)?

Your observed and described details along with your veterinarian’s physical exam findings, and diagnostic tests can determine the cause of the vomiting and predict effective holistic actions.

Common Causes for Throwing Up

1. Dietary “indiscretions” and overeating (as seen with “scarf and barfers”)
2. Toxicities and sensitivities (foods, plants, etc.)
3. Foreign Bodies
4. Drug induced (many)
5. Infectious and inflammatory
6. Motility dis-orders (like am bilious vomiting syndrome)
7. Hormonal (e.g. associated with heats)
8. Vomiting as one part of a group of “syndrome” symptoms (e.g. Cushing’s, hyperthyroidism, diabetes, etc.)
9. “Normal” vomiting? (common but not normal)

The best outcomes in dogs and cats that vomit can be seen when you look at the full picture of the individual. The holistic medical framework lets you do just that.

When Do You Take Your Pet for an Emergency Evaluation?

These are all times to take your pet into your vet or the emergency ER.

1. Persistent vomiting or retching
2. Moderate (like a tsp.) to large amounts (like a cup) of blood in vomit
3. Toxin exposure (and ingestion)
4. Breathing and choking problems (use your quick home exam)
5. Pain or isolating
6. Unproductive retching or bloating
7. Puppy or kitten repeated vomiting (was there a recent vaccination?)
8. Abnormal home exam (e.g., vitals, gum color and moistness, skin recoil, gum capillary refill)

When in doubt err on the side of caution.

What to do if you go to the ER?

1. The examination will help rule out an acute foreign body and any needed (indicated) lab work can quickly rule out dehydration from internal fluid shifts (as in HGE) and vomiting.

2. Supportive care with fluids, resting of the gastrointestinal system and observation.

3. You can spend (or save) a lot of money with emergency hospital diagnostic testing. Most of the time, quick screening tests (BUN, creatinine, red and white count etc.) are the only tests that are urgently needed.  You can save hundreds of dollars by asking the ER doc if the tests can be done instead later by your family veterinarian.

The goal of your trip to the ER is to have a vet use their expertise to tell you if your pet has a life-threatening problem, and if so, starting to treat. Not to run expensive (and sometimes not indicated) tests “just in case”. Newly minted veterinarians may be prone to this and often staff animal ERs (I know, because I was one myself in 1985).

The more details you can share with the medical personnel, the faster the problem will be solved. Details like, how much and how often your pet vomits are critical. Knowing the contents of the vomitus is also very helpful. What’s in it?? Is there a “real” hairball, large amounts of blood (bright red, black, clots?) or foreign material. What is the consistency, color, does it have a strong odor? Are they any known triggers? How problematic and persistent is the vomiting? These factors help determine symptom context and significance.

Environmental sensitivities (modalities) are the best way to individualize your pet. This is how your companion animal’s body responds to various stimuli. Even though this information may not mean much to the ER vet, it is very important to know in order to resolve the internal cause for the vomiting.

Modification of symptoms by factors like when they happen, if they are better or worse inside or outside, response to environmental temperatures. Is there vomiting related to eating or drinking, pooping or peeing? Better alone or following you everywhere and wanting to be close are especially important in vomiting pets.

Other important clues include multiple symptoms happening at the same time (concomitants), like diarrhea + vomiting, etc.

It’s the ER vet’s goal just to rule out and treat emergencies. But as the full time guardian of your pet, you want to be sure you have all of the information you need to do the best.

It’s also important to know how and when to induce vomiting when it is associated with a foreign body or potentially toxic ingestion (like. In the case of a toxin, induce vomiting immediately using hydrogen peroxide. You can use a turkey baster to orally give as much as needed until vomiting starts. The peroxide bubbles up in the stomach to start the vomiting reflex and then it just becomes plain H2O (from H2O2).

Foreign body ingestion is another great time to induce vomiting. It’s better to prevent future potential obstructions than to have to treat them.

However, don’t induce vomiting when the ingested material can damage the throat when it comes back up. When there has been a caustic substance ingestion or eating of a sharp foreign body, it’s best not to induce vomiting.

After the emergency is over, review your pet’s lifestyle paying special attention to possible predisposing factors to the vomiting. Many vomiting causes can be found in the diet, activity level, environment and in over and unnecessary supplementation. Adjusting these periodically promotes healing in your pet’s body.

Prescription and over the counter medicines are also a big cause for vomiting. Avoid them when possible. Higher doses and longer duration of use can be especially problematic. Vomiting from arthritis medicines and other anti-inflammatories, anti-biotics, etc. is common.  Sucralfate is one medicine prescribed commonly in vomiting pets that is usually safe to use (though not in pets with kidney dis-eases. It’s not absorbed well and works locally to coat and soothe vomiting-related problems.

Fasting is the single most effective but simple and safe Holistic Action that you can take. Resting the gut while it heals and regenerates works wonders.

Once the acute problem calms down, you can further support the body by feeding small bland meals, using liquid aloe vera, and supplements like Alicaid, Nutrigest, probiotics + probiotic multipliers, digestive enzymes, etc. It’s important for you to understand that supplements are supporting the natural healing process, but they’re not eliminating the underlying problem. Doing so may be enough to resolve acute vomiting, but not in chronic vomiting. To fully address the underlying chronic problem, you will need to understand the vomiting in context including your pet’s individuality.

Now What?

The current non-holistic advice is that there is no need for any action if the vomiting resolves. Some vomiting is “normal” after all. Especially if your dog or cat is eating (at all), and is bright and alert. Right?

However, by interpreting the (seemingly) isolated vomiting within the full context of your companion animal’s totality, you can make good use of this information. If you are working with a veterinary homeopath, we can use these early warning signals to prevent future severe vomiting episodes.

Here are some Holistic Actions that you can take. Today!

1. Define the problem- is it vomiting or regurgitation (or even a retching cough)?
2. Restrict Food and Water
3. Determine if ER needed for supportive care
4. Support with Fluids, aloe
5. Question use of steroids and anti-biotics (rarely indicated)
6. Observe and record in detail
7. Homeopathic treatment (modalities and concomitants key)

Even if you are not working with someone who can interpret common but abnormal vomiting (or other symptoms), you should at least record the symptoms for future reporting. A great place to do that is Dr. Christina Chambreau’s “Healthy Animal” journal.

Here’s where your observing and describing and recording come in handy. Start now and practice. Good observers are usually made, not born that way.

There are many ways to holistically resolve vomiting. Perhaps the most important take-away is for you to continue building up confidence in yourself. You are a critical part of your holistic vet care team. Embracing this fact will help you care for your pet when dealing with vomiting or other symptoms.

Educate yourself on the holistic medical scientific framework. Doing so will help you to solve both acute and recurring health challenges. Even better, knowing the significant factors will help you promote wellness and prevent dis-ease.

Be well.

Dr. Jeff

 

How Holistic Medical Decision Making Helped Me

How Holistic Medical Decision Making Helped Me

by | HA! Holistic Medical Decision Making (HMDM), HA! Staying Healthy

The right road may be the road less travelled.

This is not my usual post. It is not directly about your animals. What follows is my own medical story. However, I hope it can help someone make a better and more holistic decision about treating their animal.

Many thanks to James Mapes for urging me to write it and Chris Brogan and Rob Hatch who motivated me to publish it.

Ah. to be young, playful and healthy. At least I had two out of three.

The beginning

In 1975 when I was fourteen, I started having distressing episodes. Sporadically I’d lose partial control of my arms, legs and tongue. For no obvious reason I would start to walk and talk like a drunken sailor.

I was an independent kid, and didn’t immediately share what was going on with my parents. To be honest, I was ashamed.

Even though I tried to hide these episodes from others, my Mom finally observed one of them. Needless to say, she was distraught and pissed off at me for trying to hide them.

That was the year that I hopped on board the merry-go-round of the medical establishment.

Medical merry-go-round

The best pediatric neurology department at that time was at Meadowbrook Hospital. Boy was it a scary place for a kid. Lots of really sick people. Some on gurneys in the corridors. Occasional screams from patients undergoing uncomfortable medical procedures.

Brain CT scans were not yet invented and all of the diagnostic tests of the time were totally normal.

My parents were given the option of starting me on seizure drugs even though these were not seizures. They could, possibly help. Side effects? Well…

Lucky for me, my Mom had always tried to work with our bodies and hated drugs. She was naturally oriented and an early subscriber to “Prevention” magazine. We were taught to work with the body. Not overpower it with strong drugs designed to alter normal physiology.

She chose to watch and wait.

My life as a kid growing up in the suburbs of New York was otherwise uneventful. Unfortunately, the “episodes” did not abate. They also did not help my self-image. I became increasingly introverted.

The magic shows and other performances that I used to enjoy giving became less and less frequent. Instead I chose to spend more and more time in my basement working on chemistry experiments and unknowingly developed habits that would be useful when I worked in research labs later in life.

When the CT scan finally came to NY, I had one of the first performed on a pre-teen. Nothing was found yet the episodes continued.

College years

Fast forward to my college years. Academically they were great. Socially a bust. My work helped get me admitted to UPenn’s University Scholar program. Through it I was given the choice of entering any of Penn’s graduate programs.

At that time, I was working in the medical school. I had a brilliant, open-minded and supportive mentor named Dr. Manjusri Das. She didn’t know about my health challenges. She thought that I should continue my graduate molecular biology studies or go on for my MD. I chose instead to start veterinary school.

Undiagnosed neurological episodes continued and worsened. They were becoming increasingly difficult to manage. I chose to follow my new neurologist’s recommendation and start the drug cocktail that he recommended.

I gave the drugs plenty of time to work. But not only did they not help, they dulled my academic performance sufficiently to help me lose the full scholarship that I was on. Up until then, Penn was actually paying for me to go to vet school. Not any more though.

Needless to say I stopped the medications. I rebounded sufficiently to graduate with honors and continue my clinical studies in an internship at the busy Angell Memorial Animal Hospital in Boston. I was then able to start blending academic research with my work with patients. But there was a problem.

Diagnosis

The grueling 100+ hour a week schedule was very stressful. A new symptom was triggered which was investigated by the docs at Harvard. They came up with a “diagnosis” of my horizontal head tremor. Unfortunately it was actually just a description of the symptom. Cause? Unknown.

They advised a relatively mild medication. I chose to try it since my symptoms effected the quality of my life. However, after their medications didn’t help me I learned to live with this annoying new symptom.

Finally in 2010, thirty-nine years after the onset of symptoms, one of my brother’s MD friends guided me to the movement dis-orders unit of Columbia University hospital. It was there that Dr. Pietro Mazzoni diagnosed Spinocerebellar ataxia (SCA). This was able to explain all of my symptomatology throughout the years including a recent MRI finding of a shrunken balance center in my brain.

I was relieved to finally get a “diagnosis”. Unfortunately, there was no definitive treatment. Sure, the doc would be happy to try different medications to see if they might help. I declined.

Introduction to Vitality, Balance and Symptoms

Fortunately, long before this I had been living and practicing using internal and external signs and symptoms as clues to how my own body, as well as those of my patients, were functioning. This also facilitated optimizing their bodies and understanding more about dis-ease progression and treatment. I could even make effective proactive holistic medical decisions that would help determine the course of mine and my patients lives. And teach others to do the same.

What was the bottom line? I learned that dis-ease (which I now spelled this way due to what I learned about the internal energetic balance that leads to mental, emotional, and physical symptoms) manifestations often start before structural changes can be seen. That’s why my CT was normal but my MRI was not.

Happy ending?

I’m very, very fortunate. I am blessed with a great wife, supportive and loving family and friends and fantastic clients. Sure, my speech may be difficult to understand at times and my balance and coordination may be off. I am thrilled to see them slowly improving. Not worsening as predicted.

My life is great despite my symptoms. Tolerating them for all of these decades, using minimal drugs and homeopathic treatment have allowed that. I expect only gradual improvement in my SCA over the coming decades.

I think my personal medical story is important to tell at this time. Why now? My life and practice are now dedicated to mindfully optimizing quality and length of life. In all species. Holistic medical decision making can help achieve this goal.

Everyone can learn how. Today.

Legacy

2017 marks the start of a new initiative for me. Through homevet.com and my private practice I’ve been trying to improve companion animal health for almost 30 years. One person at a time. But it’s not enough.

Every day I am still contacted by pet guardians who don’t know where to turn. They’ve usually consulted several vet specialists. The problem is that these “second opinions” are really just better informed versions of the first opinion based on the dominant medical model.

You deserve more. Let’s build a large worldwide community learning from my experiences and dedicated to length and quality of life. The result will be a well-informed supportive holistic and homeopathic community.

The methods and approach to wellness preservation and dis-ease treatment work for me. They can also help your animal companions.

Be well.

Dr. Jeff

There Are Risks from Suppressing Skin Dis-eases So Learn Your Holistic Options

There Are Risks from Suppressing Skin Dis-eases So Learn Your Holistic Options

by | HA! for Diseases, HA! Skin

Antibiotics Can’t Hurt. Right?

Sarah was a sweet Maltese. Everyone loved her. She loved everyone and everything. And everyone loved Sarah. Even dog-hating people and anti-social dogs. Her sociability and energy allowed her to have a great life.

Sarah enjoyed long daily walk and playtime. She went to doggy daycare almost every day. She was physically healthy overall. Like her health conscious guardians, she ate a fresh diet and went for routine wellness checks.

The only problem was that she’d periodically develop itchy skin, rashes and red, smelly ears.

Whenever she was not acting “right” in any way, she was rushed to the veterinarian. Anti-biotics and anti-inflammatories were usually prescribed.

After all, they couldn’t hurt, right?

One morning, Sarah’s guardians saw a few itchy pimples on her skin. Sarah was acting fine otherwise so they went to the vet after work that night. Just to be safe. An anti-biotic was again prescribed. Sarah’s pimples vanished within a few days.

A few weeks later after work, Sarah started twitching and developed a vacant stare. After lots of tests at the ER and consultation with a neurologist, Sarah was diagnosed with a seizure disorder and idiopathic epilepsy.

This abnormal behavior continued almost every day so Sarah was started on anti-convulsants.The drugs made her pretty lethargic for a few weeks but then she seemed fine. Sarah’s life returned pretty much to normal.

Sarah was lucky. Her health challenge was successfully treated. But could it have been prevented? Many similar stories end badly.

Here’s something simple you can do that can save your beloved companion animal’s life. Try not to suppress skin symptoms. Like Sarah’s pimples.

Are these Skin Symptoms Just the Tip of the Iceberg?

Why not? Because every sign and symptom (see below for the difference between them) has a relative degree of importance. For example, it’s better to have an external symptom such as a skin or ear problem rather than an internal one such as a brain or liver dis-order, e.g. causing seizures.

This seems obvious, right? Uh, uh. Not in today’s reductionistic (where dis-ease is reduced to one part) and mechanistic (the living body is seen like a machine with separate moving parts) medical mindset.

Our common sense, intuition and scientific studies say that, unlike reductionism, life is a connected continuum. Everything is connected. Whole-istically.

Holistic understanding and evaluation of life’s decisions leads to better outcomes. Both for health maintenance as well as dis-ease treatment. After all, you don’t buy a car without exploring your available options. You look at the bigger picture. You collect information, read reviews, and get opinions from others.

Don’t our beloved companion animals deserve the same?

You Can Learn To Make the Best Decisions

(and do what feels right when treating your dogs and cats)

The most effective decisions are made this way. By evaluating all of the available information. Medically speaking, you (and your holistically-oriented doctor) weigh all of the benefits and risks.

In Sarah’s situation for example, was her overall and longer term health considered when treating her skin pimples? Was anti-biotic disruption of her body’s delicate bacterial balance even considered? How about the potential immune and other imbalances secondary to the drug use?

Was a holistic or reductionistic decision made?

Enter Holistic Medical Decision Making (HMDM) and Holistic Options courses and school. You’ll learn the simple framework that will allow you to help decide what is best for your animal companion.

You can do it!

The best decisions are those you make when you have all of the information and consider it holistically.

Holistic medical decisions can lead to better quality and longer lives for our pets.

You don’t need to be medically trained to effectively use this method. There’s only a few things to learn. The relative importance of the symptoms (like skin pimples vs. seizures) is just one of them.

Learn to holistically promote wellness. Not treat isolated symptoms reductionistically.

How you approach and treat symptoms is critical to the quality and length of life. For all beings.

Know Your Treatment Options

Unfortunately, you can’t always rely on your conventionally-oriented family veterinarian or MD to see the bigger picture of health or present them all to you. Especially when it comes to gentle holistic and natural treatments.

But how do you know what to do?

That’s why the Holistic Actions! for Companion Animals Academy and resources are here!

Our online resources are highly reliable and well researched. They will help you make the best holistic medical decisions.

Here you’ll find online courses, audio and video seminars, access to cutting edge research, analysis, etc. available 24/7. They’ll show you the gentle and effective methods that can be used to holistically help . Best of all, at the live group classes and discussion groups, you can ask your specific questions about holistic and homeopathic preservation of health.

Find out more about the Holistic Actions! Academy and Holistic Medical Decision Making method.

Or start by taking the Holistic Essentials course which goes over the five essential parts of the holistic life.

Be well.

Dr. Jeff

PS-A sign is an objective measure of dis-ease, like a blood test result (yes, diagnostic test results are also important when making holistic decisions). A symptom is subjective. Pre-verbal children and non-verbal animals only have signs. Using this definition that is. But is that really the way that life works?

Your child may not yet speak but she sure can still communicate. The same is true for animals.

For simplicity sake, signs and symptoms can be considered together.