Holistically Monitoring Kidney Dis-eases at Home

Holistically Monitoring Kidney Dis-eases at Home

Problem = possible decreased kidney function.

Holistic Action! = monitor for early warning signs and kidney function at home while promoting healing by your pet’s body.


Meet Henry

Henry is a 6 year old Golden. His mom has been watching him drink much more than usual. Everything else about him is normal.

Nothing has changed with his BEAM (Behavior, Energy, Appetite, Mood) or other symptoms and his blood tests are all normal.

What can his concerned guardian do?

Wait and watch and reactively treat when problems arise? Or proactively prevent a problem before it starts?

Diane is holistically-minded and has heard about how dis-ease progresses. She knows that internal imbalance moves from the functional “nothing is wrong” except an external symptom level to the structural level where the kidney tests are abnormal.

She chose to be proactive so is watching Henry like a hawk and closely monitoring for any changes. She wants to know right away if something is wrong and nip any problems in the bud.

The Four Methods

There are four simple things Diane can do at home that reflect directly on kidney function.

These same four methods can be used to monitor any stage of kidney failure. Whether your pet seems fine, or has a named dis-ease like “Lyme nephritis” or “CKD” (chronic kidney disease).

  1. Measure the amount of water he is drinking.
  2. Keep a close eye on quantity of urination for Henry and size of urine clumps in cats.
  3. Use a sensitive dipstick test at home to keep track of protein loss in the urine.
  4. Monitor the concentration of the first morning urine with an inexpensive and easy to use device called a refractometer.

Along with these simple home tests, your veterinarian can pickup early kidney dis-eases at home by comparing any bloodwork that has recently been run to previous results.

Even when tests are “normal”, trends of the results can be very important.

For example, creatinine is one blood test that is run on most screening panels. There is a phenomenon called “creatinine creep” which can be a great internal symptom early warning sign that kidney function is decreasing.

Using these simple holistic methods of monitoring internal and external symptoms, you can help your pets live happier and healthier lives.

Join us at Holistic Actions! Academy to have our faculty help you to help your pets.

Stay well.

Dr. Jeff

What’s Your Pet’s BEAM?

[chained-quiz 2]

Flower Essences for Lame and Arthritic Pets

Flower Essences for Lame and Arthritic Pets

Flower Essences (FE) can help your pets with both physical and emotional health challenges. They are great for lame, stiff and arthritic pets.

Unlike supplements that act like natural drugs, FE are 100% safe. They are made by putting specially chosen flowers in water and exposing to sunlight.

Most of them focus on emotional states like fears, grief and shock. However what affects the mind also affects the body. The latest mind-body research shows that problem emotions can cause physical symptoms. They work best when you can match the emotional state of your pet with the physical health challenge.

Your lame, stiff and arthritic pets will feel better and be happier from FE.

Don’t give up just because one specific essence isn’t helping your pet. You can try one for a month but if it is not helping, just switch to another. There are hundreds of individual essences. Every one has different properties and improves different symptoms. You have two major options to select FE:

  • Single essences that you may combine yourself
  • Combinations labeled for your pet’s problem

Combinations specifically for lameness problems in animals are sold by several companies. Each also has single essences you could explore. Senior combinations may be used for any aged animal who is showing signs associated with aging.

There are also specific combinations for emergency and painful situations. Each is made from different essences, so one company’s formula may resonate more with your dog or cat. All are 100% safe, so try one after the other until you find the best for each person and animal in your home. All are equally good for you as well.

Administering Flower Essences

Flower Essences are very easy to use! They can be given by mouth, added to food or water, applied topically (especially to sore joints), or sprayed in a problem area (like the car they are nervous about riding in).

FE work best when they are given very frequently. The more problematic the symptom, the more frequent the administration.

Your arthritic pet who just wiped out on the floor and is panting and anxious may need a dose every few minutes!  Administering them in different ways (oral, sprayed, rubbed in, etc.) up to six times or a day often works best.

The standard recommendation from the Bach FE company (makers of the highly effective Rescue Remedy) is to put four drops of Rescue is put into a mixture. That then can be sprayed or massaged on the animal or misted in the air.

Two drops of each chosen flower remedy in a 1 oz bottle of spring (or filtered) water.

FE specially formulated for lame, stiff and arthritic animals

Bach Essences: 

  • Beech: intolerant animals who have trouble relaxing emotionally that develop stiff joints/arthritis.  
  • Rock Water: Stubborn animals who seem rigid and hate change. Physically and emotionally inflexible animals. Use it when you see even a little lessening of flexibility in spine or legs (remember aging does not cause loss of flexibility). 
  • Willow: resentful animals with arthritis.
  • Agrimony: Stoic, hide their problems, hide when people argue. Often skin or GI tract problems occur along with the joint problems.

Jackson Galaxy Essential FE (originally Spirit Essences):

  • Creak Away: Rigid thoughts and behavior patterns can ultimately create stiffness in the body and can make an animal grouchy and unhappy. This combination helps disperse this blocked energy and restore free flow throughout the system.
  • Graceful Aging: This combination addresses being stuck in certain habits, being grumpy or impatient.  
  • Intensive Care – Relieve pain, calm panic, ground the emotional and physical systems. May be needed for weeks after surgery or an accident.

Green Hope Essences:

  • Run And Play: Addresses health and wellbeing of bones, joints and muscles. Is also good after joint or bone surgeries.
  • Animal emergency care: Fear, trauma, shock can challenge the electrical system, hindering the ability to respond to any healing treatments. This combination stabilizes the system thus calming him.
  • Senior citizen: Helps reverse the declines to whatever degree is possible in areas such as flexibility, energy level, hearing, and more.

Anaflora:

  • Recovery Remedy: Helps after both physical and emotional trauma. Speed regeneration of nerves after an accident.
  • Senior: Eases arthritis pain as well as strengthen kidney and bladder function.
  • Many single remedies that Sharon (the owner) can help you select.

Pet Essences:

  • Arthritis and Achy Pain: Stiff, sore, achy joints and muscles. Arthritis-type symptoms experienced when jumping or walking, especially in older animals.
  • Elder Comfort: A gentle blend of FE that help an older animal feel more secure and comfortable.
  • Fracture Repair: Helps the body repair and deal with broken or cracked bones.
  • Graceful alignment: Learning to walk in a balanced way after an accident, surgery, fight or even illness.
  • Skeletal support: Balances the emotional attitudes that may affect the skeletal system.

New Millennium Essences

  • Animal Arthritis: Blend of flower essences to help animals to deal with arthritis in the joints, at both the emotional and physical level.

All of these choices may seem overwhelming at first. But you don’t need to let them be. All you need to do is choose the one which seems to match your pet’s health challenges best. Since they’re so safe, it’s no problem to try a different one to see if it helps more.

Holistic Actions! community can help you decide which to use. HA! members can post questions in the Facebook Group. Fall of 2017, full supporting members will also have access to a private discussion forum on this site.

It’s also not too late to join us for the live webinar. You’ll learn many other ways to help your lame, stiff and arthritic pets.

Be well.

Drs. Christina and Jeff

How Your Pet’s Behavior is Related to Brain Dis-eases Like Seizures

How Your Pet’s Behavior is Related to Brain Dis-eases Like Seizures

Some of you have asked, how behavior problems and brain dis-eases (“dis-ease” is another way of saying imbalance) are connected.

That’s an easy one!

All parts of your pet’s body work together as a system. Not like a car made up of separate parts. A car may function normally with a broken tail light or window. You may not even know that there is a problem. This is not true of a computer or an animal.

The living being is a unified whole (as in “holistic”). Sensitive feedback mechanisms connect every part of the body.  For example, it is the brain that sees and hears. The bacteria that live in the guts effect the immune system and emotions! All parts of the body work together.

separation anxiety in a dog with brain disease curable with Holistic ActionsMeet Daphne

Daphne is a great example. She’s a six year young rescue Border Collie. Four years ago she started developing some fearful behavior. As the years went on, her odd behavior and fears worsened. She became over-sensitive to many noises and other environmental stimuli.

Then she started having seizures and was diagnosed with epilepsy. Her seizures were directly related to her odd behaviors, anxieties and fears.

At first her fears and seizures were rare, but over time they became more and more frequent. As her health worsened, her previously joyful life got smaller and smaller. She had to stop participating in her favorite agility classes, hikes, etc.

However, now that her seizures are under better control she is starting to get her life back. And her behavior is better. Why? Because the seizures, like other brain dis-eases, are directly related to her behavior.

And there are very specific Holistic Actions! that you can take today which can help. You can learn more about how to help your pets with behavior problems and brain dis-eases by joining Holistic Actions! Academy.

Be well,

Dr. Jeff

 

Heal Your Pet With a Hug

Heal Your Pet With a Hug

While researching the connection between wellness and vitality, I came across an article with the intriguing title of:

“Therapeutic Touch Affects DNA Synthesis and Mineralization of Human Osteoblasts in Culture”

This is not some woo-woo research. It’s from a conventional medical center published in a mainstream journal.

The article shows positive, statistically-significant, effects on living cells under laboratory conditions. Osteosarcoma (bone cancer cells) were influenced just by holding them.

Wow! More food for thought.

This is even more evidence of a life-giving energy (“vitality”). And it can be transferred through touch.

There’s already plenty of research showing the many positive effects from healing touch. Wound healing, behavior problems, carpal tunnel syndrome (in people) etc.

You can incorporate this in your pet’s wellness program today.

Hug, pet and “love up” your companion animal’s today.

 

Dr. Jeff

You Can Learn Your Pet’s Language

Nature can be seen expressing herself just by looking.

Symptoms are the natural language of your pet’s body.

It seems intuitive to work with nature and in accord with the body.

So why don’t more people listen to symptoms and work with them?

Once we learn about the exquisite effectiveness and elegance of doing so we don’t want to stop.

But there’s a problem.

It’s not easy at first. No one likes something different or difficult.

But the learning curve is short.

At first, learning to recognize and use symptoms is like a foreign language.

But it gets much easier. And natural.

Speaking the native language is always the most effective way to communicate. You can give your pet a better life by communicating more effectively. Better communication usually equates to better treatment outcomes.

Recognizing, respecting and using the language of symptoms allows you to understand your pet’s health better than any laboratory test.

In the US and some other younger cultures, Vitality (aka Chi, Prana, the Life Force) is seen as an old and out dated concept. But adopting it can transform health care. And save you thousands of dollars.

Vitalism in medicine was discarded along with the advent of the modern scientific methods. But holistic veterinarians understand that the vital force allows the body to function.

So how effective could this old concept really be?

Some of the cultures that still use this concept are among the most long-lived around the world. Recognizing and working through symptoms is what allows the traditional (but not the “modern”) doctors in China to only charge patients for keeping you healthy. Wellness care. Not dis-ease treatment.

If you get sick, traditional doctors in China feel they have failed at their job. They only get paid if they keep you healthy.

You too can become more effective in your wellness care and dis-ease management. Listen to and respect your pet’s symptoms. Help your pets today by learning the language of their bodies. You don’t need medical training to listen to it. Read this article for the exact ways to understand and record your pet’s symptoms.

Stay balanced and connected.

Dr. Jeff