Holistic Vets Get Results Faster
What makes integrative veterinarians different than conventional veterinarians? They adopt new ideas earlier. And they accept “it works” as sufficient proof. Conventional veterinarians, including many specialists, do what they are taught in veterinary school: wait for the research, wait for the specialists, wait for the veterinary schools to demonstrate beyond the faintest shadow of a doubt that this new thing works, that it does not interfere with anything, and that it is not toxic. (Or if it is toxic, like chemotherapy, that the toxicity is worth it because the chance of dying from side effects is less than the chance of dying from the disease – cancer.) Veterinary schools beat fear into our heads. That is what we are taught, so I cannot fault conventional veterinarians if they would rather not try our methods. I have a problem with people who attack those of us who have success with our methods.
We are also taught that we must know what we are treating. We have to have proof in the form of laboratory tests or x-rays or something else that says yes, beyond a shadow of a doubt this is what we are dealing with. That way they will know exactly what to do because they can look it up in a book or in research papers. But a lot of problems we see as integrative veterinarians are either something not described in books or journals. Or they are described but they do not respond to anything, even things the specialists know about that the rest of us do not.
Integrative veterinarians look at possible treatments earlier in that “proof’ cycle. First of all, if something has been shown by research to work in a human, we are likely to dive in and try it in dogs, and maybe other animals. Especially if it is something with almost no side effects, such as amino acids. (Almost anything you put in your mouth can cause nausea, vomiting, or diarrhea, if you take too much. That is why I say “almost.”) We are more likely to use it with dogs than we are with cats if we are not sure of total effects. This is especially true for herbs. That is because cats are not good at handling chemicals that are not part of their normal diet. They lack the main liver enzyme that dogs and people have in their liver to break down toxins.
One example of the process is taurine for heart disease. When some cats do not get enough taurine in their diet, they get a specific kind of heart disease called “dilated cardiomyopathy”, or DCM. Somebody finally figured this out, gave taurine to those cats, and it was miraculous. The cats recovered beautifully. At that time, if you asked a specialist whether it would work in dogs, they generally said no, don’t bother. Then a group of veterinary heart specialists started looking at the levels of taurine in the blood of American cocker spaniels that had DCM. Some were below normal. Others were very low normal. They tried giving taurine, and sometimes carnitine along with it, and the dogs got better. So people asked the specialists if taurine would help other dogs with DCM. The answer was no, don’t bother, it is just those cockers. But some started trying it out in other breeds with DCM, and the specialists started saying there is no proof it will work but it’s harmless so if you want to, try it. And the list of dog breeds helped by taurine got longer.
Meanwhile, years before the final reports of many dog breeds that respond to taurine, holistic vets were using taurine for heart problems because there was more if it in heart muscle, maybe they need more if they have a heart problem. Sometimes it helped. Carnitine can help build all kinds of muscle, so we added that, too. Some dogs did better. Some did not. But we always tried.
If we have something or a combination of things that are working well, we are not quick to add a bunch more to the mix. If we have made a little progress but are still looking, we will add more items to the mix. That makes it difficult to publish research, because how do we know which things are working and which are not? Plus, it has been found that often, especially with herbs, combinations work better than individual items. So if we start testing one single thing at a time, we might not see much. Whereas if we do our normal combo thing, we get magic – better cancer survival, or less pain from arthritis, or old dogs regaining enough strength to start jumping into the car again. Sometimes, especially with combinations of herbs in a formula, one thing can give benefits all by itself so that it is clear to anyone.
But the only way we are going to beat chronic disease is to get more veterinarians to use these methods. The only way to do that is to prove it in a way they can understand. That means research, using single things that are very effective. That kind of research is good for holistic veterinarians also. It is good to know what helps the most. It is good to know the dose we need. It is also good to know side effects we were not aware of previously. The final goal for all of us is to help animals.
That kind of research gets almost no support. It costs a lot of money but if a company can patent something that helps a lot, they can make a lot of money. Can they patent an herb? No. But they can patent an extract, especially if they tweak it a little bit, and call it a drug. So are those big companies going to support research that helps you, the pet owner, without helping them? Heck no. So the Foundation supports that kind of research. Because nobody else is doing it.
So help us help you and your furry friends. Our winter fundraiser has started. We have a matching pledge for up to $25,000. That means for every $20 YOU donate, WE get $40.
Help us out. Donate whatever you can. Help us get the whole $25,000 pledge.
