Alternative Medicine for Pets– A Second Chance For Cats and Dogs
Author: John Simon
If your pet has a recurrent or chronic disease that has not responded to the best efforts of conventional medicine why not give alternative medicine chance to show what it can do. Recurrent ear infection, skin allergies, inflammatory bowel disease, and osteo arthritis are just a few of the many chronic diseases that have conventionally required continual drug therapy to suppress symptoms which have been reducing the pets quality of life. These drugs may be temporarily successful at reducing symptoms but their long term use often results in side effects that may make use of these drugs of questionable value.
Because alternative medicine takes a more holistic view point in its quest for healing it may focus on an organ system that appears to have no relationship to the symptoms that are being addressed. Since alternative medicine sees all organ systems as connected its therapy is often geared to using modalities that affect the organism as a whole rather than a drug geared to treat a symptom or the organ system where the symptoms occur.
When alternative medicine feels it must directly address symptoms the use of herbs, homeopathic remedies, specific nutrients, and plant produced hormones will accomplish the task with minimal side effects. Keep in mind that many of our most celebrated drugs were originally isolated from plants but then were concentrated and/or synthesized in laboratories. The extraction of active ingredient from the plant and the isolation of it from the other synergistic balancing chemicals found in the intact herb is what makes a drug more likely to produce side effects. Because drug production isolates and concentrates what it believes to be the “active ingredient” it looses the safety net that is present when using the whole herb with its less concentrated, better balanced mix of chemicals.
Alternative health care professionals believe that the pet owner should play an integral part in the healing of their pet. The practitioner believes that a partnership with the pet owner is necessary for the most rapid and successful healing to occur. In order for the pet owner to serve as an effective member of this healing partnership they must thoroughly understand their pets problem and the plan for healing. Consequently the holistic practition must schedule longer appointments to allow for client education and to answer all the pet owners questions.
Alternative vets believe that inflammation resulting from nutritional and environmental toxicity in combination with nutritional deficiencies is one of the very basic causes for ill health. Minimizing toxin intake and maximizing toxin excretion is the foundation for health and healing.
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Dr. Simon is the owner of the Woodside Animal Clinic in Royal Oak Michigan where he has been treating dogs, cats, birds, rabbits, ferrets, rodents, and iguanas with both alternative and conventional medicine for over 30 years. Dr. Simon is the author of 4 pet care books and writes a monthly column for the Mirror newspaper.
Woodside services the Oakland and Wayne County area including the cities of Berkley, Ferndale, Pleasant Ridge, Madison Heights, Hazel Park, Southfield, Birmingham, Troy, Warren, Clawson, Sterling Heights and Farmington Hills.
