Tuesday, August 2, 2016

HERBAL SUPPLEMENTS TO THE RESCUE

Quite a few years ago, I had my first accidental introduction to the fact the an animals nose is like a thermometer for a pets nutritional health and not just it's temperature and well being.  A Cavalier King Charles Spaniel attended my practice with terminal cardiac failure.  The main reason for the referral was not to help with the heart condition, but to see if I could do anything for the patients appetite.

As it turned out this was one of the turning points in my understanding of  how simple supplements could turn a patient around.  I decided that Brewers Yeast was full of B vitamins including Vitamin B 12 (commonly known or seen to be an appetite stimulant).  In addition I felt that the dog could do with some multivitamin and suggested that nettle and kelp were a good source of many nutrients.  I also suggested they try the dog on some fresh meat and ideally green veg blended into the food and either fish oil or flax oil (turns out the dog liked the latter or as I now know was self selecting the best supplement for itself)

The result was rather astounding as the owners insisted on coming for a repeat appointment just so I could see how well the dog was doing! When I saw the dog I too was amazed at the patient at the first consult was suffering from weak legs and really looked like a lost cause. The owner also pointed out that the dry cracked pale nose now just six weeks later was starting to become darker much less cracked and had a bit of a shine.



I was fascinated and now wanted to know what had turned this pet around not just in physical appearance but also when I listened to the heart it too had improved with no additional drugs! This was my first lesson in the true power of natural supplements.  Over the years that followed I discovered the benefit of fresh meat for heart dogs providing the amino acids L-Carnitine, Taurine and Co Enzyme Q10 in their natural all of which can distinctly help with DCM (Dilated Cardiomyopathy)! Co Enzyme Q10 is depleted by some heart drugs and this in turn leads to cardiac failure as can the loss of many other vital nutrients. Thus the improvement in the heart, but it was a picture in Patrick Holford's book the 9 day liver detox diet that later put together in simple terms what I had learned in college.  The drugs the dog was on needed nutrients to help them be metabolized (broken down) in the body at the cost of the dogs health.  The diuretics were leaching potassium (along with zinc and many other trace nutrients due to the increased water through in the kidneys) while thickening the blood by dehydration to draw fluid out of the lungs something the flax oil helped by thinning the blood somewhat and helping fluid retention in the right rather than the wrong places in the body.  The Brewers Yeast helped replace some of the lost nutrients affecting coat and nose colour along with the Kelp providing replacement potassium copper zinc magnesium and calcium all of which led to the nerve conductivity in the muscles improving leading to better walking! The trace minerals in the kelp and nettle also helped colour the nose as do berries such as Blue Berry and many other dark berries.

                                  
Some times a nose is just black and sometimes a nose is just plain pale, but sometimes it is a sick nose that used to be dark and shiny and that can make all the difference.


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Wednesday, June 29, 2016

A FARM WITH TRULY RESIDUE FREE PRODUCE

It was so nice to get a call from Mary Kelly yesterday 28 Jue 2016 to say get the Irish Farming Independent and read it and tell me if it is ok for me to read it.  Mary with Gerry her husband and their son Derek held an open day on their farm during which they explained, that they integrate holistic medicine to reduce their dependence on conventional drugs, among many other things about how they do their organic farming .  What many people will fail to realize is the courage this has taken in terms of trusting that modalities like homeopathy would work effectively for epidemics such as Rota Virus and Corona Virus with the inclusion of Nosode remedies among many other problems they have dealt with on the farm as does any other farm on a day to day basis from retain placenta to injuries and mastitis without the use of antibiotics and anti-inflammatories and like all farmers they work 7 days a week  365 days a year,something many of us do not truly appreciate and in Mary's case that is on top of having studies to be a homeopath for the last few years!

http://www.independent.ie/business/farming/home-remedies-34837360.html

The Kelly Family have not only manged to integrate a low or no residue approach into their farm successfully, but in doing so have actually managed to reduce the overall animal death rate phenomenally!  They are an example as to why the current possible move to dilute the regulations by raising residue limits, so that more drugs rather than less may be used on farms to speed up the number of farms available to "Organic status" .. As someone who in the past had a period of severe chemical sensitivity I take my hat off to what Gerry Mary and Derek have achieved, but even better is to know from helping other organic farmers that they are not alone.  Local to me there is a wonderful Organic Farm run by John and Sarah Devoy, who have had to expand, as they could not keep up with demand for their organic and truly free range eggs.  It is lovely to see animals having a chance at a life as the Organic Standards in Ireland currently promote a method of farming which is much less intensive and so less stressing for the animals kept there.

A little word on Nosode Remedies.  These are homeopathics made from diseased material such the discharges from infection containing bacteria, viruses, protozoa etc. and diluted to the point that none of the original material remains so that they are completely free of all contamination unlike vaccines which currently all have adjuvants and many other materials to make them work.  I have lots of experience of seeing these ultradilute remedies work and have relied on them to protect my pets for years despite them living at a surgery where they were inevitably going to be exposed to highly infectious disease.  A study in Cuba some years ago went some way to demonstrating how effective correctly used Nosodes can be.  I wonder how long people would have had to wait for a Homeopathic Nosode if it wasn't so poorly turned in to profit.. Trials would only be for efficacy no one would have to worry about side effects, environmental contamination etc.  Linke to Cuba study below

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20674839

Abstract

BACKGROUND:

Leptospirosis is a zoonotic disease of major importance in the tropics where the incidence peaks in rainy seasons. Natural disasters represent a big challenge to Leptospirosis prevention strategies especially in endemic regions. Vaccination is an effective option but of reduced effectiveness in emergency situations. Homeoprophylactic interventions might help to control epidemics by using highly-diluted pathogens to induce protection in a short time scale. We report the results of a very large-scale homeoprophylaxis (HP) intervention against Leptospirosis in a dangerous epidemic situation in three provinces of Cuba in 2007.

METHODS:

Forecast models were used to estimate possible trends of disease incidence. A homeoprophylactic formulation was prepared from dilutions of four circulating strains of Leptospirosis. This formulation was administered orally to 2.3 million persons at high risk in an epidemic in a region affected by natural disasters. The data from surveillance were used to measure the impact of the intervention by comparing with historical trends and non-intervention regions.

RESULTS:

After the homeoprophylactic intervention a significant decrease of the disease incidence was observed in the intervention regions. No such modifications were observed in non-intervention regions. In the intervention region the incidence of Leptospirosis fell below the historic median. This observation was independent of rainfall.

CONCLUSIONS:

The homeoprophylactic approach was associated with a large reduction of disease incidence and control of the epidemic. The results suggest the use of HP as a feasible tool for epidemic control, further research is warranted.
2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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Monday, June 27, 2016

HOMEOPATHY WORKS FOR TRAVEL ANXIETY

It was a question from a lady name Terri O'Callaghan, who wondered what I or Geoff Johnson thought of the current petition to prevent vets prescribing homeopathy that has brought me back to ensuring I found time amid treating patients etc. to share the results of the work I do and it was an email from a client that followed immediately on that which is the basis of this quick blog.. Firstly let me say that in just on 30 years of using homeopathy I have never seen a single animal die as the result of administering homeopathy in fact the exact reverse has been my experience many animals have gotten better safely, efficiently and gently.  Who is better equipped to prescribe homeopathy than veterinarians with their vast knowledge of disease and who can recognize when an a patient needs urgent medical intervention for an underlying complaint that might best be dealt with by surgery.  Now on to Travel Anxiety. 


" Travel remedy worked brilliantly he slept the whole way home....a clever extremely sweet boy who is not fazed by anything.....his breeder raw feeds and no longer unnecessarily vaccinated, also allowed to run the hills in Italy...will call soon to arrange a visit

☺️ Amanda" (Amanda Marrow & Rollo) 

The Travel Remedy was a complex remedy based around some of the common Travel sickness remedies Borax Cocculus Petroleum Tabacum with some remedies to reduce anxiety  Avena Sativa, Passiflora, Scutellaria , Valeriana.  The advantages are speed of response, safety, efficacy with out side effects, ease of administration, no drug interactions to worry about especially in as Rollo has demonstrated in his Journey across Europe to Ireland. Over the years Homeopathy has helped many pets horses and humans over come their travel sickness, yes homeopathy is a trans species treatment working much the same way on all patients!

There are many simple things that can be done to improve travel anxiety using a holistic approach

  • start with putting the pet on floor of car or more particularly in the front foot well (which stops visual motion sickness as well as the pet can't see out) and also is closest to the lowest point in car which moves least,
  •  training travel sick prone pets with extremely short journeys followed by a reward. 
  • Gradually build up to longer journeys
  • use a little ginger in food (herbal) 
  • keep from looking out the vehicle windows
  • give only a little food before travelling  (also less cleaning!)
  • like humans there is an acupuncture/ acupressure point behind and above the carpus (the pet equivalent of the wrist) which can help reduce travel nausea and anxiety
  • Conventional medications 
There are many ways of administering homeopathy .. as a tablet, as a powder, spray, in the pets food, water or simply diffuse it into the environment by putting on bedding, a bandanna.




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Friday, June 4, 2010

RAW FOOD & LIFE CAN BE BUSY



Sometimes one gets very busy with life and all the things that it entails and updating ones blog and website go by the board. This is not always bad as it means one is still based very much in the real world. During my absence off my blog lots has happened much more than I can cover in this brief return to the web. I will tell you all about my wonderful experience with Animal Communication when I attended Pea Horsleys Animal Communication Course here in West Cork Ireland in my next blog, but you can learn much more about Pea on http://www.animalthoughts.com/. ( Logo above)

Next to Darlings Real Dog Food http://www.darlingsrealdogfood.com/ something dear to my heart, which is going strength to strength providing both Dogs and Cats with Real Fresh Meat and Veg that you freeze at home and could eat yourself. A chunk of my time goes to answering the mind expanding questions that get forwarded to me from the team there in their efforts to help owners do the best for their pets. This project the brain child of Jonathan Self and is for me what feeding pets is really about. In my practice I see so much illness purely related to diet it is amazing. The result has been that for quite a few years now I start treatment by putting dogs and cats and other species on a diet appropriate to their needs. I at times have to applaud my clients for their amazing faith in making these changes for their pets and many have improved greatly with just the dietary change before they come see me. Many refer to these diets as Holistic, but I prefer to think of them as patient specific biologically appropriate diets.



In this respect I often come across holistic foods that are far from holistic in carnivore terms such as a dried food, unless it is piece of air dried meat, it is not in their terms any way holistic. I especially admire two clients, who came to me as very healthy vegetarians, where they had for the best of ethical reasons restricted their pets to a similar diet. I had to convince
them that, maybe they were, in their pets cases being unfair to their pets needs by
expecting an obligate carnivore in the case of the cat with its itchy skin and recurrent and often sterile cystitis (picture left) and in the other case a Labrador with recurrent skin problems to eat a vegetarian diet. Even a first step to commercial dried food which was as far as one was initially willing to go, did not surprisingly fail to produce change, but it did convince the owner that they would have to go the full hog in terms of dietary change and go as initially advised to a fresh raw food diet. Despite all their reservations they took my advice and both patients have done very well on their fresh meat and veg diet with their poor owners wearing gloves and using plenty of plastic bags to handle the offending food.

I can only say from countless experiences that the animals we act as guardians for be they birds, rabbits, dogs, cats, horses, cattle among others need and do ask for through a myriad of symptoms a real natural diet one that is suited to their real needs, not just the needs of production and the cheapest or most available food ingredients. It is equally apparent in the case of farm animals, where diet is honed for weight gain and milk production without any real thought as to why such an efficient diet contributes to poor feet among other health problem. I have seen this repeatedly where farms turn organic farmers and the hoof and other problems disappear. The famous BSE (Bovine Spongiform Enchephalitis outbreak was a classic example of what happens when we do not respect the needs of the animals we care for. I see rabbits with awful teeth that when put on hay and real grass with a mixture of so called weeds such as dandelion suddenly thrive and their teeth improve.

The bottom line is to feed your animal friends a diet as appropriate to their real needs as the one you would wish to eat yourself, if you really were being healthy and that certainly isn't a boring dried kibble day in day out.




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Friday, January 22, 2010

What to do if...my pet or I have....

I have added a new section to my website, which while still under construction has useful information. It will be gradually integrated into my developing Homoeopathic First Aid Remedy section. The section is titled What to do if..... my pet has..... It is accessed by pressing on the active button shown below
.








which has been added to the home page of my website through which the information can be accessed. The information is about how to deal with minor health problems or emergencies, while awaiting medical attention. It is the practical actions one needs to take alongside the use of first aid remedies. The pages contain much of the information I routinely give my clients by phone to do between the time of first contact and actually being seen. I have started work on the next remedy to appear on the First Aid Section - Aconite - I will update its publication via this blog when complete. The information in this section is equally applicable to all species including humans.

Meanwhile keep Happy and Healthy.


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Monday, December 28, 2009

Happy New Year

A New Year and New Decade are always times of promise. May you have a happy, healthy, wise and wealthy 2010 and beyond.



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Wednesday, November 25, 2009

GLOBAL WARMING RAIN, HAIL WIND AND FLOODING

With record rainfall and river levels in large parts of Ireland at record levels leading to large areas of flooding showing what can be expected as global warming gets going here in Ireland. (The photo above shows Washington Street in Cork City, Ireland) Many elsewhere have already experienced these changes with places like Bangladesh having ceeded land to rising sea-levels and pacific islands worried about disappearing like the famed Atlantis . This is a warning to all of us of as to how we will have to adapt not just as individuals, but as a global community and requiring real action at a global level. Many of these changes are beyond the ability of local communities to deal with as they have been created at a global level. For many in Ireland these are scenes reminiscent of monsoon floods only ever seen on TV in far off lands. For many there will be no going back to what was before with businesses already coping with the effects of a severe recession, let alone a meter or more of water, but it is at times like this you see the true resilience and wonder of human nature at its best. With people out helping neighbours, people coming off strike to help those most in need. My heart and thoughts go out to all those affected both directly and indirectly. With all the groups so badly affected on land across the world also spare a thought for those at sea. Some of the problems were the result of poor planning decisions in the past, but as is so often, it is what we do now in the present that is most important.

It is these weather events which have prompted me to add a weather button to my site (the button on the left works the same way), which links to the latest weather in Ireland hopefully it will give people easy access to information as to when to move their animals to higher ground as well as themselves You can click on the weather button now to try it out, just as clicking on the logo top right will bring you to my website. I will over time add more features and links to elsewhere, but this is the country where I live in and hopefully this button will help people have some amount of forewarning, if only even by a couple of hours as to what is coming. It links to information provided by Met Éireann the Irish Weather Forecast Service, who do an excellent job in warning of weather when warning is needed. The button idea came from something I do everyday when going to walk my dogs, make large animal appointments outdoors as a veterinary homeopath. As someone who loves to sail and rarely gets to do, as well as being a son of a father who loved not only to fly himself from A to B, but whose lively hood was originally in the Agri-business and the grandson of a hill farmer, I have an inherent and keen interest in weather forecasts not that they always can predict exactly what the weather is going to do they can give you a fair idea. There was many a trip up the hills in snow to rescue lambs for bottle feeding, so having an idea of when to move animals to a safer place was vital and in my granfathers day that was based primarily on the signs of weather . I was once stuck at sea during the great storm of 1987 often linked somewhat unfairly to Michael Fish, who did predict a storm just not the severity that occurred. We were unfortunately at sea in a small Fisher 25 going from Humble in England to Ballycotton in Ireland, but luckily in the hands of a master sailor who was also the chief pilot of a large airline. I learned the full impact of natures power first hand as we sailed up and down giant waves having being contacted by the RAF when the under-estimation of the storms true strength had been realised and told we were too far from port to risk returning and so we were best proceeding directly into the storm. As I am writing this you will gather that all went successfully.

This interest in weather extends to judging when I go for walks with my dogs by quickly checking the latest rainfall radar to see exactly when the dry spell will be or if it has to be in the rain when it will be lightest.
I even use this to book my large animal appointments so that I generally do them in the dry. I also use it to watch for thunder and lightening storms both from a pets point of view (Homeopet Storm Stress has been proven to work here) as well as when to plug out sensitive electricals. So what does the weather have to do with homoeopathy well it can help when choosing remedies that are worse for damp, cold wet, heat, thunderstorms etc as many homeopathic remedies have very definite weather modalities. Mind you my Labrador in the photo above is a testament to both homeopathy and raw food diet. The picture above is her at 12 years of age doing her favourite thing riding the waves. As you can tell she is not bothered by any amount of rain, unless it interferes with her family or food supply! Homeopathy can also help people and their pets, as well as farm animals cope with the trauma that occurs with these hopefully freak weather events, such as those Ireland is just experiencing, which hopefully will not become the norm either here or elsewhere. To paraphrase Einstein "the truth in science is what stands up to experience" and for many of us we are experiencing changes! But to finish on a happy note at least we now have not just signs which are still as important as ever both to homeopaths, doctors and farmers among many others, but we have some marvellous technology that when used properly can make a huge difference in these situations also of huge importance to homeopaths, doctors, sailors , farmers in fact all of us - the weather forecast is just one of these!

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