What is holistic medicine?
Great question! Holistic medicine is not just looking at using pharmaceuticals to treat a symptom. Holistic medicine means that I'm looking at everything associated with the animal: where it lives, how it's fed, what it's eating, what other chemicals might be involved in a medical condition with that animal. We're looking at everything that could be related to that particular symptom and not just looking at the symptom itself.
Why choose holistic over traditional care?
Well, I think that choosing holistic health care is really important, and I shouldn't say choosing. I would say maybe we're going to incorporate that. For example, if you come in with your dog that has a really severe ear infection, it may get some conventional medication to get that in remission right away, but then we may think about changing the diet or we may think about adding a nutritional supplement that will support the immune system so that the ear infection gets over with more quickly.
What are the benefits to using medical-grade essential oils on patients?
Oh, I love essential oils. I've been using them for 18 years in all of my patients, and what I find with medical-grade essential oils is that they are another tool in the toolbox. The essential oils work physically on an animal, but they also work emotionally and mentally. So if we have a stressed animal, perhaps we've got some itchiness that's caused by a stress situation, an essential oil could help with the itching, but it can also help with the stress-related issues.
Are there any risks or side effects associated with holistic care?
Really not, because what we're doing is providing a natural solution for healing. The only side effects that we might see with holistic care are that a certain product might be too strong to start with, or maybe there's a detoxification going on that manifests or looks like it's an illness or a side effect, where actually it is being beneficial to the animal. But for the most part, holistic medicine is very, very safe and very effective when used with common sense.
Could you give an example of a case that worked well with holistic care?
I have a lot of them! I'm just really excited to share all of that, but I think the most profound case was a cat that was 6 years old. It was diagnosed with small cell GI lymphoma and was given a prognosis of 6 months to live. Through changing this kitty's diet, going with essential oils that are medical grade or what we call therapeutic grade, adding some nutritional whole food supplements to the protocol, the kitty actually thrived. It survived the cancer. The first thing people tried to do was chemo with it, and the kitty was vomiting up to 20 times a day, so we had to go with an alternative route for healing with this kitty. With all of the new things that we did that were natural and effective for this kitty, it lived to be 14 years of age and died of an unrelated cause.
Before we wrap this up, do you have anything else you want to add?
I sure do. I just want to encourage everyone to look at natural healing and natural supplements and therapies, even if you're using it with conventional medication, because we can oftentimes bring about a much faster outcome and a more positive outcome when we do that. If you are interested in finding out more, I am here at Pawsitive Pet Care. All you need to do is call the clinic and ask to book an appointment with Dr. Fox!
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