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| Hpathy Ezine - August, 2005 | ||||
Homeopathy for Animals-- Christina Chambreau, DVM |
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POTENTIAL FOR DEEP CURES WITH HOMEOPATHY Many veterinarians have become frustrated with the many recurrences of diseases in their patients. Others see domestic animals living shorter life spans, suffering with increased levels of chronic diseases and have owners requesting different approaches. You may have heard from clients or colleagues of miraculous cures using homeopathy or other modalities. Journal articles certainly focus on the successes. You may have seen animals treated unsuccessfully with homeopathic remedies who then present in your practice. People may tell you they have used homeopathy to no effect, then tell you what herbs, combination homeopathic remedies or minerals they gave. In my experience, the potential of homeopathy is to cure at the
deepest level, with all symptoms resolving and the animal living
a long and healthy life. Only a deep understanding of the principles
of homeopathy and a lot of practice can enable you to cure this
way. Even when unable to achieve these deep cures, homeopathy carefully
prescribed will frequently improve the overall wellbeing and health
of the animal in spite of the persistence of the original, uncured
pathology (i.e. cats living 8 happy, active years after diagnosis
of severe renal disease.) The rest of this paper will cover the
guiding principle of homeopathy and show the potential healing that
can occur. These cases are to give you an idea of the breadth of conditions that can be successfully treated by homeopathy. Baby, a big black cat, came to me at 9 years of age. She had been receiving Depo Medrol injections for 8 years at an ever-increasing frequency, up to every 6 weeks, to keep her from licking her abdomen raw and bloody (diagnosed as Feline Endrocine Alopecia). I treated her homeopathically for 9 months before her abdomen was free of lesions. She had no skin lesions from then until her death at 17 years. One year later, she recovered quickly from an upper respiratory infection for which 2 other cats in the house had to be treated for 2 weeks. A year after that she again recovered quickly with no treatment from the same fever of unknown origin that the fourth and fifth cat in the house suffered with for a week or so. All cats became ill and were under another veterinarian’s care when 15-18 years old and died within a few months of each other. Shortly before her death Baby did lick her fur to about ½ length without disturbing the skin. An eight-year-old cat came to me with conjunctivitis, photophobia, spasms of the lids, and a puritic, discharging otitis. She also had a history of poor or finicky appetite, vomiting hairballs (or the gagging cough), dull hair coat with spells of miliary dermatitis (Alopecia, scabs, redness), has always shed a lot and is aggressive to one of the other cats in the house. Current treatment had been Laxatone, antibiotic/steroid eye drops and occasional Depo injections. The symptoms continued to recur sporadically and her owners reported she was aging “normally” – less active, more finicky and less affectionate. After homeopathic treatment, her eye and ear problems resolved, and a year later she had some scabbiness when the other cats got fleas. She has no more “hairball” gagging/vomiting, and will eat anything (salad, spaghetti, raw meat,...), she does not seem to shed, but her glowing coat thinned out appropriately for the summer and she is much less aggressive with the other cat. Her energy is better (“she’s playing like she was a kitten and even broke a glass the other day.”), appetite is fine and she is again a lap cat. This result often, though not always happens when good holistic treatment is given. The overall health and even longevity of each animal is improved along with elimination of the current symptoms. Although this does not always happen, it is always my goal and I teach the animal guardians to have it be their goal as well. Isis had chronic coughing since 6 weeks of age that was non-responsive to conventional treatment, yet in the face of this ill health her vaccines were continued. Six hours after getting her annual boosters at age 5, she had to be admitted to the hospital for oxygen with a severe asthma attack. With conventional treatment of 3-4 medications, she continued having asthmatic respiration with occasional hospitalizations for the next 2 years. given carefully while she was withdrawn from drugs resolved the asthma problem and she has had no conventional drugs, no asthmatic breathing and less coughing for the next 7 years (to date). She is treated every 6 months or so to work at permanently curing her cough. She has had a rodent appear and disappear twice in the last 2 years, as the body worked through different remedies. “Heidi” Dow was a 14 year old spayed female with a growth on her right eye that looked red and angry (local vet said “cancerous”.) It was attached to the third eyelid, covered ½ the eye. It bled easily when rubbed or even touched gently. It was very sensitive to touch, causing this nice dog to growl. There were 2 firm growths on Rt. paw and in the middle of the chest. The owner gave Thuja 200c in July when it was first noticed and there was no change. She repeated Thuja 200c in August to no avail. She then gave Thuja 1M (date? In Aug) and the next day the tumor was more swollen and was dripping blood. She has been deaf since1998. I prescribed Nitric acid 200c on September 8. From 9/14 to 9/18 had normal hearing. By 9/24 there was no blood and the tumor was smaller, though varied in size and shape, and she was back to normal energy and appetite. An LM potency of Nitric acid was given for the next 3 months, then a 10M Nitric acid. By April, she has been behaving like a young dog (Almost knocked the husband over which she has not done in years), woofing and pesky and pushy and sits and bounces up and down. Now doing 4 mile walks with running, leading and being adventuresome. The tumor is completely gone, there is no eye discharge, the ears are clear, there is no snoring and her appetite is fine. “Dudley” Derecola is a 15 year old neutered male Yorkie with kidney problems. In June of 2001 he had diarrhea and vomiting every 2 hours while at the same time drinking tons of water. The emergency hospital administered IV fluids and antibiotic shots. Blood values: were Creatinine 1.77, BUN 36.9, Phos 10.36. He was discharged on “senior” dog food. During the next few months he worsened: drinking tons of water, urinating very often, not eating, loss of 2 pounds, very incontinent during the night, eyes watery, shivering early a.m. and sometimes early p.m., good energy on dog walks, overall does not feel well, dark black lumpy mole under right arm. An initial prescription of Natrum muriaticum resolved the incontinence but nothing else. Bryonia, repeated when needed at increasing potencies, resolved all this dog’s problems. Tinkle Tonic (herbal) was used daily for the first few months, then discontinued. The owner switched to a fresh food diet, did not vaccinate and learned how to not worry so much. As of June 2002, he has been eating well, eyes are clear for the most part, mole is basically gone, drinking and urinating are normal, good energy every day, sleeps well, not restless, no tummy aches and his blood values are back to normal. The power of homeopathy lies in the potential to cure to this level. The “illness” resolves and most importantly, the animal feels better overall emotionally and physically. Most animals have an amelioration of symptoms and feel better overall and some animals have this deep cure. Some animals never respond to homeopathy or any other modality including conventional, some respond to one modality and not others. 95% of my clients are appreciative of the process even when their animals are worsening. My satisfaction level with this approach is very high. Though I still want to cure every case, I know that the gentle holistic approach is more satisfying to the owner, to me and to the animal. PRINCIPLES TO FOLLOW FOR DEEP CURES Understanding the principles of how an animal becomes ill, and where to focus our attention is the most important part of choosing a remedy. There is no need to find the one perfect remedy, rather to make a careful selection and know your reasons for that selection. Then you watch to reaction of the body to the remedy and use the changes to decide on your next prescription. Sometimes this process takes weeks, sometimes months to years to the whole lifetime. Books on the principles and philosophy of homeopathy will guide you in how to evaluate your cases and which symptoms are important. Reading philosophy books or the philosophy parts of animal books (Day, Hamilton, Wolff) is critically important if you want to have any mastery of homeopathy. 1. The body heals itself (or tries to) by producing "symptoms".
2. There is first an energetic imbalance, then physical manifestations.
3. There is one on-going "disease", not just separate, acute episodes. 4. To really heal, the totality of symptoms must be addressed, not just the current problem(s). This treats the underlying imbalance (one disease). 5. Like cures like. Similar replaces similar. Provings. Hahnemann states: "the stronger destroys the weaker: It has a similar action, and because of its predominance, takes over precisely those parts of the organism until then affected by the weaker one, which since it can now no longer act, disappears. In other words, as soon as the new disease agent, similar to the first but stronger, takes over the patient's sensations, the vital principle, because of its unity, can no longer feel the weaker similar one; it is extinguished, it exists no more, since it is never something material but only a dynamic affection." Once the dynamic (energetic) imbalance is corrected, the physical manifestations disappear even bony proliferations, cancerous growths, bladder stones, etc. Once the list of symptoms with quantification is written, we use several texts to identify the matching remedy. A Repertory is an index listing symptoms along with the remedies that have caused these symptoms in the provings or have cured these symptoms in clinical cases. Here you look up each symptom on your list and find which remedies are common to most of the symptoms, especially the characteristic, or odd ones. Then you read about your choices in Materia Medicas, which are different authors’ interpretations of the provings based on experiences in their practices. For animals it is good to use those that closely follow the provings (Allen, Hering, Clarke) as well as more biased ones. Therapeutic Materia Medicas for animals and people (Chris Day & George MacLeod are popular authors) list diseases and the remedies that in their practices often were useful. Careful! - This may entice you to forget about looking at the individual. They are most useful if you have written down the symptoms, then check the therapeutic mm, then read a more detailed one to confirm your choice. There are expensive computer programs that offer the materia medicas and repertories in formats that will speed up your prescribing. Most experienced homeopaths recommend waiting to buy these until you have used the hard cover books for awhile as you seem to learn more with them. Kent Homeopathic now has a very inexpensive small version and there are web sites with free materia medica material. To summarize, remedy selection is made by listing the current and past symptoms displayed by the animal, including lab tests and physical findings, and finding a remedy that displayed many of the same symptoms when tested. Repertories, Materia Medicas and Therapeutic Materia Medicas are used to make the final selection of the remedy to try first. |
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