Veterinary Homeopathy

Feline Leukaemia: A Case of Vaccinosis

Written by Andrea Szekely

The author cures a cat who developed leukaemia after vaccination.

My brother’s new red tabby kitten was called Gangster; he was ever so cheeky and playful, attacking you from behind the sofa when you were not looking.

One day, my brother phones me in a state of panic: Gangster is gravely ill with leukaemia (my brother has lost 3 cats to this illness in the last 3 years). During the last month, Gangster has already been given three rounds of intravenous antibiotics, steroids and anything else the vet could think of, but lately he has stopped responding and now the vet doesn’t give him long to live. Could I do anything?

In this dire state, I wondered if indeed there was anything to do to save him, or was it too late a stage to bring Gangster back to health. Should I just revert to near-death remedies to make his passing away easier, or is there something more I can do? I just couldn’t imagine Gangster dying, my brother would be devastated. What’s more, I couldn’t go and see Gangster in person that night: I was living in Moscow at that time and my brother was in Budapest. I decided to look into Gangster’s acute symptoms as well as his normal character, hoping that a strong acute or constitutional remedy would come to the surface. However, even with my positive hat on, I thought the prognosis was poor. In any case, the vet had already given up, so anything would be worth a try.

Gangster had high fever, swollen glands, no appetite and was rapidly losing weight…his eyes had lost their sparkle, his red coat looked lifeless and messy and he just wanted to be left on his own to sleep all day. He didn’t even like to be stroked anymore. From his character and generals I was finding it hard to pinpoint a well-fitting constitutional remedy and I was going to select an acute solution when I was handed what my teachers used to call the famous ‘door-knob comment’: “Gangster should not have leukaemia in the first place….he was recently vaccinated against it two months ago”… This information made me consider vaccinosis as a strong aetiology, and specifically Thuja, after Burnett’s writings on the subject. Thuja is well-known for ailments developing after vaccination, as well as for abnormal growth of tissue in the body. In the repertory, the two key rubrics ‘Generals – Vaccination, ailments after’ and ‘Generals – Leukaemia’, bring up Thuja and Sulphur. With a newfound clarity of an aetiological prescription, I decided to give Thuja before I tried anything else.

I prescribed Gangster one dose of Thuja 30C in the evening and one the next morning, diluted in a small amount of water. In addition to the homeopathic prescription, I also gave an herbal tincture mix of Echinacea (blood cleanser) and Gallium Aparine (lymph cleanser) to help eliminate the discarded excess white blood cells from the body, that I was hoping to see after the homeopathic prescription. The tincture diluted in water was to be administered orally three times daily with the help of a plastic syringe, until a lasting improvement in serum cell count was achieved. In any case of cancer, I always support the elimination of tumor cells from the body by supporting the likely elimination routes – as suggested by the tumor’s location and affinity to a body system (in this case, the blood and lymph). I often support my remedies with herbal tinctures when the patient’s immune system is too run down to have the vital energy to respond adequately to the homeopathic remedy given on its own. Herbal tinctures require less individualisation and work well in conjunction with homeopathic remedies, especially in dire situations.

The next day, my brother phoned in true excitement to say that Gangster slowly got up in the morning and ate a bit of the food he was given for the first time in three days! Still, he was very weak and unable to walk much. After three days, he reported that Gangster was eating properly. A week after the remedy Gangster caught his first mouse, which he proudly dragged into the house to my brother’s mixed pleasure and dismay.

Nobody in the family could believe when Gangster recovered fully within 2 weeks – including me! After years of practicing, I am still amazed by the life-giving power of the right homeopathic prescription. The vet was so surprised to see Gangster alive that he even took details of the remedies given. No other remedies were given besides the original prescription.

This case highlighted to me the importance of vaccinosis as an aetiology not only for humans, but for animals too, now I always include the vaccination question in any case-taking for animals. Food for thought: the alarming rise in cases of disabling canine arthritis – also a sycotic manifestation – has also recently been linked to vaccinations () . In addition, the UK’s Veterinary Products Committee Working Group says nearly one-third of drugs reactions among dogs and cats involves vaccination (Vet Rec, 1998, 143: 455) and, in Sweden, that figure is closer to 50 per cent (source: WDDTY). Burnett also originally identified vaccinosis as a sub-division of sycosis. Could a vaccinosis prescription work for some canine arthritis cases? How about human arthritis cases?

This case is already a few years’ old, but if the same case came to me today, I would also consider administering the offending vaccine back in potency over a few hours or days in 30/200/1M/10M potencies as per Dr Tinus Smits’s CEASE therapy for the treatment of vaccinosis (www.tinussmits.com).

By the way, my brother was so motivated by Gangster’s safe recovery that he set up a web forum for feline leukaemia to share his experience with the remedies and herbal tinctures that Gangster was given. So far, five other cats (from about ten) have since survived leukaemia using the “Thuja 30C + Echinacea/Gallium tincture” method as a blanket prescription, where the cat owners could not afford to see a homeopathic vet for individualised treatment.

I am a ‘human’ homeopath, not a vet, however, I do come across cases of animals in need. I thoroughly enjoy animal case taking, in which observation is key and I delight in how beautifully our prescribing methods originally developed for humans, work wonders with animals as well.

About the author

Andrea Szekely

Andrea Székely, BA(Hons) BSc(Hons)(Homeopathy LCHE discovered homeopathy through her son’s repeated ear infections. Within four years, she retrained as a professional homeopath with a BSc degree from The Centre for Homeopathic Education (CHE)/Middlesex University, London. She has practiced in England and the Czech Republic and since 2011 has taught Scientific Research and Practice Building & Management in the School of the Art of Homeopathic Healing in Budapest. Since 2013 Andrea has run The CHE in Budapest, the college with the most comprehensive four-year homeopathy curriculum in Hungary. It is popular among both physicians and non-physicians. She recently visited India to study India's model of state homeopathy governance and delivery, financed by India's Ministry of AYUSH. Andrea lives in Budapest with her English husband Robert and two sons, Daniel and Ben. – Find her at www.homeopatiasmaganiskola.eu

14 Comments

  • Dear Andrea,

    Glad you exposed the dangers of vaccination, especially of vaccination that is scientifically unable to be effective by allopathy anyway. Since feline leukaemia is not an infection but an auto-immune condition, there is no way to develop immunity to it through antibodies and therefore ANY vaccination to it is contra-indicated as it can not do what is expected of a vaccine – no resistance can be built by antibody development, to ANY immune compromise illness, it’s just not how the body works.
    This is now confirmed by the leading genetics researcher in the feline allopathic world, Dr Niels Pedersen, making a strong argument against vaccines for any auto-immune condition at least. This applies to FIP and FIV in cats as well as FeLV, and should be an argument any vet should accept. In fact, as statistics show, FeLV vaccine *increases* the rate of FeLV, as it damages the thymus, which is the organ of resistance to it.

    Your homeopathic approach and identification of vaccinosis was great and was successful here, but it will be even better without the herbs!

    Herbs (and vegetables and fruits) are a problem for cats:
    Cats are not designed to process herbs the same way humans do. In fact echinacea is toxic to cats who can not process the phenols which are considered the active components. Using it would actually deplete antioxidants in the cat and continued doses can cause severe liver and kidney damage in cats.
    Humans can use the herb as their liver is able to conjugate and excrete phenols …. cats lack that ability.
    Gallium aparine (Cleavers) is also a problem for cats due to the Benzyl alkaloid and the asperuloside terpene components which they lack the liver function to handle.

    It’s a VERY common mistake that vets and herbalists and others make, to assume that what we know about herbs for humans will just work the same in cats. It’s not so because cats are designed as solo predators, and are built lightly (light weight to pounce easily) in the organs department, and lack the sophistication needed to handle plants without being poisoned by them, especially those that have strange components that work as medicine in humans, other omnivores and herbivores. Plant digestion is extremely complex and cats lack the organ design for it.

    The homeopathy will work best without the herbs here.
    There are specific remedies for FeLV, FIV, and FIP too, which are great if you happen to have them handy 🙂

    Namaste,
    Irene

    Irene de Villiers, B.Sc AASCA MCSSA D.I.Hom/D.Vet.Hom.

    • Dear Irene,
      Thank you for your comment, which I find very useful! If they can’t digest the ingredients, wouldn’t the animals just excrete the herbs then, through the digestive tract, where they ingested them? The amounts I gave were extremely tiny and dilute. However, if as a vet you believe it’s dangerous then I will stop giving the herbs from now on and just concentrate on the homeopathics with animals. This case was a few years ago; since then I have also recently read about FIL now being treated as autoimmune by some. If that is the case, Echinacea as an immune booster is contraindicated anyway, which I forgot to mention in my article. Best wishes,
      Andrea

  • Dear Andrea,

    Glad you exposed the dangers of vaccination, especially of vaccination that is scientifically unable to be effective by allopathy anyway. Since feline leukaemia is not an infection but an auto-immune condition, there is no way to develop immunity to it through antibodies and therefore ANY vaccination to it is contra-indicated as it can not do what is expected of a vaccine – no resistance can be built by antibody development, to ANY immune compromise illness, it’s just not how the body works.
    This is now confirmed by the leading genetics researcher in the feline allopathic world, Dr Niels Pedersen, making a strong argument against vaccines for any auto-immune condition at least. This applies to FIP and FIV in cats as well as FeLV, and should be an argument any vet should accept. In fact, as statistics show, FeLV vaccine *increases* the rate of FeLV, as it damages the thymus, which is the organ of resistance to it.

    Your homeopathic approach and identification of vaccinosis was great and was successful here, but it will be even better without the herbs!

    Herbs (and vegetables and fruits) are a problem for cats:
    Cats are not designed to process herbs the same way humans do. In fact echinacea is toxic to cats who can not process the phenols which are considered the active components. Using it would actually deplete antioxidants in the cat and continued doses can cause severe liver and kidney damage in cats.
    Humans can use the herb as their liver is able to conjugate and excrete phenols …. cats lack that ability.
    Gallium aparine (Cleavers) is also a problem for cats due to the Benzyl alkaloid and the asperuloside terpene components which they lack the liver function to handle.

    It’s a VERY common mistake that vets and herbalists and others make, to assume that what we know about herbs for humans will just work the same in cats. It’s not so because cats are designed as solo predators, and are built lightly (light weight to pounce easily) in the organs department, and lack the sophistication needed to handle plants without being poisoned by them, especially those that have strange components that work as medicine in humans, other omnivores and herbivores. Plant digestion is extremely complex and cats lack the organ design for it.

    The homeopathy will work best without the herbs here.
    There are specific remedies for FeLV, FIV, and FIP too, which are great if you happen to have them handy 🙂

    Namaste,
    Irene

    Irene de Villiers, B.Sc AASCA MCSSA D.I.Hom/D.Vet.Hom.

  • My annie, almost 12 1/2.. have had her since she was 3 days old.. recently quit eating.. drinking and even going to the bathroom… sought a vet, he said he would put her down. I could not see this… she had a yellow tongue and orange froth coming from her mouth..started 1 dose of Carduus Mar. 3x, 12tissue salts 6x, b complex vitamins, and rescue remedy..and pedialyte (to replace her electrolytes} I do NOT repeat unless there is NO change. a day later she got up went to urinate… later started eating.. she is up to 2 cans of food today and “hard food when she wants… I am soooooo thrilled with Homeopathy I could burst.. I use it for all my animals. have 10 cats… all were ferals. My sons and daughters cats also are treated by me, have a reperatory and also Homeopathic Vet books………… Theres no other way to go, its natural and it works!.
    I pray this will be of help to someone that has a pet they cherish….. Thanks for your site.. very informative..
    BJTorrence

  • Dear Sharon, there are a few good books on the subject, one I use is ‘Homeopathic care for cats & dogs’ by Don Hamilton DVM, but depending on where you are in the world you can check the nearest homeopathic bookstores online for other books on treating small animals. Some homeopathic pharmacies give you telephone advice on which remedy to buy for your cat, based on her symptoms, if her illness is uncomplicated. However, if your cat is very unwell and you don’t want to take chances, you are better off taking her to a homeopathic vet. Good luck! Andrea

  • Hi Andrea,

    I am looking to take her to a homeopathy vet.any ideas on how to find a good one?This is still new to me.Any pharmacies that you like?
    Thank you
    Sharon

  • Hi Sharon, please contact me on [email protected] and let me know which country you live in to see if I can recommend a pharmacy. As for a homeopathic vet, I suggest Google-ing for one in your area or looking at blog recommendations and vet websites. Andrea

  • Hi, I’m just wondering how often you have the 30c of thuja after the first and second dose? My cat is end stage abs we are trying thuja as a last resort. She’s not giving up easily.

  • Hi, thanks for this post.
    Hi, I’m just wondering how often you have the 30c of thuja after the first and second dose? My cat is end stage and we are trying thuja as a last resort. She’s not giving up easily.

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