Tag Archives: assimilation

Detox your Pet!

Posted on by under detox, diet, Health, Naturopathy, Nutrition, Pet, supplements, Veterinary
Detox your pet!
We all want our health span to equal our life span, and we certainly want our pets  to live a happy, healthy and long life. Unfortunately we cannot make this an “eternal” or forever life – but we can try to help them bypass the poor quality events–arthritis, dermatoses, otitis externae (ear infections) and cancer caused by poor diets,  and toxins.
We know that readers of this magazine already know that the world is full of pollutants! Poisonous chemicals cumulate over time in our pet’s, and our own bodies usually stored in fat tissue which might become a nidus for tumour growth. Taking the “Rubbish out” is a life long/daily/weekly event – leading to a longer life (ask my husband!)
Harmful waste products are either flushed out –down the urine pathway filtered out  via our kidneys, or through our entero-hepatic cycle and out the other “hole”.  Some are sweated out via skin/ears which may be  represented as dermatitis and otitis
The simple answer to detox is to feed fresh, organic balanced foods that are species appropriate, and to provide ample sources of pure clean water. www.catinfo.org gives great information about feeding cats, and our clinic www.animalwellness.com.au can help with soecific diets.  Adding a good quality Spirulina or chlorella and Zeolite can help to bind out toxins that have accumulated in one’s body. If there is heavy metals- such as Lead -eg. in Mt Isa or Broken HIll mining towns, Zeolite given as small amounts weekly can help remove some of the toxicity. Each patient is an individual,  and the amount and type of detox will vary accordingly. Some animals- such as man, primates and guinea pigs require exceptional levels of vitamin C to prevent scurvy during the clearing process, and small amounts of vitamin B and Selenium are also necessary. A complete blood count and serum analysis prior to embarking on a diet change or “detox”  helpful to customize a particular organ system recovery.  For example, renal problems are helped to detoxify with the herb Rehmannia, and liver toxins are cleared with s-AME, milk thistle, dandelion root and vitamin B’s. All require thorough rehydration therapy.
  Where are these pollutants? Our pets, and us, drink them  in our water (fluoride, oestrogens “the birth control pills”, agricultural chemicals), and eat them in our food- insecticides, herbicides (GMO produce are glyphosate friendly-meaning you will get a big dose of BT toxins and Round up ready gut problems if you ingest corn, maize, wheat!  We also absorb them from our skin- which is a carrier NOT a barrier.  Avoid putting unnecessary toxins onto your, or your pet’s skin: Did you know that your skin is a carrier, NOT a barrier- as was previously thought. That means whatever you put On your skin is carried INTO your body and absorbed until it is eliminated. This has implications for nanoparticles in sunscreen (linked to cancer)  and phthalates and parabens in soaps, shampoos and cosmetics.
Bodies also produce endogenous toxins- that is stress and its dependent hormones- adrenaline, cortisol etc cause some wear and tear on internal tissues and produce some waste that also needs to be cleared out. Think your dog is chilled out and not stressed? Think again. Most little white fluffies (maltese, poodles, shitzu) just love and miss their owners so much that they can burn out their adrenals the same as their humans. Talk to an animal behaviourist to improve their attitude, and work on “Calm and mindful” pet therapy.

Check your food labels: Natural does not necessarily mean “Natural” as in “gift from Nature”.

It is commonly a marketing tool- it  means “can taste like a natural food” or smells like a “Nature derived smell” when in fact it can be entirely synthetic and made from plastics and coal tar- a by product of the petrochemical industry. Its a lot cheaper and therefore more profitable for the company  to , and make Liver, or chicken flavor and Red erythrosine dyes onto plastic “food” chews that so many dogs go Whacko from. (you know the TV commercial!)

Its the same for us- Vanilla, an orchid seed pod is very expensive to grow and then bottle.  That’s why most of your chocolate  (which of course you do NOT feed to your pets) and cookies use ethyl vanillin- its cheap, but WHAT is THAT doing to your body and organ systems- especially if your body has no way of breaking it down? Where is it stored (think fat, liver etc! ) and how is it removed from your body? Much of  it must pass through into urine and  faeces- because it is found in our seawater, which means both the liver and the kidneys had a “go” at filtering it.  What does it do the the environmental food chain then?

Some contaminants in our food chain bioaccumulate. This means that if it is in the soil or seawater (via sewerage)  the smaller organisms eat it, incorporate this into their bodies, and as the larger organisms consume them in turn, there is a greater toxic dose per gram ingested. As Man and his pet charges are  “Apex” predators we all end up with the stuff back in our bodies at a higher dose.  This is true for everything that is NOT food that is ingested and cannot get removed with the waste.  Food gets broken down by your digestive system or by your liver to its primary components: Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, and Nitrogen plus some sulphur micro and macro minerals calcium, magnesium etc. Every cell gets washed in the serum that carries these molecules and each cell tries to figure out if it is food or foul—If you can’t  build cells or run enzymes with the molecules there, then the chemicals are either stored  in fat or liver–or put away in between muscle layers if it cannot be flushed out.  Its vitally important that you feed your  pet’s and your body daily with the building  blocks for your cells to regenerate and that you avoid putting bad stuff into the system.

Don’t be fooled! If a substance has “not yet been found” to cause cancer it might just mean that the correlation has not been documented in enough places- and that possibly too many doctors /research scientists are on the receiving end of a pay back! (Conspiracy theorist?  nah, its just business as usual! If  your research funding pays your mortgage who/what ya gunna call??) . You can  check pubmed entrez – the scientific research  site– for information about the anthropogenic (ie synthetic man made substances) found in the atmosphere that DO NOT BREAK DOWN in the ocean’s waters.  Type in any number of “food” preservatives and see what comes up.

As a rule of thumb: think

1) fluid therapy ensure food is hydrating (this *not * dry food)

2) avoid all “food” colourings (that are NOT food)  and most preservatives (vitamin E, C are ok)

3) Fresh is best.  The organic produce and pulp from your juicer is an awesome addition

4) add some green chlorophyll (spirulina, chlorella, kelp powder) – small amount for cat, larger for dogs.

5) seek help from an Integrative, Holistic Veterinarian.

—

ANIMAL WELLNESS ph 61 7 31221997
Veterinary Integrative Care Clinic AND Advanced Veterinary Dentistry
Greenslopes Shopping Mall
Shop 6B/700 Logan Road,
Greenslopes Qld 4120
www.animalwellness.com.au
http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/animalwellness

https://naturopathvet.wordpress.com/

Dr Elaine Cebuliak BVSc MACVSc dentistry, Dip Ed, Dip Rem Massage, Cert Chinese Herbs, Cert IVAS Qual Acupuncture, CMAVA, Adv Dip Naturopathy, Adv Dip Herbal Med, Adv Dip Nutrition       ph 61-422413404
http://www.pethealth.com.au/Page/animal-massage-brisbane

How does a Naturopath review a patient? Stick out your tongue and see!

Posted on by under Uncategorized

OK so I get some weird looks from my colleagues and patients when I ask them to stick out their tongue. Embarrassment should be low on the list when you hang around veterinarians who talk about poo, anal glands, sexual organs (or lack of them- as  a lot of the time they are preoccupied with castrations and ovariectomies). Tongue sticking out is more of a human past-time, an acupuncturist/Naturopath’s pride of their knowledge base.   Generally there is little resistance to obeying this request, and no, its  NOT because they want to give me a raspberry! People are mostly curious, and usually interested enough about their health to oblige. Very often they make up some excuse about their tongue coating, such as “I just drank a cup of coffee” or “I was just sucking on a coloured lolly”. Even given this pre-examine information, the tongue never lies! (Well the words that come out of a mouth might, but the patterns on the tongue cannot be hidden).

As a veterinarian who has a special interest in dentistry, I have spent a considerable length of time looking in, and at, mouths. Tongues and teeth give me a LOT of information about  health. TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) uses the tongue as a map of dis-ease and weaknesses in the body.This party trick is awesome. So what can I see in the tongue map? The tip of the tongue represents the heart, the area just behind maps the lungs and the body of the tongue is about spleen (pancreas) and stomach- ie. digestion. If the digestive system is inflammed or not working well the tongue will be somewhat swollen and will have tooth marks or indentations along the border. The sides of the tongue are about the liver and gall bladder function. If the area is red it is said to describe heat, or a deficiency of cooling fluids in that organ system. Therefore a stomach ulcer might show up as a red patch on the tongue. In Naturopathic prescription terms if the tongue is very red it may mean that the body is deficient in iron, or inflammation so check the conjunctiva. A very pale tongue could mean anemia. If there is a quiver when the tongue is shown the patient is likely to have a magnesium deficiency.  Raised strawberry dots on the tongue indicate a calcium and phosphorous deficiency. Here is a blog with a case study and picture of a tongue http://foodiecure.wordpress.com/2011/01/03/love-your-spleen-tcm-tongue-diagnosis-and-case-study/ and here is a picture of the tongue map:http://www.sacredlotus.com/diagnosis/images/tongue_diagnosis.gif

As a Naturopath and health practitioner of over 30 years there are other signs and symptoms that give a great clue to what is going on in the body, so a bunch of clues can be picked up relatively quickly. Nails are another great source of information. White spots indicate either injury or zinc deficiency, and will show up on individual nails which will also represent certain organ systems. For instance the little finger represents heart on the inside part of the finger  and spinal column on the outside. Ridges on nails represent a silicate deficiency, which might be from an inability to absorb these minerals, or a gut problem. It might also be linked to a sluggish interstitium secondary to hypothyroidism- if this is suspected check for oedema, cloudy thinking, loss of the lateral third of the eyebrow, and if you are a doggie the tip of the tail will look like a rat’s tail. Humans have more hair loss and dry itchy skin. (I have a lot of fun comparing human pathology to canines or felines! My weird veterinary sense of humour…and don’t get me started on Anal gland scents of humour…bwhaha)

The advantage of having been a veterinarian for sooooo many years is that I can cut to the centre of problems relatively quickly. I am a surgeon, after all. This means I have bad handwriting, but accurate scalpel procedures. I prefer to type, and get bored when a pen is in my hand. Too slow!This detailed examination can be done relatively quickly with a well trained eye. Naturopaths can “sum up” multiple signs at one glance! Yep, even walking down the street, a quick glance can see who is likely to be predisposed to  prostate cancer or  to mammary cancer- it’s about the midline creep/waist to hip ratio which is  linked to the obesity epidemic, which in turn is linked to the pro- inflammatory state of nutrition.

You may have guessed by now that Naturopaths are very focussed on lifestyle changes and nutrition. This means they will ask some detailed questions about faeces. Yep, poo!. The Bristol stool chart is our friend. You need to look in the loo.You want to aim for 2-3 bowel movements a day and they should be a number 4 on the chart. http://www.cabothealth.com.au/article/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/bristol-stool-chart-1.jpg

Once we have that poo regime questionnaire established, we need to review your sleep patterns. 8-10 hours of sleep from an early to bed early to rise point of view is recognised as healthy. Some lucky few need less hours, and balancing the body and its essential nutrients, stress levels, reducing caffeine, and fixing the exercise regime will also complement the night-time rest period.

Exercise is also very important, and studies have shown that weight bearing helps with bone density, and short high intensity amounts (20 seconds running up a hill) followed by equal amounts of rest and recovery repeated 3 times in quick succession may be all that you need to maintain fitness.  Range of motion stretches, like your cat does, is also helpful to keep the joints lubricated and healthy.

I thought you might like to read how we take notes for a  shortened patient summary on our computerised system. Its pretty obvious how nails, tongue, iris and skin examination can give us great clues as to our health.

When we write our shorthand differentials we often abbreviate the organ systems with a letter, for instance T = Tongue exam. C=calcium, P= phosphorous. ACV is Apple Cider vinegar

Here are some notes from one of my patient files who came in with a viral illness, you can see that the signs and symptoms showed an underlying nutritional and personal stress causes which allowed the virus to take hold. We know that there are a few essential minerals that keep “the system booted”. Personal stresses, such as too much work, no relaxation and no exercise will elevate the body’s requirement for certain nutrients, particularly zinc and magnesium. When this is not met our immune systems fail and we are prone to getting infections. A detailed look at nails and tongue can tell the practitioner what is lacking and when it occurred, as the nail grows out from the nail bed approximately 1 mm per week, therefore the ridges and white marks are a chronological (yes Sherlock Holmes trick!) map. 

Patient exam:

T: white coating, strawberry dots, quiver, tooth impressions (swollen) –> CP deficient, Mg deficient, digestion problems low stomach acid

Skin_Rosacea and rash , skin dry.

Iris: ANW dark, irregular. white wash, radii solaris–> digestion/constipation , acidic

Nails: Zn def 3 wks ago (white spots) WITH Ridges (SCF)

Hx exhausted, works 7 d, does not “feel stressed” and says “has great diet” all joints ache (Rx Lympholytix and omega 3’s 1 tbs bds)

Diet recall: B- muesli, L-corn wrap with salad, D- meat, potatoes, veges, Drinks- 2 coffees/d. snacks? pastry?

Poo _ every second day

DDx constipated, dehydrated, low Zn, stress.

Rx: ACV/lemon/honey to taste first thing in am,

Go to bed EARLY have 10 hours sleep, soak in Mag S04 bath to absorb Mg++ for 30 min NOW. Take Zn supp 50 mg, watch movie “fat sick and nearly dead” and have 6-8 glasses of vege juice/day for 2 weeks and stop ALL GLUTEN. NO BREAD, NO PASTA, NO MUESLI.  Breakfast of 2 eggs and spinach and cheese, no bread. Go Paleo. plus vege juices.

Viral illness so make chicken soup with garlic and drink this 3x/d as well as take Lysine

advised to check vit D3 levels, revisit/ph check in 1 wk.

 

Have a Happy Healthy Week, and feel free to share this with FB and all your tech social network. Comments welcome!  Animal Wellness is located on the ground floor of the Greenslopes Shopping Mall.  Visit our web: http://ctbmarketing.net/animalwellness/