You are receiving this email from Dr. Christina Chambreau because you are passionately committed to having health for your animals, yourself and the planet or because a friend thought you wanted to hear this information.

In the last Update I spoke about the microbiome and its importance to you pet's health. We saw how probiotics can help build a healthy biome.

But supplements, even probiotics, can sometimes be harmful to long term health. They act as drugs to suppress symptoms. More about this in a minute.

First, a course - a wonderful course on building vitality and balance. This introduction to homeopathy for animals is for people who know nothing, a little or even have been using remedies for years. 

May 4 and 5 you can actually meet me in person and ask all your questions - at lunch, after class and during the class - in Connecticut! Too far a drive, or you live in Hong Kong...we are live streaming it. Click here for all the details. And click here for you tube clips from last year's class. Email me with any questions.

Now what harm can supplements cause?

 

Supplements are like natural drugs.  Supplements and drugs both work on the physical body to manipulate physiologic processes to reduce symptoms. Supplements, unlike homeopathy and acupuncture, are usually supportive and not curative.

Dr. Hahnemann, the founder of homeopathy, coined the phrase “allopathic” (different than the disease) for the medical practice based on the use of dis-similar substances. These can be natural herbs, drugs, or supplements.

Homeopathy arose as a method of optimizing internal balance so your pet can be completely cured and may not need to stay on supplements her whole life. Even Dr. Hahnemann describes many ways to support the body during treatment of the underlying dis-ease (imbalance). This will be so well covered in the May class.

Nowadays, almost every veterinary practice has multiple supplements on their pharmacy shelves.There are new ones coming on the scene almost every day, just like drugs.

While supplements can be useful to the body, they may cover up symptoms, even mild ones. And you know that symptoms are awesome clues to what’s really going on inside your pets.

Covering up early warning symptoms may allow more serious dis-ease to develop.

Just because supplements are “natural” does not mean that they are harmless. In addition to covering up symptoms, they may negatively interact with each other and other medications or come from poor sources. These potential problems get worse with the more supplements you use, especially at the higher doses.

Here is one example of how any supplement (whole food or artificial) can be misused by providing temporary help only. A young German Shepherd was limping a little so X-rays of the hips were taken and there was some hip dysplasia so the conventional vet said to start on a glucosamine supplement, Glycoflex One. The pup stopped limping. By two his family realized that if they ran out of the supplement, he began to limp again while they waited for the mail.

Two years later he was limping even on the supplement, so they went to the next stronger Glycoflex Two. He stopped limping. In a year he needed the next stronger one.

At age 9, he developed degenerative myelopathy, a spinal cord problem causing paralysis that the vet said is common in German Shepherds.

The supplement masked the symptoms and the goal (remember it is important in Holistic Medical Decision Making to set a goal) was merely to ease the limping. The underlying energetic disease continued because homeopathy, Chinese medicine (TCVM) or other energetic treatments were not used. This is an example of palliation, or temporary help.

Wait, you say, I do not want my pet to suffer from joint or muscle pain. There is no need to withhold soothing treatments that maintain quality of life as long as you are also treating the underlying imbalance. While they made a wonderful effort to prevent limping, this dog clearly showed symptoms that were clues that energetic treatment was needed.

Had the correct energetic treatment been given there would have been much less of a chance of progression into degenerative myelopathy or other serious ailments.  

If your goal is a cure, then decreasing or stopping a supplement allows you to see how much progress there has been with your energetic treatment and if any supplement is even still needed. If the symptoms are no longer present at 50% of the dose, then continue to wean or even stop completely. If symptoms return, you can first revisit the energetic treatments and use the supplements if needed.

Sometimes the pathology (tissue changes) are so severe that you may need to continue some supplement even along with the energetic treatments.

This is another place where your tracking details in your journal and where quantitation of symptoms is very helpful.

Are probiotics needed daily to help the microbiome? Is Glucosamine needed to help the digestive tract? Temporarily they may be needed while deeper treatments are given. Because of the quality of food available, then may be needed much of the time. If so, rotate to use different ones and stop periodically to see if there are problems they may be masking. Make sense?

I am looking forward to seeing you in the May class!