Homeopathy for Reactions to Vaccines

I'm often asked if I think it's a good idea for a dog to be given a homeopathic remedy prior to being vaccinated, with the intent of preventing any kind of reaction. Personally, I believe it's difficult to know what remedy might be effective in this regard, unless:

a)    A constitutional remedy has already been established for that particular dog, i.e. has proven to help with ongoing symptoms the dog has exhibited in the past. In this case, it can be a good idea to give that specific remedy a day or two before the vaccine in order to boost the dog’s immune system overall. 

b)   The dog has reacted to a vaccine in the past. In this case, I would be inclined to give the dog the remedy that normally would be used to that specific reaction before the vaccine is given.

Many people automatically give the remedy Thuja after a vaccination, but it's not the only remedy indicated for vaccine reactions. Silica is also a very important remedy in this regard. However, it's important to remember that treating a reaction to vaccines is no different from treating anything else with homeopathy - the best remedy to give is the one that matches the symptom picture the dog is displaying. 

Taking etiology into account (i.e. the factors which predispose the dog toward a certain disorder) is always a part of proper casetaking. If we look up Generals, vaccination after in the Complete Repertory, 41 remedies are listed. Looking at the most prominent of these, and disregarding those that are more specific to vaccines that are NOT received by dogs - like smallpox - we are left with: Ant Tart, Apis, Arsenicum, Belladonna, Malandrinum, Medorrhinum, Merc Sol, Mezereum, Psorinum, Silica, Sulphur, Thuja, Tuberculinum. So, as you can see, it's not exactly a cut and dried choice based on etiology alone. The choice of remedy should be based on the symptom picture, which can manifest anywhere between several hours and several months  - or even several years - after vaccination. 

That said, the vaccine reactions that dogs commonly experience often indicate Thuja or Silica. Some of these symptoms include:

• Generals, convulsions, vaccination after: Silica, Thuja
• Mentals, anxiety, vaccination after: Thuja
• Eye, inflammation, vaccination after: Thuja
• Stomach, nausea, vaccination after: Silica
• Rectum, diarrhea, vaccination after: Silica, Thuja
• Respiration, asthmatic, vaccination after: Thuja
• Cough, vaccination after: Thuja
• Extremities, paralysis, lower limbs, vaccination after: Thuja
• Extremities, swelling general, upper limbs, vaccination after: Silica, Sulphur, Thuja (in dogs, this generally corresponds to a lump at the injection site)
• Skin, eczema, vaccination after: Mezereum (thick, hard scabs), Sulphur (red, itchy eruptions)
  

When treating reactions to a rabies vaccine, Belladonna and Lyssin (also known as Hydrophobinum) should be considered. Belladonna can be indicated if the dog suddenly develops a high fever, especially if he/she has glassy eyes with dilated pupils. This is also a remedy to consider if the dog develops aggressive or compulsive behaviour (e.g. turning in circles repeatedly), or seizure activity.  

Lyssin (also known as Hydrophobinum) is the first remedy to think of if the dog develops a fear of water (which can manifest as refusing to drink) or is agitated by the sound of running water.

It may be a good idea to have Apis on hand, in case the dog exhibits facial swelling, or if there is any other indication that the dog is having an allergic reaction to the vaccine (e.g. swelling of the airways that impedes breathing).  Never be in hurry to leave the vet after your dog has been given a vaccine, as a severe reaction requiring emergency medical attention is always a possibility.

Depending on where you live, vaccinating your dogs may be mandated by law. For more information on vaccination and the law in Ontario, use the link below.

http://siriusdog.com/rabies-vaccination-ontario-regulations-law.htm

Why Use Homeopathy? And What is the Purpose of This Blog?

Despite the title of this post, it is not the intent of this blog to convince anyone to use homeopathy to treat their dogs. Anyone can google "homeopathy" and find a vast array of information and opinion - some sites are educational, some are almost evangelical in their zeal, and some denounce homeopathy as quackery. In the near future, I'll post a list of some of the educational sites. As for the others, you might have to find some of them and make up your own mind.

I first started using homeopathy to treat  my own dogs about 12 years ago. I had Don Hamilton's book, "Small Doses for Small Animals", a homeopathic starter kit containing 36 remedies in 30c potency, and a dog who was always sick, despite my spending a great deal of money on veterinary care. That's not to say I wasn't incredibly skeptical at the time... remedies that were so dilute it wasn't possible to measure any trace of the original substance in the traditional manner? Come on! To someone very grounded in science, like myself, it seemed like nonsense. But then I had a situation with my dog and felt I had no choice but to put homeopathy to the test.

I had taken my dog to the emergency vet clinic, as an area in his groin was inflamed and painful. The attending vet said she would have to sedate him in order to treat the area. I wasn't crazy about the idea, but she refused to treat him otherwise and I had no idea how sensitive he was to sedatives at the time. She injected what was - in theory - a short acting sedative, shaved the area, and inserted a catheter to collect a urine sample. Her diagnosis was a "hot spot" - she applied a topical corticosteroid and gave him another injection to reverse the sedative.

I realize that although she was none too gentle (he cried out several times during the procedure, despite being sedated), the protocol she followed was more or less routine. His reaction, however, was not, given the overly sensitive dog he was.

He seemed fine until we got back home, when he became very wobbly and lay down. I thought perhaps he had to sleep off the residual effects of the sedative and the stress of the vet visit, so I decided to sit and watch over him for an hour or so. As I sat beside him, I thumbed through my copy of Hamilton's book, wondering if I was ever going to put my doubts aside and give homeopathy a try. After an hour, he still wouldn't come around, so I called the vet. She said his reaction was abnormal and I should bring him back. I was on my own at the time and had no way of getting an unconscious 70 pound dog into the car... desperation bested doubt and I retrieved my homeopathic kit. Hamilton suggested Arnica to counteract ill effects of sedation, so I took a few pellets from the vial and rubbed them along his gumline (I didn't want him to choke on them and didn't have any other options in my repertoire back then). Much to my relief, he came around shortly after that... but we still had other issues.

Insertion of the catheter had caused so much swelling that he was unable to pee. He kept trying to no avail, and it was going on 12 hours since he had last passed urine. I went back to Hamilton, who discussed using Staphysagria in similar cases (i.e. difficulty in urination as well as swelling of any orifices). Sure enough, a dose of Staphysagria did the trick.

Once he could pee, the biggest issue became pain - so severe he was unable to walk more than a few steps. The "hot spot" (which had actually been an abscess), was severely inflamed, swollen and starting to ooze yellowish fluid. I treated the area with warm compresses and used Hepar Sulph Calc (again, after referring to Hamilton) for the pain and infection. Looking back now, years of practical experience later, I probably should have tried Belladonna before Hepar Sulph Calc. In any event, the Hepar Sulph Calc helped with the pain and the abscess healed over the course of a few days.

From that day forward, homeopathy became an integral part of  my life. I studied informally for many years, then formally for a few more. I can't imagine my life without access to homeopathic remedies or the knowledge that allows me use them effectively. More than anything else, I feel that homeopathy empowers me to play an active role in helping to heal those I care about, including my canine companions. And that's my reason for using it.

That's not to say practicing homeopathy is routinely simple - it takes study and dedication to the principles set out by the early masters to prescribe remedies with a degree of reliability. And that's not to say it is always successful - there are times when a symptom picture is not clear or even misleading, or the pathology is too aggressive, and you can't find a remedy that works for any length of time. There are times when another healing modality is more effective. And there are times when conventional medicine is truly your best bet. But I would never, ever want to be without homeopathy as an option, and it is what I turn to first.

The primary purpose of this blog is to provide context for those of you who have embraced homeopathy as part of your healing toolkit. Once I fully understood the basics, I found case studies to be incredibly valuable, as were the insights into the reasoning used by successful homeopaths. It is my hope that the background and reasoning I present in my own case studies, specifically as they relate to using homeopathy to treat dogs, will be meaningful to you. It is my intention to present successful cases as well as failures - I continue to learn with each case, regardless of the outcome, and hope you will too.

Belladonna in the Treatment of Focal Seizures

Last Friday night, as we were heading upstairs to go to bed, my golden retriever Indy stopped short on the landing. He would not continue up the stairs, he would not go back down. After standing there for a few minutes, he sat down and began to tremble. This often indicates that a seizure is imminent, but I couldn't be sure - his seizures are sudden but not that sudden, and are usually preceded by a period of ataxia (i.e. the inability to coordinate voluntary muscle movements, resulting in unsteady movement or staggering gait). So I sat down on the stairs beside him and tried to figure out what was going on.

Before I go any further, some background on Indy. He will be 14 years old on April 8, 2011 and has been experiencing focal seizures since the age of 5 as a result of being infected with Lyme disease. In July of 2009, at the age of 12, he was diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (which manifested as an extremely high white blood cell count accompanied by enlarged mandibular and prescapular lymph nodes).

Fast forward to the other night... I couldn't be sure if Indy was having a seizure or not. It had not been long since his last one, only a few weeks, but in recent months his seizure activity had increased from approximately every 3 months to once a month or so, which I assumed was tied to the progression of the cancer. But I couldn't rule out some kind of pain he might have been experiencing - perhaps abdominal, as he was also passing a considerable amount of offensive gas as he stood on the landing, which was unusual for him. And when he finally lay down, he curled up into himself facing away from me, which was also unusual for the type of seizure activity he tended to experience. This is always the dilemma when treating animals - they can't just tell you where it hurts and what it feels like, which are key pieces of information in the selection of homeopathic remedies.

As I sat beside him, rubbing his paw, the tears starting to flow, I wondered if Indy was ready to cross the bridge. It had been almost 20 months since his diagnosis, and I had not expected him to be here more than 4 or 5. Although he had been relatively symptom free in that time, in the last few months he had lost a significant amount of weight, and a fair bit of muscular mass, despite a hearty appetite. It has also been my experience that dogs treated with homeopathy can have good quality of life right up until the end, which can come very suddenly and may not require intervention. This is what went through my mind as I considered what remedy, if any, to give him.

Once I was sure he could not attempt to get up and fall down the steps, I went downstairs to get my vial of Belladonna 1M. Over the years, I had found that if I gave him a dose of Belladonna 1M as soon as a seizure was starting, the seizure was almost always less severe and would pass more quickly (see Key Takeaways below). I was not sure Indy was having a seizure - as a matter of fact, I doubted it. But the sudden onset fit the Belladonna symptom picture and I had nothing more to go on except the gas I mentioned previously. Had the gas been followed by collapse, gasping for air and blue mucuous membranes, I might have grabbed a vial of Carbo Veg 200c. But that was not the case, he was lying there very quietly.

Shortly after I administered the 3 pellets of the Belladonna, Indy fell asleep and I continued my vigil beside him on the staircase. I have to admit thinking that as difficult as it would be to lose him, I could only hope that the end, when it came, would be this peaceful. But this was not to be the end, not yet, as he awoke with a start. I fished in my pocket for the bedtime treat he usually receives when he gets to the top of the stairs and up he went.

Key Takeaways:

When you don't have enough symptoms to take a case, try the last remedy that was used successfully to treat whatever the dog had been experiencing. The last remedy I had given Indy was Belladonna 1M, to treat a focal seizure.

If a dog falls into a deep, restful sleep soon after a remedy is given, it is often a sign that the remedy is doing some good.

Belladonna is only one of many remedies that can be used to treat chronic focal seizures. In Indy's case, Belladonna was an appropriate choice because:

• He appeared to experience some sort of seizure aura in his front legs. He would often come over to me and lift up his front paw as if it felt funny. In the early days, I used to think he had hurt his paw, but then the ataxia would set in and I would realize a seizure was imminent.
• He usually exhibited ataxia as the seizure began.
• At full onset, his seizures were tonic (rigid tail and back legs) in nature.
• When a seizure was over, the symptoms departed as quickly as they began, with no residual symptoms.

We can repertorize these four symptoms as follows:

• Extremeties, convulsions, spasms epileptic aura upper limbs
• Extremeties, ataxia
• Generals, convulsions spasms tonic
• Generals, sudden manifestations coming and going

Based on these symptoms, the top three remedy choices are Belladonna, Sulphur and Calc Carb. Belladonna is sometimes considered the acute remedy for chronic cases that respond to Calc Carb. This is true in Indy's case - I used Calc Carb to reduce the seizures to as few as once a year for several years. Calc Carb has also worked well to reduce the size of his lymph nodes subsequent to his diagosis of cancer.