What is the wave of the future in holistic healing for pets? To determine the future of holistic healing for pets, we must first look to it's past. I'm delighted to turn the blog over for a wonderful Guest Blog Post written by Jody Miller-Young, Certified Pet Homeopathic Educator (CPHE). Jody is well versed in the use of homeopathic healing for pets, and is the creator of the program Hound Healer Homeopathy; How To Help Our Pets Live Longer, Healther Lives. The program teaches pet parents natural healing through homeopathy and nutrition, so they can take back control of their pet's health. Take it away Jody!
OK, I admit it; I’m the natural health/complementary medicine girl…as far back as I can remember. So, people often ask me what they can do to heal their pets. What should I feed, what medicines or supplements would help with this or that? And, while good, solid nutrition is the foundation of it all, many are missing a powerful healing tool that triggers your pet’s body to heal itself…often completely.
No, it’s not herbs. No, it’s not CBD. No, it’s not woo woo voodoo. This over 250-year old healing modality, created by a physician/scientist, with a plethora of empirical and scientific case study successes for everything from a tummy upset to cancer, is Homeopathy.
You might have heard of it. A lot of people have, but don’t quite know what it is or what to make of it. It all boils down to the principle called Like Cures Like. Let’s break that down. You’ll need a little bit of historical context for it to make sense.
BLOODLETTING, LEECHES & TOXINS, OH MY!
Homeopathy was discovered by a German physician/scientist named Samuel Hahnemann in the late 1700’s. Practicing as a conventional doctor of his day, he became frustrated by the limitations of what was available at the time – bloodletting with leeches, purging, blistering and dosing with toxic mixtures of mercury, lead and arsenic. Not very pleasant! And, totally unregulated.
It was during this medical madness that Dr. Hahnemann ran an experiment that would change his life and the course of complementary medicine forever. He was translating foreign medical texts into his native German when he came across an entry about Cinchona Bark (from which we derive quinine). The text argued that cinchona bark was effective in treating malaria (a real threat in those days), because it was bitter and astringent. Hahnemann disregarded this because he knew of other bitter and astringent substances that didn’t cure malaria. So, what was different here? He decided to test it out like any good doc living in the wild west of medicine…on himself.
LIKE CURES LIKE OR WHEN YOUR FRIENDS BECOME YOUR GUINEA PIGS…
Hahnemann wondered if the reason cinchona bark could successfully treat malaria wasn’t because it was bitter and astringent, but because it could produce malaria-like symptoms in healthy people and thereby, might trigger the body to cure those same symptoms in people already possessing them.
This was to be a revolutionary concept, and over the next six years, Hahnemann conducted many more experiments on himself and willing friends of all constitutional types with many different substances. Each time, these substances produced symptoms in the healthy similar to those they could treat in the unwell. Hence, the term, Like Cures Like.
Six years later, Dr. Hahnemann had enough data to release his findings to the medical community in his landmark essay called The Law of Similars, a cornerstone of homeopathic teachings. This concept of like cures like wasn’t new; it had been around since the times of Hippocrates, only now, it was validated. That essay was released in 1796, considered to be the birth year of homeopathy.
Patients flocked to homeopathic doctors, whose practices were popping up all over Europe. I mean, which would you rather do? Be leeched and poisoned or take a sweet tasting pellet?
Over the years and once the American Medical Association had been formed, conventional doctors, also called allopaths, felt threatened in their power and their pocketbooks, since their patients were switching to seeing homeopaths, and began discrediting homeopathy and homeopathic physicians, calling them quacks. The stain of that powerful campaign pushed homeopathy to the fringes for a very long time. But, there was to be a light at the end of that tunnel.
THE POWER OF ENERGY MEDICINE
All of those experiments Dr. Hahnemann conducted to document the effects of various substances in healthy people were called Provings. They were done using many things in nature, from various plants, minerals, animal products, metals and more.
Those early experiments were using the original plants, minerals, metals, etc., and producing pronounced symptoms, and Dr. Hahnemann knew he wanted to arrive at the smallest dose of a substance that would still be effective. Wise for his time, he knew that his method was triggering the body to do its job and heal. Why stimulate that with a fist when you could do it with a finger? Less is more in homeopathy.
So, the doctor decided to experiment with what the smallest dose of each substance could be to produce the desired results. He employed a process he called Potentization, where he would dilute the original substance and vigorously shake it…many times, until what was left was a sub-molecular amount of the original material that still worked in creating symptoms in a healthy person.
This, too, was genius because since there was no discernable amount of the original substance left after potentizing, any symptoms the homeopathic remedy produced disappeared once the dosing ended, making it a protocol that was safe and effective. A baby could swallow a bottle of a homeopathic remedy and not be harmed. Cool, right?!
Today, over 2500 proven homeopathic remedies exist and can be used to treat a broad spectrum of illness.
YES, YOUR BABY IS UNIQUELY SPECIAL!
The final piece is also what makes homeopathy different from other healing modalities. Homeopathy treats a being holistically but in an unusual way. Holistic simply means the whole person or whole animal. But, where homeopathy differs is this: two people or two dogs may have upset tummies and diarrhea, but may require two completely different homeopathic remedies to trigger the healing process. Why?
Because your baby is uniquely special! Yes, like treats like, but just considering the symptoms alone doesn’t allow you to arrive at the correct remedy. Symptoms alone is how the conventional docs do it.
With homeopathy, how a person or animal individually expresses those symptoms – their personality, quirks, what makes their symptoms better or worse - all are considered when choosing a remedy. When the energy of that individual and its symptoms match the energy of that remedy, literally symptoms begin to disappear, as if by magic. And, what’s better?
Oftentimes, old symptoms reappear briefly and are then also cleared from the body; the body is literally healing itself from the most recent to the oldest symptom.
Sound woo woo voodoo? I know! Yet, if you remember that we’re all made of energy and if you do your research about how each of our organs, blood, bones resonate with their own energy frequency, if only the energy of a substance remains in a homeopathic remedy, you can start to see the incredible things our bodies and our pets’ bodies are capable of when energy aligns.
THE UPHILL BATTLE
The smear campaign about homeopathy of 200 years ago has not totally gone away. There are many more homeopaths and many more everyday people practicing homeopathy within their own families. And, we still face the ignorance and fear of the conventional medical community.
As homeopath, Rachel Roberts, declared in her article in The Guardian, “Now, as an experienced homeopath, it is ‘science’ that is biting me on the bottom. I know homeopathy works, not only because I’ve seen it with my own eyes countless times, but because scientific research confirms it. And yet, I keep reading reports in the media saying that homeopathy doesn’t work and that this scientific evidence doesn’t exist.
“The facts, it seems, are being ignored. By the end of 2009, 142 randomised control trials (the gold standard in medical research) comparing homeopathy with placebo or conventional treatment had been published in peer-reviewed journals – 74 were able to draw firm conclusions: 63 were positive for homeopathy and 11 were negative. Five major systematic reviews have also been carried out to analyse the balance of evidence from RCT’s of homeopathy – four were positive (Kleijnen, J; Linde, K; Cucherat, M) and one was negative (Shang, A.).
“It’s usual to get mixed results when you look at a wide range of research results on one subject, and if these results were from trials measuring the efficacy of ‘normal conventional drugs, ratios of 63:11 and 4:1 in favour of a treatment working would be considered pretty persuasive.”
A PRACTICED SKILL
Practicing homeopathy successfully is a learned and practiced skill and art form in one. There is a simple elegance in being a detective for your baby, observing and recording what matters in determining a remedy, and then using that to find the most appropriate remedy to heal, knowing you are truly doing no harm. And, there’s nothing better than watching that remedy work, clearing up your dog or cat’s symptoms by triggering your pet’s body to heal itself, just like nature intended.
My 11-year old dog, Sophie, healed through homeopathy for a recent ear infection and her itchy skin condition is a work in progress, as are chronic conditions, but we are making progress. Our foster cat, Suki, got through a nasty paw infection with the help of homeopathy.
This is why more and more holistic vets are including homeopathy in their practice today and the consensus among holistic healers is homeopathy will continue to grow, since it is such a safe and effective practice. The Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine states, “There seems little doubt there has been a remarkable revival of homeopathy since the 1960s and 1970s in many countries, but especially the USA where, in 2002, it was estimated that the number of patients using homeopathic remedies had risen by 500% in the previous seven years, mostly by purchasing over-the-counter remedies.” It has only grown even more, since then.
One of its biggest challenges is it takes time to do correctly, in a world where we’re all in a hurry to get it done fast. Homeopathic remedies are far less expensive than pharmaceuticals and do no harm. Vet bills could be reduced significantly by practicing homeopathy and the ability to heal our babies would allow us to take back control of their health. You just have to pause long enough to learn the practice and become a healer for your pets.
We and our pets have such a humbling power to heal, if we just get out of our own way and stop suppressing and masking symptoms as a method of cure. It isn’t; it may just postpone a worse, more serious problem as the body looks for a way to express its imbalance. Getting out of our own way? Now that is what I call a concept of the future…Now.
About Jody Miller-Young:
She was a blogger, radio host and fashion editor of Hampton’s Pet magazine in the pet fashion and rescue space with her brand, Bark & Swagger for several years, and still interviews designers, authors and activists on her podcast of the same name, which reaches over 250,000 on demand listeners.
Click here to learn more about her program, Hound Healer Homeopathy; How To Help Our Pets Live Longer, Healther Lives
A very big Thank You to Jody Miller-Young, CPHE, for sharing her information and insights about Homeopathy, and holistic healing for pets!
