Why Go Holistic?

At its core, holistic veterinary medicine implies a way of healing or treating animals using tools with minimal or no side effects. This type of medicine does not replace Western medicine, it adds to it. Its strength lies in the treatment and prevention especially of chronic disease. Often, holistic veterinary medicine has the potential to help, and sometimes cure, diseases otherwise thought to be degenerative or non-curable. Western medicine is often only palliative for chronic disease.

The most important aspect of holistic medicine is less dependence on the practitioner and more on the patient or caretaker. Because the caretaker takes a more powerful role, self-education is emphasized. Older patients benefit very much from holistic modalities because pharmaceutical options are often more detrimental to the organs and side effects are very frequent.

Safety and minimal side effects are at their core:

• Nutrition: Many chronic problems can be solved with nutritional changes and supplementation. We prescribe individualized homemade diets for each patient to help boost each organ system. Diets may be cooked or raw. This approach helps animals with chronic digestive issues, epilepsy, cancer and organ problems.
  
  
• Chiropractic: Many spinal, orthopedic and even balance problems can be cured with chiropractic. These include sports injuries (non-surgical), disc disease, neck and back pain. If a segment of an animal's spine is not moving normally, the animal may have trouble jumping up into a car or even going up stairs. Specific exercises and proper training (e.g., preventing leash pulling, a common and preventable cause of many neck problems) can help prevent recurrence. 
  
  
• Acupuncture: Dr. Donna was certified by the International Veterinary Acupuncture Society (IVAS) in 1993, and Dr. Jeff was certified in 2005. It is the mainstay of our practice and helps a variety of conditions including arthritis, back pain, digestive problems, epilepsy, immune-mediated disease, partial cruciate ligament ruptures especially in small breeds, hip stiffness, and kidney disease in cats. It boosts the appetite and is extremely well tolerated. Laying on a soft table covering, most animals rest peacefully with their needles (even cats!).
  
  
• NAET: Nambudiprad's Allergy Ellimination Technique (NAET) is a complicated yet incredibly accurate system of allergy detection and offers a cure for allergies. Sometimes in only a few treatments, a pet's years-long struggle with uncomfortable itchy skin is over. Other times it takes more patience and requires several treatments. Allergy syptoms may include itching, red eyes, digestive problems (especially diarrhea) and immune-mediated disease.
  
  
• Herbal Medicine: Botanical medicine gave rise to many pharmaceutical drugs but have far fewer side-effects. These can be given as powders, tablets or liquids in the food or applied topically as a poultice or salve.