FAQ – Frequently Asked Questions
Welcome to Homeopathy for Animals FAQ… Please click on the question you would like the answer to. If your question isn’t answered here, then please write to us on our
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What can I expect when I book a consultation and how does the treatment go?
A homeopathic interview or the initial consultation is approximately 1 to 1.5 hours in duration. At this time the homeopathic doctor collects as much information as is necessary in order to be able to find the appropriate homeopathic remedy and to advise on a treatment plan.
All symptoms are taken into consideration and even small insignificant ones are deemed important as they give Ivana an idea as to what is occurring and how the illness is progressing. At this time you will be asked about your animals medical history (past and present), injuries, emotional and mental health, allergies, appetite, thirst and much more.
It is crucially important to be as honest as possible and forthcoming with the symptoms as they will allow Ivana to choose the correct remedy (there are over 2500 + remedies) that can help your companion animal. If the incorrect remedy is chosen it will slow their progress, or not work at all.
After the initial consultation, Ivana takes the collected symptoms and studies the case. This may take anywhere from 3-6 hours depending on the severity of the case. From this study appropriate homeopathic remedies are chosen as are any other modalities that can be of help (ie. herbal medicines, nutritional suggestions and any lifestyle changes).
A few days after the initial consultation, a follow up visit happens to review the treatment plan. At this time you are given the homeopathic remedy and any other supportive supplements/herbal tonics that are deemed necessary to your case. You are also given an individualized nutrition plan based on the specific nutritional needs of the animal.
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Is homeopathic treatment expensive?
Homeopathic medicines are relatively inexpensive, compared to pharmaceutical drugs prescribed by your Doctor or Vet, the remedies are very reasonably priced. The area that costs a little more is paying Ivana for the time spent on consultations and the researching of your case (however this is money well spent!)
Although the difference here is you are paying for a treatment that will (if done properly) treat the cause, not just the symptoms! So in using Homeopathy there will be very little and hopefully no follow up medication after treatment is complete.
In Homeopathy, the base of the modality is if you treat the root of the problem successfully with the proper homeopathic medicines, you essentially get rid of the cause once and for all. The chances of that problem returning after the treatment, become so much smaller. And even while you are using homeopathic remedies there are no side effects so your animals are safe to take them.
The other way to look at this is this way…something is only expensive if it doesn’t work. Simply treating symptoms alone, no matter what route you take is going to get pricey because you are just not getting to the root of the problem. Not to mention needless suffering with an illness for years and years.
One should think of it as an investment in their animals health that will pay off a thousand fold for years to come.
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In comparison to regular orthodox medicine, how much more effective is homeopathy really?
Here I think it’s important to give credit where credit is due. We have 2 different modalities – each is specialized to deal with a particular sphere of medicine.
In my opinion orthodox medicine as we know it is not only necessary but indispensable when time is of the essence. I’m talking about emergency type situations where surgery is needed, or reconstructive type surgical procedures are called for.
On the other hand, homeopathy is better suited when a chronic problem in concerned or simple first aid is required.
Neither one is better than the other – I don’t think you should use a hammer and expect to do the work of a screw driver and vice versa.
If there is a serious accident – you should go to the Animal Hospital. Work with a homeopathic doctor for chronic type stuff like re-occurring arthritis, allergies or gastro-intestinal issues.
So you ask me to compare but truthfully there really is no comparison, we need both of them!
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So let’s say I want to use homeopathic medicines to treat the problem, will homeopathic remedies interfere with the drugs from the Vet?
The answer to that is both yes and no and I’ll tell you why. Regular drugs are meant to combat and or compensate for a deficiency or an over-abundance of some sort. This means on a physical level drugs will alter your pet physiologically.
Whether it is an anti-inflammatory where the drug is used to bring down inflammation or an anti-biotic that’s given to eradicate bacteria – the job of the drug is to deal with a particular symptom. Eg. Arthritis inflammation or an infection.
Now if you give a homeopathic medicine you are giving it to bolster the immune system and address the cause of the problem. The sphere of action here is very different – one is dealing with a symptom and is generally “eradicating” something, the other is trying to raise immune function.
Now to answer your question – can homeopathic remedies interfere with allopathic drugs – no not really definitely not in the true sense because remedies are not even working on the same level.
But allopathic drugs do interfere with homeopathic remedies! This is particularly true of steroid based drugs because cortisone type medicines suppress the immune system. So you cannot have one medicine suppressing the immune system while the other is trying to raise it or re-balance it.
These two modalities best work separately although in certain circumstances allopathic drugs and homeopathic medicines can temporarily be given together if the medical reason is an emergency or you are trying to wean off a particular drug.
This way it could be done more gradually. But every situation is unique and needs to be assessed on an individual type basis. You are better to leave this to the highly trained professionals.
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Are homeopathic remedies fast acting?
Yes Homeopathic Remedies are fast acting but they don’t necessarily work quickly. And by that I mean, whenever you are using natural medicines and are stimulating the immune system you will have a reaction that is in direct proportion to whatever your animals’ body is capable of healing. Healing is only as quickly as the body will allow it to heal itself naturally. In addition to that, generally the longer the problem has existed – the longer you should expect for it to heal. Same goes for severity of an injury. We have to be realistic with our expectations.
It’s like this; your horse has a bad arthritic knee and a competition or race in a few weeks. What are your options? The fast yet very detrimental solution that you may be thinking of is a cortisone shot. Yes your horse will be able to compete but to what end?
Cortisone suppresses the immune system, thus decreases the inflammation and dulls the pain. It does not fix the problem! Cortisone will not ‘heal’ the knee, it just buys pain relief at a very high cost. Even just one shot begins to deteriorate the knee. Plus now, that pain is not felt, it does further damage to a bad knee by exerting pressure and strain on it by competing. Pain is the body saying, “enough is enough”, take away the pain but not the cause, permanent damage can occur.
In my eyes Cortisone is not even a good temporary solution since the side-effects and problems associated with this drug, far outweigh the benefits, in my professional opinion.
Now, if you were to use homeopathic remedies and took proper precautions to allow for healing of the injury or to deal with the cause of the inflammation (ie. Arthritis) you would eliminate the cause not just the symptoms. Homeopathic medicine may take a few days or weeks to heal but you know when movement is pain free, it’s because the cause of the inflammation has fully healed!
To add to that I just want to emphasize that the correctly prescribed homeopathic medicine can start working in minutes but the necessary healing time will depend on the severity of the injury or illness.
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What happens if I do absolutely nothing to treat my animals condition… neither drugs or homeopathic medicines?
Well that depends on the problem. Is it a simple acute condition or a serious chronic one. The difference between acute disease and chronic disease? An acute disease may fix itself over time where as the chronic illness does not! A chronic disease just gets worse and eventually may cause much suffering and death (again depending on the condition).
Chronic diseases progress, they may ‘hibernate’ for a while but will return whenever the resistance is lowered. Also please keep in mind a chronic problem like hives and allergies that suddenly go away and a “seemingly unrelated” problem (such as a respiratory condition) arises, please do not think that these are separate from one another. It is a natural progression, a worsening of the condition even if it appears to be unrelated.
Diseases have the ability to progress, change form and get worse by attacking other organs. A good homeopathic practitioner will be able to prescribe remedies that address all the phases, increasing the chances of eradicating the disease fully.
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Are there any draw backs to using homeopathy?
Truthfully, I can only think of two and I wouldn’t call them draw backs as much as I would challenges.
First is finding the correct remedy out of a possible 2,500+ remedies, and secondly is the speed of recovery.
Finding the correct remedy that matches all the symptoms is by far the most important and this is why much work is put into every individual case. The symptoms must match up to the remedy we want to give. If the symptoms and the remedy do not match, you will have very little if any reaction. But when you do get the right one, awesome things happen. This is where the help of an experienced homeopathic doctor really is indispensable.
The second point is simply that homeopathic remedies heal at the speed of the immune systems ability. Homeopathic remedies are only stimulating the immune system so that it essentially heals itself and depending on the condition healing may happen quickly or slowly.
So how do I pick a good homeopath to help me?
First, you want the person to have experience treating chronic diseases in animals. There are not many homeopaths that are trained specifically to treat chronic diseases so you’ll have to do some searching, but it’s worth it.
Second, you want the person to be properly schooled in Classical Homeopathy as their foundation and you want them to have a good grasp of chronic disease prescribing (this is also called miasmatic prescribing). The reason is that chronic diseases are trickier to treat and the homeopath should be equipped to deal with the various phases. A homeopath who is trained and has experience, that is a little more than just “knowledgeable” about homeopathic medicine and treatment is so important.
And lastly, you should feel comfortable with the person treating your pet. Just like choosing any other doctor, you should have a good rapport with them. Communication between you and the homeopath is going to be key in finding the right remedy. The homeopath will rely on you to give him or her all the necessary information, physical examination alone will not do. There will be lots of questions that you will have to answer so as to give the Homeopath enough symptoms for him/her to go on!