Having a sick dog is hard. It's expensive, worrisome and really frustrating.
I know from first hand experience. Sheldon, my perfect English Bulldog from champion bloodlines was chronically ill for much of his puppyhood. He had every routine vaccination and even received multiple vaccinations when he was sick, because I honestly thought I was saving myself a trip to the vet and some money by thinking I was taking care of the sickness and vaccinations at the same time.
I thought wrong. First, you should never ever vaccinate when your dog is sick. Their immune system is already working to fight off an invader, vaccinating in addition to this puts the system into overdrive and can create disease. Anyway, he had chronic ear infections, interdigital cysts, necrosis (deadening of tissue) on his ear tips and was diagnosed with vasculitis, an autoimmune disease. He had an insane amount of antibiotics and steroids that just made him sicker.
I asked my former vet, who was the head of practice at a fancy vet in Brooklyn if the vaccines and meds were totally safe. She, of course, reassured me that everything was all good and would just prescribe more meds to deal with whatever symptoms came up.
I did not know any better. I wish I did. Unfortunately, this went on for 2.5 years before I had enough. I had spent thousands of dollars at the vet, and his conditions certainly weren't getting better, they were much worse despite doing everything the vet said. He was suffering. I was suffering and finally reached a breaking point after taking him to the vet twice in one weekend and instead of really figuring out what was going on with him, the on call vet just prescribed a higher dosage of the meds that weren't working.
This seemed crazy to me. If a lower dosage of steroids caused him to pee constantly and not make him better, it seemed super unlikely that a higher dosage of steroid would make him any more comfortable.
So I did what any mother would do. I turned to the good old internet, specifically, IG and connected with my now dear friend, Sahara Lotti, founder of this site and CEO and founder of Lashify, via her instagram Bobiscray who helped me save Sheldon's life. She suggested his symptoms could all be attributed to vaccines and needed to help him detox. I thought she was nuts until I started researching for myself. And at 3am one night, after taking Sheldon out for the bajillionth time because the steroids he was taking caused him to have to pee excessively, I thought about we she said and researched. Every single one of his symptoms were textbook symptoms of an adverse reaction to the rabies vaccine. I was shook.
As per Sahara's advice, I immediately I stopped giving him steroids, changed his diet from Royal Canin garbage to white fish and veggies and took him to a holistic vet, the only one in NYC at the time. She has since retired. At the time, she prescribed 2 homeopathic remedies, nux vomica 30c to help detox from all of the meds he was on, and lachesis 30c to help his body heal from the vasculitis. I did not expect it to work, but I was desperate.
I was truly shocked and thrilled that in just a few days, the necrosis on his ear tips seemed to be improving. Fast forward 3 weeks, the necrosis on his ear tips was completely healed and never came back. He lived a very happy and healthy life for the rest of his adult life until he was about 9.5 and the vasculitis, that I thought was healed, actually wasn't.
Something re-triggered it, maybe it was old age, maybe it was the abdominal surgery he had to remove the binkies he swallowed, I won't know for sure, but the vasculitis was back on his ear tips a little bit and it was even worse in his brain. He was diagnosed with encephalitis and started having neurological systems. We tried everything we possible could to save him, but ultimately had to make the devastating choice to help him pass on December 23rd, 2022, almost 3 months ago. Keeping him alive would be for us and not for him, and my best boy deserved so much better. We did what we did for him because he had done so much for us. He was my best friend and greatest teacher and miss him every single day. I actually wasn't able to articulate any of this until now.
Sadly, I believe it was the vaccines that made him sick in the first place and the vaccine that ultimately killed him despite reassurances made by my former vet, who honestly, was a drug dealer. According to Merck, a vaccine manufacturer, "vaccines are known to cause inflammation of the brain, as well as lesions throughout the brain and central nervous system. The medical term for this is ‘encephalitis’, and vaccine’s role is acknowledged in the Merck Manual" (Source: Dogs Naturally). It literally says this in their manual.
So, if your dog is always sick, please start to think about what could have caused them to be sick in the first place. They don't just get sick out of nowhere, something triggers it. If your dog eats kibble, switch to a species-appropriate diet of home-cooked protein and veggies or raw. Take them to a holistic vet. Don't trust what anyone says just because they so. Research. Get educated and make informed choices, even if it goes against convention. If I knew what I knew now, Sheldon would still be here today.
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