I wrote about Sheldon, my 9 year-old/first-born English Bulldog and his surgery in this blog post from last month. To quickly recap, he unfortunately ate 6 of our daughters' pacifiers and 1 teething toy over time. Even more unfortunately, we didn't notice until he couldn't make it clearer to us that something was up. He wouldn't finish his food (so unlike him) and couldn't get comfortable (even more unlike him) and his breathing seemed labored. At this point, I knew he needed emergency care and took him in.
Despite all of the bulldog stereotypes that exist, their care team was shocked that his vitals were so good including blood pressure, oxygen, heart rate etc. They took x-rays and detected the binkies and teething toy and attempted to remove via endoscopy first, which failed, and then removed them via abdominal surgery. We were scared, but surgery was the only choice. See cray cray image below of what they actually pulled out of his abdomen.
Thankfully, he made a full recovery, physically, rather quickly. I credit that to feeding him raw food for years, vaccinating only when necessary by using titer tests and him knowing how loved he is.
Emotionally and mentally, he was traumatized. I could definitely see it in his eyes. He wasn't quite himself. In my experience with him throughout these last 9 years, homeopathy has always, without fail, worked for him. I contacted Dr. Charles Loops, DVM, as per the advice of Sahara Lotti, his guardian angel, and he prescribed a homeopathic remedy called Hypericum 1M based on Sheldon's symptoms.
We just finished his treatment plan and I am thrilled to report that he is the most himself he has been in a while. A few days ago, I took him outside, he saw a ball and went crazy over it for a while. I hadn't realized he hadn't done this in a bit and was thrilled to see him get back to normal.
Interestingly, after each dose of Hypericum 1M, he would have a significant amount of discharge from his eyes. Old me would freak out that something was wrong, but the wiser and more experienced me knows now that the discharge is actually a good thing. It's his body getting rid of toxins in his system for good.
He now has very little eye discharge, if any and is back to being Sheldon. If your dog is experiencing acute or chronic symptoms, I believe both conventional and alternative medicine can help. You just need to know which situations call for each.
-Written by Erica L.