Pawealer

[Teaching Toto]

My two dogs recently came down with upper respiratory infection. Toto was particularly bad one night. I started searching on line for some answers because they were being treated but not getting any better.

I ran into a website called paw healer. They offer herbs for healing and told me that the way vets treat URI only covers it up and it will come back.

Has anyone heard of the website?

Does URI come back?

Please tell me your thoughts. My dogs are on the mend now but I would like to know what to do; if I need to do something more than what the vet is already doing.

[Dame]

Homeopathic remedies are effective when treating some things - but they can be incredibly dangerous when mixed with somethings and can make other treatments less effective. One of the big issues in things like this is that most medical professionals haven't studied homeopathy to a large extent and can't fully understand all of the interactions and risks. I am not sure that I would use it on my animals, simply because I would worry not enough studies have been done on the subject when it comes to animals.

As someone who has owned rats (who are INCREDIBLY prone to URI) and as one who gets them herself, I can tell you that they are not something that just "doesn't go away". Depending on the cause though, it is possible for them to occur again (like with rats, its due to a myco infection that modern drugs cannot clear up but is usually kept in check by some rat's immune system.)

I would really recommend that you do not solely rely on homeopathy in itself - it may not work and you can possibly loose your animals over it. You might be able to find a vet who does both sides (there are more and more of them popping up these days.) If you choose to go it alone, keep a close eye on your dogs and do your research, because your homeopathic may not be doing it for you. There are a lot of people on the web who just want business and your money.

[Teaching Toto]

Thank you for the input Dame. I have URI's myself and I know they go away in people but didn't know if dogs were different in that area or not.

So far Toto seems to be doing a lot better but he shared the lovely bug with Barkley. Barkley isn't getting as bad as what Toto did and hope that he won't. It's hard to know how he will react though. Barkley had tapeworm when I first got him so I was a little concerned about a suppressed immune system from the tapeworm.

I did want to clarify something. You said that URI's can be healed and do go away with medical treatment? They don't just go dormant for a while? I didn't quite get that part of your post.

[Dame]

I didn't want to come out directly and say "yes" to be honest... without knowing the exact cause of the URI. Depending on the cause, I would say there would be the possibility for it to reoccur. I would really recommend talking to your vet about what he/she thinks the cause was and the odds of it reoccurring again.

I wouldn't say that the meds are "making it dormant" though. You either have an upper respiratory infection or you don't. Dormant wouldn't be the kind of term I would use. Its certainly possible for one to reoccur pretty quickly though if the same thing were to happen!

Using a homeopathic remedy isn't going to heal it any more then an antibiotic would (in most cases I would really recommend the antibiotic over the more natural method.) A homeopathic remedy might help keep the immune system in good health though (but that is debatable because all those studies from years ago that said x, y & z used to be involved in immune health have pretty much been proven false. So really who knows? )

I usually get pretty skeptical about homeopaths that make really blanket statements. (In my experience with them, the best ones realize how western medicine has its place in health care.) I've been a lot of cases where its helped in various illnesses in humans (homeopathy), but the % of success you see is a lot similar to success you see with the placebo effect so its hard to really get good solid evidence. My mother had some great success with it years ago - but in the end all she was getting was a sugar pill. Since dogs don't get the placebo effect I would be a bit concerned about doing it yourself over the internet without someone who is really knowledgeable about it in person (especially since we know dogs can't handle a lot of the things we can and your normal homeopath who may be trying to expand their business may not be as on top of that as we'd like.)

[Teaching Toto]

Thank you. I was a bit skeptical of the website and the fact that they were going to treat the dogs without seeing the dogs themselves.

Hopefully we will just be done with it after the dogs finish the meds. If not, we'll cross that bridge when we get here.

[Dame]

Originally Posted by Teaching Toto

Thank you. I was a bit skeptical of the website and the fact that they were going to treat the dogs without seeing the dogs themselves.

Hopefully we will just be done with it after the dogs finish the meds. If not, we'll cross that bridge when we get here.

Came across this earlier, and I figured I would post it in case you get interested later on or if anyone who finds it in search wants some more info.

There is a list of vets who practice it here (don't know how all inclusive this is, but it seems like a credible organization and they have some neat info too.

The front page of the organization itself is here.