Essential oils are powerful herbal medicines that can be very effective in treating a wide variety of health issues. However, unlike other forms of herbal medicine that can be used with a broad margin of safety, essential oils are very concentrated, and require some extra caution and common sense with their use--- especially with dogs and cats. Join us for an interview with Dr. Jodie Gruenstern, DVM; a holistic veterinarian who has been safely using essential oils in her practice for over two decades. Learn what these amazing medicines can do, and get started with using aromatherapy in the care of your companions.
Essential oils are powerful herbal medicines that can be very effective in treating a wide variety of health issues. However, unlike other forms of herbal medicine that can be used with a broad margin of safety, essential oils are very concentrated, and require some extra caution and common sense with their use--- especially with dogs and cats. Join us for an interview with Dr. Jodie Gruenstern, DVM; a holistic veterinarian who has been safely using essential oils in her practice for over two decades. Learn what these amazing medicines can do, and get started with using aromatherapy in the care of your companions.
spk_0: 0:00
welcome to your vital pit. I'm Greg. Today we're gonna be talking about aromatherapy and the use of essential oils for your pet. Conventional veterinarians and even many holistic veterinarians air hesitant to recommend essential oils for pets. However, when prepared, selected and utilized properly, they can be an effective and safe modality to support a healthy tissues and organ systems in our dogs and cats. Today's guest Dr Jody Grew in Stern is an expert with essential oils. She's been working with him for many, many years. Jody is a veterinarian. Graduated from University, Wisconsin, in 1987. She's a certified veterinary acupuncturist and food therapist by the CI Institute. She's vice president of the Veterinary Medical Aromatherapy Association and a member of the American Holistic Veterinary Medical Association. Dr. Jodi is author of a wonderful book called Live With Your Pet in Mind. She's a nationally renowned speaker and writer and pet product manufacturer. She's the founder of Dr Jody's Natural Pets, integrating People for Animal Wellness and Dr Jody's integrative consulting and former owner of Animal Doctor Holistic Veterinary Complex in Wisconsin. Dr. Jody currently resides in Scottsdale, Arizona, with her fabulous rescues, and you should visit our website for sure. Dr. Jody's natural pets dot com for natural products to schedule a speaking engagement Where a consultation supporter nonprofit at www dot ipod ade dot com Dr. Jody, Thank you for coming on
spk_1: 1:42
your vital Thank you. That guy was fabulous. Wasn't a So I thought it was gonna thio
spk_0: 1:51
first. Your bios fabulous. Your fabulous
spk_1: 1:54
e, I will say, though I'm the former VP of the Veterinary Medical Aromatherapy Association. We just had a changeover in officers. So I thought they're The reason I go by Dr Jodi so often is because my last name is actually Green Stern. Although it's spelled Grune stern,
spk_0: 2:15
you pronounce. Agree? I've been pronouncing it wrong for 20 years
spk_1: 2:18
for 20 years. It
spk_0: 2:20
Wow. Okay, Okay. Dr. Greene Stern will make sure that gets corrected in the edit. Okay, so we met Dr Greene Stern and I met at the Healing Oasis Wellness Center. Probably back. I'm thinking that must have been back in, like, 1999 or something like that. It was a long, long time ago, and I remember us talking about essential oils back then. Now, for the listeners, you know, I am an herbalist and Dr Jody's an herbalist, too, and I do consider essential oils as herbal medicine. They are derived from plants. However, unlike whole plant herbal medicines, they tend to be concentrated, and they represent, um, a partial chemistry of the plant. Most specifically, devolved toils of a plant, which could be very, very strong. And, you know, therefore they require a certain approach. They require a certain level of care and caution when using them as especially internally in dogs and cats. It's not something that you just want to pick off a shelf and assume that it's just safe per se because it's an herb. Is that right?
spk_1: 3:35
Absolutely no good points that you've already brought up, of course. So where we obtain the central oils from and how we use them is vitally important for safety and for efficacy.
spk_0: 3:50
Yeah, so that's the other thing that you know consumer needs to be aware of, and this is true for pretty much any supplement. But I really think it's amplified by the strength of these essential oils is quality. I mean, quality going in is quality coming out, and people need to be aware that not all essential oils are created equally, and even if it's the same herb on the label, the quality of that essential oil can be quite different. And there's aromatherapy grade to stuff that we use for therapeutic purposes. And there's fragrance grade oils, which are basically to be reserved for just that stuff for air fresheners and and cologne and things like that, but should never be used in a therapeutic. So,
spk_1: 4:34
yeah, I think I think a lot of times people don't realize is that even the time of harvesting can influence the chemical constituents that are in the herb or the essential oil. And there are companies that will intentionally harvest at a time when the resultant product is going to be highest. And, let's say a certain fragrance that's appealing for the perfume industry. Um, and then it may not be as high in the constituents that we might find desirable that are more metabolically active constituents, for example,
spk_0: 5:12
right. And you know, the same applies for ah, good, good example of what we're talking about would be lemon balm or peppermint or virtually any member of the mint family. For those of us that are avid gardeners like myself if you walk out into your garden on a hot day, when your mint plants are wilted down, they just don't look happy at all. And you brush past those plants or you step on one. You're going to smell it right away because those volatile oils have been pulled out of the routes into the upper plant and they're they're protecting plant from the elements. And that's when you want to harvest these plants, right?
spk_1: 5:47
Yeah, you could even get watery eyes when you're smelling the peppermint. When you apply peppermint oil to your temples in order Thio assist you with, let's say, a headache. If you pass your eyes with that oil on your fingers, it could make your eyes water. So keeping things like that in mind when we're talking about using this for a pats who are much more sensitive than we are is something to think about. So straight peppermint oil is actually something that I often do active fuse around animals.
spk_0: 6:27
Yeah, it tends to be very strong, and it has a you know, peppermints interesting in that it's sensitizing and stimulating to the nervous system. In those concentrations and lower concentrations were taken in small amounts, like peppermint tea that were used to in the digestive track. It actually has a comet of property, but in this concentration, it could be very stimulating. And, you know, as an example, here's an old herbalist who speaks a lot trick when I lecture, Sometimes I'm tired. And during those those instances, if I didn't get enough sleep the night before, I'll take a drop of peppermint oil and put it right on the soul of my foot each foot before he put on my shoes. And that actually brings alertness to me almost immediately. It's amazing.
spk_1: 7:10
Yeah, there's some studies out there that say that if you smell peppermint oil while you're studying and then you smell that oil while you're taking the exam, it actually helps your recall.
spk_0: 7:23
Yeah. Wow. You know, these things are amazing medicines. And so you've been using these. Tell it. Tell me about when. Tell us about when you first started using essential oils in veterinary practice.
spk_1: 7:37
What will prop it was? Well, it was over 15 years ago, and I was attending a health expo where I was actually introduced to the oils by a woman that used the oils in her cat shelter, and I find that interesting and probably why, um, I became so confident with using the oil's even around cats is because that's where my beginning waas where UM, she explained how she uses them and check really came to my practice and showed me how to do that. I now today call a detox soak and where I combine essential oils with warm water and a healthy soap, which always need a soap. If you're going to put essential oils and water because it will emulsify and help disperse the oil in the water, otherwise it will just float on top. And then you could put the pat actually in the water. And so 15 years ago, I first did that with my golden retriever named Marty. And I know you always talk about how our pets are teachers while he was my first teacher when it came to essential oils. So that was my first experience with using them, and you mentioned that I am involved with the nonprofit called iPod or integrating people for animal wellness. And so what that allowed me to do is have a fair number of cats in my veterinary practice when I was in Wisconsin, and so I started defusing the oils in my veterinary practice, made the clinic smell wonderful home. There was nothing more gratifying than having a client walk in the door and say, Wow, it smells great in here. It doesn't smell like a veterinary clinic. And so those tats were exposed to the oils that were that we were defusing. And also I used a lend of oils, primarily cloves, cinnamon, eucalyptus in the bland that had anti microbial properties. And so we put it in our spray bottles in our mop bucket, and it allowed us then to stay away from a lot of the chemical cleaners. So being a holistic practice, I wanted my clients and patients to be able to come into a facility that wasn't going to cause them disease because of all the tax of chemicals that we have in this world. So that's one of the reasons I love essential oils to is they allow us to get rid of a lot of those toxic things that we use in our homes, in our businesses, in our hospitals, the the essential oils. I guess I'm one of the main things for people to grasp. What sets essential oils apart from herbs, for example, and makes them, in a sense, so medicinal is that they're the lifeblood from the plant. And so there are a lot of natural chemical constituents in those essential oils that the plant uses as its insect repellent and antifungal and antibacterial and immune supportive. And so then we can use those essential oils for those same kinds of purposes. So for me, it was just a very natural evolution into starting to incorporate them into my veterinary practice into my whole life with my own paths.
spk_0: 10:59
That's awesome. And now you're using them for all kinds of different therapeutic applications. What about Excuse me? What about ah, for the immune system? I mean, can just all of factory introduction of aromatherapy agent have an effect on the immune system?
spk_1: 11:22
Yeah, every one of these scent oils will have an emotional and a medicinal impact, and breathing them in gets them into the bloodstream very quickly. And with any kind of ah therapeutic agent, you need to attain a blood level in the location that you're desiring it to be and so defusing it as aromatherapy, putting it on topic lee in just ing the oils in some rare cases, even injecting them. But with all those methods is you know, we have this vast circulatory system, and so the more different ways that you can apply them and get them to get into the bloodstream, Then they're going to effect your brain, your liver, your kidneys, your spleen. And so they're going to support all those different organ systems. There are essential oils that can destroy pathogenic organisms, for example. And so all of that in combination is going to end up supporting your immune system.
spk_0: 12:39
Is it possible that what happens when you use more than one oil at once do you often combine them?
spk_1: 12:44
I think yes, there are some standard ones that are very commonly used. The blend that I was talking about that has clove and cinnamon and eucalyptus and lemon. Um, those air very commonly used so we can feel pretty comfortable with those and then people that are more experienced and have a good knowledge of how to blend. Oils are always coming up with new ways to blend down for different purposes and so I would say I probably rely on the time proven blends. I don't do a lot of new blends on my own. Something be set for that. I mean, essential oils have been around since biblical times, and there's so many references to them in the Bible and how they were used before we had things like antibiotics and steroids. And so I think, to rely on tradition and word of mouth for how to use essential oils and even the herbs. Of course, I think is a very elegant way to pass on useful information.
spk_0: 13:57
I agree, you know, and there's so much discussion about evidence based medicine right now. And I do believe in scientific validation and and evidence and such. And, you know, in the process of describing those things often times empirical information, historical information, traditional use gets kind of pushed aside of something that's irrelevant or not valid. When the truth is, you know, if something has been used successfully for 3 5000 years, that's pretty good proof to me. You know, the proof is in the pudding that it actually works. So we've been a part of holistic medicine is setting aside the notion that we have to scientifically validate everything with double blind placebo studies, and we don't You just have to accept the powers of nature as they are and exactly idolized him.
spk_1: 14:45
They're exciting for us. I think when there is scientific validation of something that we've known for a very long time oil realm There's a good example of that. There's essential oils called CO P, but technically it's more of a sap. It's from a tree in the Amazon, and the indigenous people there have been using that for many decades as kind of their steroids, so on. And now that we have the ability to do gas chromatography and it's been analyzed, we know that it's really high in a chemical constituent that's called Beta Curie af a lean, and we know that that has anti inflammatory properties. So it sort of validates the fact what these people have known for many years and how they've been using a traditional way.
spk_0: 15:36
Yeah, it's fun when that sort of stuff happens, isn't it? So let's get back to safety again. And, you know, we hear about using essential oils, neat meaning un deluded on the Skinner in the body. You know, certainly these air, these air, very strong medicines. And certainly there are a few exceptions out there that you probably should never use internally. Let's talk a little bit about that. What do we need to know to use these things safely, especially going in into first years?
spk_1: 16:09
So there are two schools of thought. The English and the French and the English genes in general say that you should avoid using essential oils and animals. But if you do, they should always be deluded. And then there's more. The French here is where they're probably a little bit more liberal in their usage, for whatever reason. And I think that's more the faction of followers that don't believe that it is always necessary to dilute what I have found in my experience, that is, that there's definitely a time and a place where you actually don't want to dilute in the sense of combining a curier oil. So when you're talking about deluding essential oils, you can dilute them by combining them with other essential oils and making a glam than you're already sort of. The looting, the impact of any one of those in the bland, and then the second thing is diluting them in Walker. But because of them mentioned earlier, they're just going to float on the water. You need to combine some kind of a soap, most of fire, in order to disperse them throughout the water. So if you're going to make a little spray a little spritzer, you're going to want to put the water a little bit of soap and then the essential oil in there. Shake it up, mix it up, and then when you spritz it, you'll get the combination. Otherwise, all you'll get is the water from the bottom of the bottle and then the third way, and this is a special if you're using it topically, is that you? Combine it with some kind of a fatty curier oil like coconut oil, sesame seed oil, grape seed oil, those kinds of things, and those vatikay Yuria oils taste delicious. So when we're talking about using essential oils topically on an animal and we say, Oh, you should always dilute them, then you're asking for that animal or another animal in the household. You want to lick that location where you applied that essential oil so there are definitely some skin irritation situations where all apply neat or straight lavender oil from a company that I trust competitively to that irritated tissue because it's very soothing. It has the anti microbial properties, and I'll help promote healing. But because it smells strong, it tastes strong. It will actually work as a mild deterrent so that the pet itself or another pet, the household actually isn't going to want to lick that location. And usually that's repetitive licking of, ah, the wounds or an irritation of bug bite. That kind of thing matters worse, so what we always want to be doing is deterring them from licking it to allow it to heal. So that's definitely a situation where I found over the years that I have not done any deluding. If you're talking about stroke on our so called like hot oils like clover cinnamon that I was mentioning earlier, those you may be diluting in, Let's say you're cleaning bucket for mopping or if you have ah, paw that you'd like to soak again. You'd be putting those in with warm water in the soap and diluting them quite a bit, and in general it's those hot oils that are considered the ones that you have to be the most careful with,
spk_0: 19:39
right? Yes, cinnamon is very hot way we're familiar with it on our tongue and just street cinnamon bark forum. But, boy, the oil is a whole different, whole different
spk_1: 19:49
on another one's oregano. But you I don't like to hear, like, hard and fast rules, like always or never anything, because I have also had an experience with removing some growths with simply a toothpick tip of oregano oil on it. I mean, it could be like, miraculous. Um, so you know, you you do have to, um I guess follow My recommendation is it isn't always about asking of veterinarian because it needs to be a veterinarian that has experience with whatever modality you're talking about. And it isn't always about going to the Internet, of course, but you do need to find somebody with some experience that you trust in order to utilize any kind of natural modality safely and properly,
spk_0: 20:42
right? And when you're dealing with something as powerful as these oils, you know, common sense rules, you know, One good example. A cautionary example. Here's with time I'm uncommon time The stuff that we used to feed ourselves on Thanksgiving. We've season turkeys and soup and everything with it. Time. Oil is very rich in on Attar Peon based. I believe it's an Aldo hide actually called time all and time. All is a very, very, very strong anti microbial, so much so that it's actually the active constituent, blistering mouthwash, delusions of 0.9% or something like that. But in concentrations above that, it can be very toxic. So not something that you would. You don't even think in terms of relating time, oil to culinary time, even though it's from the same plant. You know, you're talking about the byproduct of distilling down pounds and pounds of timer to make you No. One one ounce really of I'm oil. So just be be careful out there. And if you have any questions about how to use essential oils in inner on your pat, police talked to Jodi, Dr Jody or or your veterinarian first. It's very important. Dr Jody, we've talked about quality and, you know, obviously no two oils are alike and there's good oils out there and battles. How does How does the consumer find one they can trust?
spk_1: 22:09
E think some of the things you want to look for is that the company, first of all, is promoting their oils as very pristine, very metabolically active, those kinds of things and they're not being promoted as just perfumes or to make your home smell nice, that sort of thing. Also, you can look to whether or not the company itself has a lot of its own farms when they have their own farm, then they will have a lot more control over when the harvest, how they just still do they allow you to visit their farms? Are they transparent? Uh, some other things are. Some of the people involved with the, uh, essential oils industry have are their authors. They've written a lot of books on the topic, and you can get a sense for how knowledgeable they are about their modality. Have the oil's been labeled for internal use? Some of the oil say right on them do not use internally. And certainly if you're going to put it topically on a pat, you should be making the assumption that they may ingested. My opinion, actually, is I wouldn't use any essential oil on my body that could not be used internally, because anything you're putting on yourself topically is going to get into your system anyway. So I don't I don't think it's valid to say what I'm going to use this inexpensive oil in my diffuser. But if I put it in my water, then I will use the more expensive one or the one that I think is the better quality. I think essential oils, because they really do get into your system, should always be as high quality as as you're able to obtain. And that absolute, you know, making sure that the company is involved, that it has equipment and labs that they are doing quality control, gas chromatography, analyzing the oil's validating that what they are saying on the label is indeed what is in there. Bob.
spk_0: 24:16
Yep, I find on my own personal experiences to that. You know, the the retailer you purchase it from tells you volumes the minute you walk in the door. I mean, if you're going to the dollar store to buy your essential oils, you're probably in the wrong place. If the price is too If the price is too low to be true, then it probably isn't a good, essential oil. I think people are best shopping where you know they would expect to professional aroma therapists to buy their oils, you know. And the brands that stick out will stick out really quickly. When you start looking at those brands and you look at the books that promote them and and there are some really good ones and like I said, if there's some really bad ones out there, too, so just be
spk_1: 24:59
aware. Yeah, and I just did a pure review for an offer that wrote an article. She's, uh, involved with the S P. C. A poison control. In her article, she mentioned concerns like we're talking about about the fact that it's some soils are very potent, and you need to be careful on that. There have been reports to poison control with problems with the oils, but one thing else say that people need to read things like that with a grain of salt, because often times when the reports come in, it's not reported where the oil came from. Sometimes the name of the oil isn't if your reporters just essential oil. And sometimes we don't know what the brand is. Definitely don't know what the amount is, and it is very dose dependent. Another oil probably worth mentioning. Here is pennyroyal toe. Always avoid, um, and that was came up repeatedly in the poison control reports of pets that had become damaged or sick from the oil. And so I think essential oils are very valuable modality and there is a lot of fear out there, and some of it might be unjustified. I think we should always be very, very cautious. But we definitely don't want to be so afraid of something that we don't use it when it's also very bad.
spk_0: 26:29
Yeah, I think I think the difference is way. Take fear, we become educated and then we we learn to approaches things with respect instead of you know. And you know, I mean, we're talking about the essential oils of plants. They are too protective boundary, if you will, the protective agent for plants, so they need to be respected. They're there to protect a planter there to repel things or their, you know, to toe work very aggressively protecting plants so they do deserve respect. Let's switch gears a little bit now. You wrote a book a couple of years ago called Live With Your Patent Mind. That really impressed me because it acquits holistic wellness to the behaviors of the people that are in the house of these animals, not just the animal itself. And can you tell me about about your book a little bit,
spk_1: 27:23
huh? Well, so as a holistic veterinarian sitting down on the floor, patting the pat and spending time talking to the owner first about the pat. And then as the visit goes on, you realize that that pet parents, um, has a good set of their own issues and those air having a big impact on the pad. And you know, any dog trainer? Any groomer that's been around for a while has seen the same thing that I saw. And I just realized that if I were truly going to try to help that pat in a holistic way, that I also needed to try to help the pat parent. So I, uh, took up a program at the integrity of nutrition school in order to become certified integrative health coach so that I could better address the issues that the Pat parent was having. Essential oils are great way to do that, too, because there they're used on the owner and the pat. And the more time you spend talking to someone, of course, the deeper you can get and try to help them out. And, um, my book does talk about animal communication, and and I through that school, of course, is very scientific. And animal communication, I think, is one of those modalities that not everyone necessarily believes them. Although once you talk to an animal communicator, you'll understand what they're saying is we all have an intuitive ability to understand what our pets are thinking, and what we need to realize is that they understand well thinking as well, and they're much better at it than we are. And so how we think and interact with them, whether it's in a positive manner or a negative manner, hasn't a huge impact back and forth, and that we just need to really be cognizant of that,
spk_0: 29:31
right? You know, that's what this whole program is about. Your vital pet. You know, these animals are vital to us, but we're also vital to them. Their vitality is important, their health. But they're also affecting our health, and everything is relative. Holistic medicine is not something that is administered. It's always something that's shared and my hope with this program, and I know you feel the same way. Dr. Jody is to bring people into the realization that this is a This is a two way effort of healing and maintaining health and wellness. That's what these animals are here for, so they force us to take a strong look at ourselves along these lines. I mean, our health does affect their health, and her health certainly effects ours. And it's all something that has to be taken to an account. I love your book. I love your philosophy here. What else do you offer? I know you've got consulting. Service is now. Can you tell us about how people can reach you and what some of those service is? Our
spk_1: 30:28
sure thanks. That means a lot that you have an appreciation for my book because I think ever since I read your book, which was instrumental in getting me started, I wanted to write a book for years and years, and it's been a great tool for me because it takes a lot of time with the client to explain, Um, what holistic is? And, for example, why we don't just start out with oils, herbs in the management of an issue. We really need to start with nutrition and you even back. When we had that first class on Western herbs, you made a big point them to talk about natural food, and that got me started in that Roma's well. And so to this day, when I do my consulting, I, um, provide some pretty detailed, lengthy handouts for my clients that explain raw diet nutrition. I'm a big fan of raw food, and I don't use any of that in your prescription diets. I've been able to manage all sorts of different disorders, even some that are considered incurable. Well, it's amazing what food do it, so I don't take any credit for it. It's just the species appropriate diet that makes all the difference in the world for so many different situations. So I travel around a lot. I worked with a team that does anesthesia free teeth cleaning in Arizona, and so through that venue I meet lots of people and increasing my client list here in Arizona and that way. And I felt all up with, um, face to face that some of those venues. I also travel about an hour and 1/2 from Scottsdale to go to pace and up in the mountains once a week, and I see some clients there. I do some nutritional educational consulting via email across the country, so I'm keeping myself busy. Yeah,
spk_0: 32:27
it sounds like it for sure. And people can visit your website at Dr Jody's natural pets dot com. Is that correct?
spk_1: 32:35
They can email me directly. It's dock Jodi D O C J O D D I e. At Dr Jody's natural pets dot com. If you mean directly, they'll also get an auto response that has a link to my YouTube video. And that's called Step Up the pet nutritional ladder. And I was told, people, you know, if you watch that it's only 20 minutes long, and if it kind of resonates with you, you know, then great. Then contact me and we can go from there.
spk_0: 33:07
Awesome. Dr. Jody, thank you so much for coming on your vital pep today. Let's let's do this again Really soon.
spk_1: 33:14
Thanks, Greg. It's always fun to talk to, Theo.
spk_0: 33:16
Always fun to talk to you as well. Thank you. Thank you for joining us for another episode of your vital pet. Be sure to tune in next time. Be sure that you push Subscribe on your favorite podcast browser So you don't miss a thing. I'm great, Tilford.