Paws, Reflect & Heal with Dr. Randy

Pet Arthritis Breakthrough: Where Conventional Medicine Meets Holistic Care

• Dr. Randy Pet Vet • Episode 14

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Join Dr. Randy and his co-host, Mark Drucker, for a comprehensive discussion on managing arthritis and joint pain in dogs and cats using holistic, integrative methods. This 1st episode in Season 2 is for pet parents seeking solutions beyond conventional medication and treatment regimens. We break down the foundational medicine approach to improving your pet's mobility and comfort:

 - The Diet Connection: Learn which foods drive inflammation (simple carbohydrates, heat-producing proteins) and how managing gut health is the key to chronic pain.
 - Advanced Diagnostics: The role of testing like NutriScan and Animal Biome in finding the root cause of joint issues.
 - Rehabilitation Protocols: Discover powerful non-drug therapies like underwater treadmills, laser therapy, and targeted exercises to help pets regain strength and reduce reliance on medication.

Whether your pet is showing early stiffness or managing chronic arthritis, you will get practical, science-based guidance on recognizing symptoms and building a multimodal treatment plan.

#PetArthritis  #HolisticVet  #PetPainManagement

Website: Drrandypetvet.com
Dr. Randy's email: randy@drrandypetvet.com
P.A.W.S. Veterinary Center, Tucson, AZ

Books
Four Paws in Five Directions; by Dr. Cheryl Schwartz
The Forever Dog; by Dr. Karen Shaw Becker & Rodney Habib

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If you'd like to schedule a telemedicine appointment with me, please send an email to info@pawstucson.com. Make sure to note your telephone number and a brief description of the issue you're having. Someone from my office will respond to your email to schedule an appointment. 

Connect with me on my website, social media pages, and all podcast platforms!

Products and Resources I Recommend

Dental:                                                                                                                            TEEF: https://teefhealth.com

Cat Grass/Catnip:                                                                                                          Pet Greens; https://www.petgreens.com/

Books
Four Paws in Five Directions; by Dr. Cheryl Schwartz
The Forever Dog; by Dr. Karen Shaw Becke...

SPEAKER_00

As part of your treatment protocol with this underwater treadmill and all the things that you're doing, is one of the ideas in the type of medicine that you practice to get the dog or the cat off as many of the meds as possible?

SPEAKER_01

Yes. Plain and simple, yes. Hi, this is Dr. Randy from Pause, Reflect, and Heal. Welcome to our podcast today. This is the first of our new year, and got some exciting news. With me, uh, you'll see a face that may not be uh obvious to all of you, but uh I want to introduce my good friend Mark Drucker from the Lovedog.com podcast. Uh many of you have listened to that podcast that I did with Mark. It was a two-part series. It was really fabulous. And we both decided that this would be a great uh association for someone to come along and act or be in the role of our pet parent. Mark understands the things that many of you are going through. He has a dog, Hank, of his own, uh, and we have addressed some issues and will address some issues down the road. Uh, but I think this is a really good association. So uh give you if you get a chance, go back to lovedog.com and listen to some of the podcasts. They're very informative. Mark had some great guests on, uh, but he's gonna be here helping us with uh pause, reflect, and heal, and we're very excited to have him on board. So, Mark, welcome this morning.

SPEAKER_00

That is so nice of you, and I could not be happier to be here doing this with you. I think it's gonna be uh a really productive collaboration. Uh I um am attracted to your work um because of what you do, the whole holistic, integrative space that you are in and are known for. And it's something that you know appeals to me for my own health, and I think it becomes a values-based kind of thing. If I do it for myself, hey, why not try it for my pet, or for in my case, for my dog. Um, and that is exactly how I uh have approached my dog's health. I'm now on my third dog, and uh I've seen the benefits. And what I want to say just at at the get-go is um that there obviously are benefits, at least from my point of view, benefits to the holistic integrative approach that you take, and also the allopathic western approach that you always or often mix into your work. And there's a time and a place for both. And I feel like I feel like you really have your eye on that, and you know exactly what you're doing when it comes to that, in my experience in talking with you. So I couldn't be happier to be here. And you know, what we're gonna talk about today is arthritis, uh joint pain in pets, where it leads to typically arthritis, especially in older dogs and cats. And uh I've had my own experience with it. I've had two goldens that came down with arthritis when they were about eight or nine. My second golden just one day was jumping up on the bed and his hind legs collapsed. So then begins the whole, well, what do I do? And how long can this dog go on like this, and how do I treat it, and how do I manage it? And to be honest, I never really found the traditional approaches very effective. I mean, just some medication, some remedyl, whatever, it takes away the pain, it works for a day or two, then you have to go back to it. So that to me is not the greatest way to go about something, and I think here we are, it's 2025 now. Happy New Year, by the way. And uh there are there's lots of stuff that we can do. So let's make this a conversation about pet arthritis and joint health in our pets, and let's uh touch a bit on senior dogs as well, because it's big in that area. Sure. And we both know that joint health is central to a dog's health and enjoyment of their life on the planet because it's about mobility and being able to move around freely and without pain. So I could not be more excited to be here and to talk about this to lead this season off because I know it's a condition that so many pet parents are dealing with. And I hope you don't mind, Dr. Randy, but I'm gonna be picking your brain a bit.

SPEAKER_01

No, that's it's whatever's left of it at at my age, we're in good shape.

SPEAKER_00

I'm not that far behind you, and uh let's just let's just get going. Um just get going and have some have a good time here.

SPEAKER_01

So let's you mentioned arthritis, and let's tell the the listeners that arthritis is basically defined as pain, inflammation, heat, swelling in a joint. And in our dogs, you know, who are quadrupeds, that you know, they they uh move differently than we do. We have all four joint, all four legs to consider, plus you know, their cervical, thoracic, lumbar, and saqual spine. And so arthritis in humans uh takes a uh a position of like, well, there's osteoarthritis, there's psoriatic arthritis, there's rheumatoid arthritis. We do see some of those other things, but really osteoarthritis is the condition we want to talk about today. And so, you know, in our world, uh the most common things that pet parents come to us for are arthritis, cancer, uh GI issues, and skin allergies. So we're you know, we're really glad to be opening up season two with arthritis because it's so prevalent. And, you know, we are seeing it in younger and younger animals. And so let's try to take the mystery out of arthritis and and how do we manage this for our pet parents who listen to pause, reflect, and heal.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I think that's perfect, and I think a good place to start is um just joint pain in pets in general and signs that your pet needs uh arthritis treatment. And I think you know, you're watching your pet, you're a vigilant parent, and you see that your dog may have some trouble moving around, it starts out as trouble getting up. As I said, in my case, all of a sudden my dog's hind legs collapped when he tried to get up on the bed. Right. So let's first talk about okay, I'm gonna take the dog in to see Dr. Randy to see my vet. We're gonna want a diagnosis. So let's just talk a little bit about what the diagnosis process looks like.

SPEAKER_01

Sure. No, great question. So um I would say on a weekly basis, I probably get two to five cases presenting just like Mark um elucidated in his pet. And they come in, people will come in, pet parents, they're worried because they're first seeing the dog uh or cat, we do see cats too, obviously, um, but uh that are having trouble, let's say, getting up on the bed. They used to get up on a chair or they used to jump up to say hello and they're not doing that. But also many times we see them coming in with a diagnosis or a question about limping. So there's an individual limb that's obvious that when the dog is walking possibly is not full weight bearing or having issues. So the most important thing when we talk about this is finding where the issue is, obviously. So this requires a really good physical exam. And we always tell people when they're listening to our podcast, you see these signs, we really want you to get to your veterinarian because earlier in the diagnosis and therapy, the better off we are for helping our animals. So we do a great physical examination here at what we call the COLAB, which is our rehabilitation center at Pause Veterinary Center here in Tucson. And we start from head to toe. And many, many times people will come in. One of the things that I wanted to make sure I tell our listeners is sometimes the limping or the mobility problem isn't a pain problem, meaning it's not osteoarthritis per se. It could be a neurologic problem, meaning there's a nerve deficit to a back leg or a nerve problem over the spine. And we can obviously diagnose this on our physical examination. You know, putting that aside, uh, let's get to the you know, the physical exam uh basically going through every joint. We do range of motion, we measure muscle girth on our animals. I watch them walk uh both at a walk and a trot to make sure that I can see them. Uh, you know, basically we look for what we call head bombing a lot of times, which means in a front leg, if the leg is having an issue, the head will actually come up when the dog puts the leg down. So there are some really specific techniques that we've learned through our rehabilitation certification to make that physical exam and diagnosis.

SPEAKER_00

You brought up an interesting point earlier on in this segment about dogs and cats. I guess one qu what one question I have would be is arthritis in cats as prevalent as it is in dogs?

SPEAKER_01

It's actually sometimes considered more prevalent. But the issue is that as our cat owners know, and we have a uh a separate cat practice called feline focus at pause here in Tucson, as our cat owners know, many, many times a cat isn't going to show their owner that they're having an issue. And the question is, well, why is that? Because, you know, cats are still really one step away from being feral or wild animals. And in the wild, uh, many times our cats, if they show that they're having pain, will get eaten. I mean, that's plain and simple, but they just can't show a problem. So they don't show it. Um, and the way we pick it up is obviously on our yearly or biannual physical examinations, we're able actually to find it. So that's a great question.

SPEAKER_00

Huh. That's so interesting. And are there is arthritis breed specific, or if it's not breed specific and I'm talking dogs now, is it more prevalent in some breeds than others? Obviously, retrievers and shepherds, it's just it's like, oh my god, it's just there. Sure. You better expect it. Sure. But how does that work breed-wise?

SPEAKER_01

No, that's that's a great question, also. So, you know, think about um the so the breeds you mentioned obviously are you know, German shepherds, labradors, golden retrievers, all the retriever hunting dog breeds, are have a tendency toward it because they're worked really hard. Most of them are out in the field, or they, you know, they got to, you know, they go do dog sports and and this and that, and we will see that show up down the road in in those animals. Of course, there's also a genetic predisposition, that's what you're kind of alluding to, is that some breeds are set up to have like cruciate ruptures or hip dysplasia. But also, I want people to think about the long back dogs, the doxies, the wire, fox terrier. These animals are very susceptible to problems over their back because of the pressure of the back, also because of the short legs, and many of them have what's called a valgus deformity, where you actually look at your dog and your legs are pointing outward, and that puts incredible pressure on these animals over time where they're gonna have issues. So, you know, the question is is it breed specific? Not really. I mean, we see it across all breeds. Some breeds are much more likely to have certain types of conditions as we're talking about, but many, many times we see it across all breeds, tell you the truth, Mark.

SPEAKER_00

So just to clarify for a second, when I'm listening to you, are those arthritic conditions even in the long back breeds, or do they tend to be more neurological?

SPEAKER_01

Uh they can be both. Um so many, many times they're uh a disc problem, and when we talk about discs, um the way the spinal cord is set up is you have vertebrae, cartilage, disc, cartilage, vertebrae. So a lot of times the cartilage gets stiff or inflexible, and the disc starts getting pushed up into the spinal cord because of some arthritis or new bone being set down in the dog's back. It's called spondylosis. But then we see disc narrowing and that leads to the neurologic issue. So it's a pain and neurologic issue in that situation.

SPEAKER_00

Huh. A little bit of stenosis? Is that is that stenosis?

SPEAKER_01

That's exactly what it is.

SPEAKER_00

Yep. Wow. Okay, there you go. So let's talk a bit about inflammation. And I I I hate to say it this way, but I love the topic because the more I know about inflammation, and I'm talking humans now, the more I know, or the more I've learned, that it's the root cause of so much chronic disease. Sure, sure. So we're talking specifically today about arthritis in our pets, right?

SPEAKER_01

Right.

SPEAKER_00

Uh but let's just have a conversation about inflammation and then maybe just take it right into the arthritis.

SPEAKER_01

Sure. So let me let me back up just a little bit and mention two other things that I didn't mention on the examination. And that is we always want to check recent lab work. This leads to your question about inflammation because many times we'll actually see markers of inflammation in that recent lab work. Now, in some areas in the United States, like in Arizona, California, we have something called coccidiomycosis, which is valley fever. And this is a fungal disease that causes bone changes that can cause pain and inflammation. And we do pick those up on blood tests. But in other areas of the United States, we have blastomycosis or histomycosis. These are also fungal diseases. So we're looking for all of these things. Another thing that we would look for is the tick status, meaning, has the dog had Lyme's disease? Has the dog had earliquiosis or tick fever? These are very critical in making sure we manage that inflammation or that pain and whatnot. And then lastly, let me mention that many, many times we'll take uh radiographs or x-rays. And these are very helpful. They're not specifically diagnostic for neurologic disease. I mean, often that takes an MRI or CAT scan, but these x-rays can really show us joint uh change, early changes many times in the joints in the back and allow us to move towards to helping that inflammation. So I wanted to mention those because I didn't want to forget that part of the diagnosis because people think, oh, you know, sometimes the doctor can just feel this and it's over with. No, we actually require, you know, for us, as you mentioned earlier, some of the allopathic things, the lab work, the x-rays or radiographs, because they lend to our integrative and rehabilitative work to treat the disease. So let me go back to your question on inflammation because it's a really good question. But it is the bottom line of many of these things that we're talking about. It is the foundational problem that many times uh veterinarians will often treat, you know, signs or symptoms of the arthritis, but never really getting to the bottom of where is this inflammation starting that's causing these changes. And so uh we we talk about foundational medicine where we talk about a number of different things. I know you and I are going to talk about testing that are very specific for this. Um, but getting, you know, the the diet starts becoming the real issue. Do you want me to get into that as far as that's a good idea?

SPEAKER_00

Well what I would what uh yeah, but what I would love you to do, because you've now mentioned the word foundational twice, and I think it's a big word. But not everybody might know exactly what you're talking about. And it's at the core, it's at the core, I think, of what you do. Am I right about that? Absolutely. So just explain that a little bit. Let's learn about foundational and what you mean by that.

SPEAKER_01

Sure. So when we talk about foundational medicine, um I I like to mention Peter Atia, who is out there, who is an MD, who's very, very bright, and talks about medicine 2.0 versus medicine 3.0. For us, medicine 3.0, which is really the advanced look at some of these things, is when we start looking at foundational medicine. So when so when Mark's question about foundation is, foundation is what is going on in the dog's food environment, absolute environment where it's living, activity level, that leads it to the kind of situations that we could possibly see causing it a problem. Or even better, maybe not, and if we got the foundation right, it's good. So when we talk about foundation, we're talking about really diet and also looking at exercise and environmental stuff too. But diet really becomes the number one topic because so many of our dog diets are inflammatory. So, you know, when we created a kibble society back in the 70s, we created this very false situation where, you know, if anybody understands the situation in dogs and in cats, they really have a zero carb requirement. Meaning their carbohydrates, you know, they can get from their vegetables. They don't need them from all of these other things that are added to kibbles that cause issues and getting back again to this foundational question.

SPEAKER_00

So diet is at the core of it.

SPEAKER_01

It really is. I mean, it it's something that no matter what my animals come to see me for, when I do my one-hour consults or my telemedicine consults, we talk about diet almost number one. Because I want to Sorry.

SPEAKER_00

Do we also talk about because we're talking about the foundation of something. So a foundation is built from a few different parts. Correct. And you're saying the fundamental part of that thing is what they're in g what they're eating.

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely. And then you know we move to supplements, and then we move to, you know, the environment and stuff like that. So we we touch on all those bases, obviously.

SPEAKER_00

And you ask about exercise, I take it, and what kind of stress that what kind of stress the dog is under, and all those kinds of things.

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely. Absolutely. Because this all becomes incredibly important to build a uh therapy protocol for that animal. We call it multimodal therapy. But when we say multimodal, we mean diet, supplements, exercise, um, you know, possibly changing the environment. I mean, all of those things are things that we might have to look at to help your pet.

SPEAKER_00

So we're building the whole story for this dog's health, and we start there and we move on. So that's what you're saying, I think. So I love this, I love this thing about dogs don't eat need carbs. That's probably coming as a surprise to some people. Um, you're talking about things like rice and white potato, corn, wheat, those sorts of things. Do you want to talk a bit about that?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. So the two things that I talk about initially with my pet parents when I'm seeing them or talking to them is we want to eliminate all simple carbs from our dog and cat's diet. And when we say simple carbs, Mark also pointed out white potato, rice, soy, corn, and wheat, and all of the things that look like those in kibbles, in their food. I mean, we even see, you know, better, supposedly lightly cooked diets that still have white potato in them. And the question is, they why do they do that? And the qu and the answer is because it's a filler, and because it's less expensive. But for our pets, what that does is turn to sugar and basically cause inflammation. So we want those four things out of their diet. The other thing that I mentioned to my clients right off the bat is something called thermogenic property of food. It's a Chinese medicine principle. I'm also certified in Chinese medicine. And um, when the Chinese have looked at foods in us for thousands of years, and the correlate to our pets is very strong. And that means, like in a situation where we're talking about arthritis today, let's say, uh cancer or allergy may be the same thing. We don't want anything in the dog's body that's or cat's body that's going to create heat. And when we say heat, think about this. In human met in human situation, like a habernemo pepper or ginger is hot. Watermelon, cucumber is cold. Everybody can probably understand that. Uh there's a wonderful book written called Four Paws in Five Directions by a woman by the name of Dr. Cheryl Schwartz that talks about all this if you want more information because it's a very basic primer in this world. But what I try to do here in Arizona is get three of the hot meats out of their diet. And I focus on lamb, venison, and chicken. So I don't want any of those in my dog that I'm treating's diet, because um it's basically very important that they don't have that heat, which would create more heat in their joint, more inflammation. And it's very, you know, you could probably understand how that would work.

SPEAKER_00

Question for you on rice. I imagine it's a very popular filler. Yes, it is. So my question would be: are all rices created equal? Meaning brown rice, right, white rice, and wild rice?

SPEAKER_01

So wild rice is actually a uh a grass. So it's actually acceptable. But you won't find a lot of wild rice in animals' dog foods. You know, you you're not gonna see that. You're gonna see white, brown, you know, and the the iterations of the of those. So uh no. I mean, yeah, wild rice is actually okay, but white and brown not so much.

SPEAKER_00

And the point being that as the dog digests them, they turn into sugars, and sugars cause inflammation.

SPEAKER_01

Right. They're a simple carb, exactly. Okay, okay. Um Can I mention one other thing too, Mark? Just as a reference, um, another place to look for a lot of this is a book called The Forever Dog by Dr. Karen Becker. And she talks about a lot of these things so you can understand the science behind a lot of it, which you and I won't have time to get into. But it's a great primer.

SPEAKER_00

So to our listeners and people watching us on YouTube, we're gonna expand our show notes. So anytime Dr. Randy mentions something like a book, for example, or a testing facility, we're gonna put that with links into the show notes. Not to worry, you'll find them there. And so maybe, Dr. Randy, this is a good time to mention that we're gonna be starting a new thing with you called Ask Dr. Randy. And you've been getting some great questions off your Facebook page. I know that. And uh what we'll do is we'll create some shorts uh for Instagram and TikTok with a bunch of questions each week, but every two weeks when we do this podcast, we'll have another question, and this question will actually go onto your website, drandyvetpet.com. Okay. So since I recently had a question for you about this dark brown smelly wax in my dog's ears, and my dog is a five-year-old white lab, but prior to him I had two golden retrievers, two male golden retrievers, and you know, and growing up I had an Irish setter and she had the exact same problem. Sure. And I talk to a lot of people, I see in the dog park and whatever, and a lot of their dogs uh have the same problem. And so, in fact, I'm taking my dog to the vet in about two hours to deal with it and get rid of it. But maybe that's a good way to segue into the question. I'm gonna take the dog to the vet, he's gonna the vet's gonna wash that, clean out his ears, and we're gonna treat it probably with some kind of antibiotic, antifungal, whatever. And I know the problem's gonna go away for 30 to 60 days. Right. And then what I know is it's gonna come back. And it typically, in at least in my experience, comes back in one ear. In Hank's case, it's his right ear. So, enough said, what can people do to deal with what I think is a chronic problem? What is this brown wax? Is it bacterial? Is it yeast? Is it a fungus? Like, what is it, and how do we just get rid of it once and for all? And I'm thinking that this whole foundational approach that you take might be the answer because the antibiotics are not the answer.

SPEAKER_01

Totally, totally. So um, great question, something we see a lot. Um, so when you get that brown wax production, you're getting that because of inflammation in in Hank's body. Um basically that is coming from his gut, believe it or not. We talk about microbiome. So 70% of all of uh the immunity in our animals is in their GI tract, just like ours. So microbiome, which is the millions and millions of bacteria and yeast and fungus, have to be balanced. And when they're not balanced, we get something called a dysbiosis. So fancy word, it just means that this is not in balance and it's and it's creating issues. Well, what kind of issues does it create? It creates something called leaky gut syndrome. People have heard about that. You can see it online. So, what happens is our small intestine is what's called a semi-permeable membrane. And I'm not trying to get real technical, but I want people to understand how this works. It just is supposed to keep things out of the body that's not supposed to be in there, meaning the lymphatics and blood system, and it keeps it takes things in that we're all supposed to have and get. And many times when you have leaky gut, this um these openings open up and allow things in that shouldn't get in, or keep things out that should be in. And so this creates an inflammatory condition in the body. And the way Hank is responding to it is in his ear. He's producing dark brown wax. It's kind of a protective mechanism for Hank. But what happens is the ear is an L-shaped canal, not like ours, it doesn't go straight into their head. Um, some of us you can look right through and you can, you know, you won't have um that's teasing. But um the ear canal is an L-shaped canal, and the um we don't see a lot of time, we see what you're seeing is you're seeing in the vertical area of the canal, but many times it's really also very bad in the horizontal canal leading up to the eardrum. So this wax blocks airflow into the ear, and then when you have this dysbiosis in his gut, you have the wrong amount of bacteria, yeast, and fungus that's building up. And so what happens in the ear is he not only gets this wax production, but he gets ye many times yeast and bacteria. And when we see a dog like Hank, the first thing we do is smear that wax out, look for yeast and or bacteria.

SPEAKER_00

Um that's correct.

SPEAKER_01

Yep, it's called an ear cytology, which should be done. Um, and then when you would determine what you have, you can treat it accordingly. But what Mark is alluding to is many, many of us what we do is we clean the ear out in our veterinary office, we put a product in that can last 30 days, uh, that has an antifungal, anti-yeast, and a steroid. And it'll calm everything down for 30 days, 60 days, 90 days. Sometimes it'll calm things down for six months, but it comes back. And Mark is absolutely right. The reason it comes back is no one has addressed what's going on in that gut that's producing this problem.

SPEAKER_00

So it's not just because what you'll hear people tell you is well, if his ears were straight up, they wouldn't get wet inside or down. Right. But his ears, but a retriever's ears are down over his head. Right. And so they're not getting air in there. But then it would be in both ears if that were the case, to be honest.

SPEAKER_01

Well, not necessarily, but yes, most likely you're right. But the thing is, is that obviously the erect ear dogs tend to get the some of these infections a little bit less because there's more airflow, uh, but it doesn't preclude. I mean, we see plenty of erect ear dogs where they still get this problem. And again, it's because someone hasn't talked about the foundation, the diet, um, the supplements, um, ear care. Um, so these are all things that we would we would get our owners enlisted in, and there's ways of doing that through testing and whatnot, too.

SPEAKER_00

And then you think the problem can actually be solved. Is that right?

SPEAKER_01

I've seen it. I mean, I you know, some people will come in and say, you know, my dog was on this dog food, I switched it to this dog food and it got better. Well, yeah. I mean, there's a little bit of an episode, I mean, incident incidents where you can see that happen, but for how long? Because if they didn't switch it to what we're talking about, which is that non-inflammatory, simple carb, non-simple carb, no heat producing Chinese medicine meats and whatnot, you're gonna have a comeback.

SPEAKER_00

And what do you use to clean out the ears, which probably once a month or so?

SPEAKER_01

So I usually recommend to my owners um something that I do with my dogs, which is brags, apple cider vinegar, 50% of that, 50% water. I mix it up, I really drip quite a bit into the ears so that when I massage the Lower parts of the ears because you want to hear it squish around, okay, or you don't have enough liquid in there.

SPEAKER_00

Is that a teaspoon, a half a teaspoon?

SPEAKER_01

You know, it's hard, it's hard to say. It's probably quarter to a half a teaspoon. It doesn't take much.

SPEAKER_00

Okay.

SPEAKER_01

Um and I drip it into the ear, have my owners, you know, massage it around. Your dog's going to shake its head and you know, throw some of that wax out of there, throw some of the brags out of there, and then a cotton ball, very lightly to clean. You know, don't go in with a Q-tip if you can help it, because some people will go too deep and push that wax down, makes it worse. Um but that's kind of a maintenance product that I would use for cleaning the dog's there are actually some really good products that your veterinarian have. You know, you mentioned earlier, a long time ago, we talked about Oda Cleanse, there's TRIS ETTA, there's Duaxo. There are some really good products you could clean the ear with too. So if you don't want to do the apple cider vinegar, you can uh ask your veterinarian to have them prescribe one of these cleaning solutions also.

SPEAKER_00

Cool. And again, we'll put all that stuff that he just mentioned into the show notes. Yes. So um, okay, well, we that was our first Ask Dr. Randy, and that was a pretty that was a deep that was a deep dive for the whole segment. But good, but it's a great deep dive because you know it's a condition that I imagine you see a lot along with other conditions. And so it's probably a great segue into testing and and and getting to the foundational health of the dog. Um and why don't you talk a little bit about the l what what what kind of testing you guys do. Sure. Bio biome and whatnot, and let's let's see where that goes.

SPEAKER_01

Sure. So, you know, most people are used to regular blood tests, which are you know are are very helpful just to rule out any other underlying systemic conditions. But what I get my animals here, many times that's been done, and it's un it's unremarkable. It's not rewarding to give us any information. The two things that I get my at my owners to do is one, some kind of food testing, and you can do what's called food sensitivity testing. There's a great company called Nutriscan. My good friend, Dr. Gene Dodds created this test. And it's a kit that you can order online, and it comes to you uh with swabs. You get your dog to salivate, you swab the, or your cat, you solve you sal you swab the inside of their mouth, you send it to Nutrascan, and in 10 days we find out is there, are there, I'm sorry, any foods that we totally want to avoid besides remember the chicken, lamb, and venison we've already talked about. So it can be very helpful in that world. If people want to get more aggressive, then there's another laboratory called VDI Labs. Um, another Randy runs that lab. And uh it is a blood allergy test that also will give us a lot of information uh not only on food but also on environmental stuff, like what you know, is there mold in the house? Is there mite problems that we're seeing in the house? You know, people don't know that dust mites are everywhere, and some dogs and cats are very reactive to dust mites. Uh you can have, you know, my wife is the cleanest, most fastidious person you can imagine. We had a dog that came back allergic to dust mites. And, you know, going, how's that possible? You know, you could eat off of our floors. Well, they exist, and you know, with a good HEPA filter, you can actually take care of that. But so that nutri-scan testing or VDI lab testing is number one. Number two, and Mark mentioned this, is called biome testing. So I use a company called Animal Biome. They're they're a great company. They started out of California. Uh, they have been doing this for years now. Uh, they've looked at well over a hundred thousand fecal samples on dogs and cats, and they will do the DNA testing on that fecal. And that means they're looking for all of the good and bad bacteria and yeast and fungus that's in that microbiome, and how do we change it to make it right for our animal in question? So it requires a poop sample. You can get what's called a gut test uh online from animalbiome.com, and uh we do this through our practice, but you know, people can listening can do this. And when you have those two pieces, the biome uh report, which is a 10-page report, it's very comprehensive, and the food sensitivity or VDI allergy testing, now we have the basis for building our dog or cat's diet and how to address that inflammation that you were mentioning.

SPEAKER_00

I hope you don't mind my asking you this question. But so someone listens to this and their vet is not you. I mean, they're not a homeopathic, integrative kind of guy, kind of gal, whatever. They're just traditional. Right. And so someone brings this up to their vet and they don't even know what you're talking about, really. Or even if they do, they've heard something about it, and you bring these test results, and they won't necessarily know what to do with it. Right. What does someone do in that situation?

SPEAKER_01

Well, um, I will tell you that um that given those pieces of information, it's pretty easy for a veterinarian to look at the NUTROScan report or to look at the animal biome report. Now, as far as what to do for the NutriScan, it's pretty simple. You want to cut out any of those sensitivities or the VDI test from the animal's diet. Um, so it's really interesting because many times that report comes back with four or five things that are bad, let's say for our dog or cat. And I actually send that report with my owner to one of the local feed stores here in town, which does a beautiful job because they have such a plethora of dog foods of any kind, and make sure that we find a diet that doesn't have those things in them. You can also use that report uh through an integrative diet veterinary dietitian. Um, there's some really wonderful, there are some really wonderful people out there that can formulate diets for your pet not incorporating those things in their food. Okay?

SPEAKER_00

Is there an an organization people can look to online to find a holistic or integrative veter nutritionist in their area?

SPEAKER_01

Um the the um American Holistic Veteran Medical Association may have that list. Um uh you I think if you just Google that situation or send me an email, you know, and I'll I'll send you some information on Donna Raditic or some of these other people. You know, you've talked to Linda Case, who's a wonderful person with this stuff. I'm not sure she's now formulating diets anymore for people, but there are people who there that will do this for your pet. Um, so and a lot of times, even like a company like the farmer's dog, which does lightly cooked food, will take this information and make sure that your Hank's diet doesn't have rice in it or whatever he might be sensitive to.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, no, that's brilliant. So it actually brings me to something that I wanted to mention earlier, but I didn't, I forgot. That one of the things that I love about your approach, this approach, is that it's anything but a one-size-fits-all approach. Correct. I mean, at this point, we're really looking at, as you say, the animal's foundational health, which is going to be while there are common themes, obviously, it's gonna be different for each animal. And you're saying, in this case, here's what we will do, and the next animal that comes in, the next pet, it might be something completely different. Absolutely to get at the arthritis, which is what the which is the common denominator, right? Right. But the foundational health you might find is quite different for each pet, and therefore the course of treatment and how you manage it is also going to be different. And I think that's one of the uh you know, in in the tradition a more traditional approach, somebody comes in with arthritis, give them this pill, and that's oftentimes even today, how far it goes. So you can see why I love this and I get excited about hearing you talk about it, and uh, I hope everyone else, you know, I hope everyone else does too. So okay, so that's a pretty good rundown on the testing, right? Yeah. Um let's move on to so we've done the diagnostics, we've done the testing, we see what's going on. Uh one question I have is I think this is really important. It's actually a question that relates even to the ear condition I meant we talked about earlier with Hank. Sure. You you um you find the arthritis or you find the the um the ear cond the condition in their ears, and there's uh for lack of a better way, since I'm just a normal a regular person, you're dealing with an acute situation. The dog is obviously uncomfortable, the dog is in pain.

unknown

Right.

SPEAKER_00

And I would am am I right to think that, okay, so let's treat the infection in a very traditional way, let's get rid of it. Right. And let's let's get the dog out of pain.

unknown

Right.

SPEAKER_00

And get the dog comfortable. And then we begin to look at we can simultaneously be doing all the testing, but then we look at something to sort of keep the the acute nature of the condition from coming back and we'd manage it more as a chronic one. Does that make sense to you?

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely. It makes no sense for someone like myself uh to go through all of these ramifications of looking at foundation and whatnot without dealing with the issue. So if the issue is pain, yes, we have to deal with it. And whether we deal with it through, let's say, an NSAID like Rimidil or Met or Maloxidil or Derrimax or Gabapentin or a mantidine, or we deal with it through um something like Ataquan, which is a natural product that we actually give that makes the cartilage imbibe water. We use this through our rehabilitation protocol that we do here at um Colab. But um, we've got to get rid of the pain. There's no question. I mean, I can do all of this stuff, but if the dog's still hurting, I'm gonna get a call in a day or two, like, you know, come on, you know, my dog's still really hurting. We didn't do anything.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

But we will definitely do that. One thing I want to mention, and I think we're kind of going back and forth, but when you said the ear thing, so my concern about the ear thing is that I don't want to see that dog on oral antibiotics if I can help it. Because now we're gonna mess up that biome. Because oral antibiotics are the reason why, like in the situation with women, they get candida, which is a yeast infection. The reason why they get that is their biome is all out of whack because they've been on so many different oral antibiotics, we don't know what is right anymore. So in the ear situation, that's treated topically, okay? Where we talked about cleaning, putting something in the ear. Great, let's leave it right there. Don't have to complicate matters by putting it on an antibiotic. Okay? So in the pain situation, yeah, we have pain medicines, and they do alter the biome somewhat too. I agree. But we haven't even talked about supplements yet, which really will help many times lower the necessity for some of those pain medicines and also aid in the multimodal therapy we talked about.

SPEAKER_00

I think I hear you saying, let's talk about supplements.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, let's get to it because I want to make sure we have time to do that. So you know, so again, on these types of arthritis cases, there are set ones that I would always go to and talk about. One is a really good source of omega-3-6 fatty acids. Omega-3-6s are from fish oil. They can be also from plant oil, there's vegan-based ones. Uh, we don't want omega-9s, they're inflammatory. So a regular fish oil capsule has 3, 6, and 9 omegas, we don't want that. We can do an omega uh 3, 6 from fish base. Uh, there's a product called Omega True Benefits or uh or um uh Dermaquin, which is made by uh Nutrimax. These are companies that do make these products. There's also over-the-counter ones. We want that. Why do we want that? Because omega-3s and sixes are anti-inflammatory. They're also joint moistening. So they moisten the joint through the, you know, it's almost like thinking about the tin the uh tin man in Oz using an oil can. You know, we're trying to get some moisture into that joint to help the cartilage. Number, go ahead. You were gonna ask.

SPEAKER_00

Just because I know a tiny bit about this, EPA, omega 3s, and 6s.

SPEAKER_01

Yep. EPA DHA, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Want to just mention that? Because they're not all created equal, just like rices are not all created equal.

SPEAKER_01

Well, you know, again, most of the time, like you're you're really looking to uh to get the omega-3, sixes in there, which is usually EPA, DHA, or DLA, I believe. Um, I'm not uh up to date on all of the omegas, but there's lots of them out there. Uh we're just trying to avoid omega-9s, and I don't remember what the omega-9 uh uh initials are, quite honestly, right off the top of my head. So so that's that's really number one. Number two is everybody comes in on their animals being on a glucosamine product. And you know, there's some really good glucosamine products like uh Dasequin Advanced is a really good glucosamine. But recent research and my good friend Christine Colomanico through a company called Pet Jope have looked at the new last two years, there have been nine research papers to show that a product called ultracollagen 2 is much better getting into the joint and helping with the inflammation and moistening the cartilage. And so ultra-collagen 2 doesn't have to get through stomach acid like glucosamine does. So we use a lot of JOPE, J-O-P-E, which is ultra-collagen II turmeric, and it does have a little bit of omega-3s in it also. And that's a great supplement. It's a chew. Most dogs eat it readily. Uh, a great supplement for our dogs. And then lastly, a lot of times, many of my dogs will come in, let's say if they have one affected joint with some muscle wasting, meaning we measure the girth of the muscle, and let's say the dog's back left leg is 29 centimeters, and the dog's back right leg is 23 centimeters. That right leg has had muscle atrophy because it's not being used properly. And so there's a product out there that came from the human world called myose. They used it in us when they were doing uh shoulders and knees and hip replacements so we wouldn't lose muscle. It stops naturally something called myostatin, which is the enzyme that breaks down muscle. So we use myose canine in the dog, um, and what it does is it stops the muscle breakdown while we're working to build it up through our entire rehab program that we do. Those are three basic supplements that I would point people in the direction to.

SPEAKER_00

Okay. Um I think we're ready to sort of wrap this up. We've passed, unless there's anything else that you want to say that we haven't said so far, we've talked about a lot, we've kind of gone deep. I think the a good way to end this show would be we've gone through all this. What is my long-term for arthritis, for pet arthritis, um and an integrative medical approach to you know joint pain and to arthritis? Uh what does a treatment program typically look like? So the dog is coming in, he's he or she, or the cat's coming in seven, eight years old. Yep. Right? And they've got five, six, seven good years left in life. Yeah, yeah. At least. So what what what's it gonna look like for the patient and for the client?

SPEAKER_01

So, you know, to summarize, we we you know, we've now worked on food, we've worked on supplements, we've learned at certain testing to elucidate what's going on. So our protocol would be in most of our dogs, let's say, a rehab protocol, meaning uh we would utilize things like underwater treadmill, laser, cold laser, therapeutic ultrasound, pulse electric magnetic therapy. These are things that most practices don't have, but this is what we do here at Colab as part of PAS Veterinary Center. And that is just to strengthen the animal to get that area, let's say it's one leg, to get that leg stronger, to get the nerve memory to be forgotten. Because once they get in water that's up to their groin, 70% of the weight is off of that dog. And so now they can utilize that joint properly, uh, along with we give our owners therapeutic exercises to do at home. So the long term is we will do that short term, obviously, till we get to a point where we feel like they've made some progress. We've built up some muscle, they're using the leg better, uh, they don't have as much back pain. And then basically, because of the exercises, because of the food and supplement changes, you know, we'll check that animal out in three months and six months, and see how we've done. Sometimes they want to stay in rehab longer. Sometimes they want to do Adequon, which is the injection I explained to you, do it longer. Um, but um, these are the things that we're working at being proactive so that we're not seeing their animal. I I laugh about chiropractors because I tell people I'm not a chiropractor, so I don't need to see you every week to treat the problem. We we want to get it on a protocol, let's say it's a four-week um bi-weekly treatment in in rehab, and then graduate this animal. And we've done the same for cats many, many times. We we've actually had cats in our underwater treadmill, if you can believe that. And you know, these are things that we we can do, but um it's a matter of we're trying to get proactively on a situation where we don't have to see that animal all the time, we're not dealing with the chronic pain issues all the time, and we're really building that animal up or being proactive. Let me and Mark, let me mention one more thing, because I didn't mention this, and it's very important. The other thing is pet obesity. You know? So we talked about food, we talked about simple carbs. Many of these animals are overweight. 59 to 60 percent of our pets, our dogs, are overweight. In cats, it's even higher sometimes. And so if we address the things we talked about with the simple carbs and getting them on a better quality protein diet, many times the weight will come off. They're in rehab, so now they're exercising where they can move, the weight will come off. But I see veterinarians where uh, you know, especially surgeons that are operating on dogs' knees, let's say, to do, let's say, a TPLO for a cruciate repair, never talk about diet. And the dog is humongous. So what's gonna happen? They're gonna get that knee better, the other knee's gonna tear. You know, we've got to be proactive about all of this, and obesity is a huge problem in our pets.

SPEAKER_00

Well, if you don't mind my telling you just a story for a minute, so Hank comes from Colorado, where I lived for a couple of years, and just like the people out there, the dogs are in good shape. Right. Now I'm on the East Coast and I'm walking, you know, him all over the place, and the dogs here are a lot heavier. And it's interesting. And I was in the park recently, and uh I came to came up to some guy that had a a white lab just like Hank. And the first thing the guy says to me is, When are you gonna start feeding that dog? Right now. Hank is 86 pounds, right? He's perfect, he's a perfect weight, he eats all day. And my comment to him was, When are you gonna stop feeding yours?

SPEAKER_01

That perfect question. Perfect question.

SPEAKER_00

And he just laughed, but these dog, a lot of these dogs are huge. And I will also say when I look at you know, I'm not innocent here because I look at pictures of my last dog, my golden, and I could not believe how heavy he got. Yeah, you don't you don't see it.

SPEAKER_01

Right.

SPEAKER_00

Right. You just you live with the dog every day, you don't see it. Eventually he did slim down, trim down. But the last so that's just kind of a funny story. And yes, we see these obese dogs all the time, and it's actually quite sad.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and let me let me tell you something that's very interesting statistic. When we talk about the 59 or 60 percent of dogs that are overweight or the cats, when you ask the owners, is your dog overweight? Less than 6% of people will say yes. And the number we're looking for is something called a BCS score or body condition score. That should be on every veterinarian's soap, meaning your examination. BCS is graded from one to nine, some people do it one to five, we like one to nine, but five is ideal, and that means you look at your dog from down below, and there should be a waistline. You also should be sometimes able to see a little bit of rib. But those people that see Hank in that condition will say, Oh, he's too thin. But not at all. Not at all. So just be aware that the BCS score, um, and there's a great website called PET Obesity, just look at it online, and you can find all this information out too.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, there you go. So I have one last question, it's kind of philosophical, and then we're gonna conclude. Sure. Okay. As part of your treatment protocol with this underwater treadmill and all the things that you're doing, is one of the ideas in the type of medicine that you practice to get the dog or the cat off as many of the meds as possible?

SPEAKER_01

Yes. Plain and simple, yes. Because there isn't a medication out there that doesn't have side effects. And many times there are two or three side effects. And so a lot of times we're dealing with medicine problems and not, you know, just foundational problems. I mean, medicine's causing some issues. Now, in in as we've talked about, in integrative medicine, we believe in allopathic, we believe in medicine, okay, but to a limited degree. And uh the bottom line is that many of these medicines are causing us problems. So the really the goal for me as an integrative vet is to have them on the healthiest protocol possible with food and supplements and the right type of exercise and trying to avoid some of these. Now, not all of them. So, for example, in pain, I like gabapentin because it's a pure pain product. It has is has little effect on the kidney and liver in a dog or cat. Whereas Rimidil or vetprofen or carprofen is an NSAID and it can ulcerate their stomach, it can cause liver and kidney issues on a long-term basis. So, again, these are things that we can trade off and hopefully work towards using something if we need to, but much safer.

SPEAKER_00

Okay, I love it. Well, um this I think this was great. We learned a lot, we got through a lot, and you've answered a lot of my questions. And uh, and thank you, and thank you again for having me. And if you're a listener or watching this and you got a lot out of this, hit the subscribe button on YouTube, follow us on your favorite podcast app, and like us and comment and send in those questions. Join us on our Facebook page, Dr. Randy Petvet. And uh I look forward to the next one. In fact, we can meant why don't you mention the next one, episode number two of season two? It's gonna be very special.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I mean, if for those of you listening, and and if if you're not, pass this on to your friends. Um, next in two weeks, um, in episode two, we have Dr. Andrew Weil, um, probably the foremost integrative MD in the world. Uh, eight bestseller national and national New York Times bestseller books, has his own gigantic integrative medical center at the University of Arizona, started Miraval and many, many other types of projects. And this guy is the person that really stimulated me to get into all this. And this was many, many years ago. Uh, I've been practicing for 43 years. Uh, 30 of those years came because of Dr. Weil to really change and give you this kind of information. So if you get a chance, make sure you get a chance to listen to episode two also, because it'll be incredibly informative. Um, I'll tell you, you you won't miss anything, uh, and you will learn a lot from this man. He's uh a wealth of knowledge.

SPEAKER_00

And I think episode two should be out at the very end of January, just FYI, to people. Right. Okay. All right. Let's wrap this up. Thank you so much. It's great to see you, and I look forward to the next one.

SPEAKER_01

It was great. Enjoy talking to you.