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Paws, Reflect & Heal with Dr. Randy
This channel appeals to conscientious pet owners who prioritize their pets' health and well-being beyond conventional treatments. They are curious about holistic and integrative veterinary approaches and seek to understand their pets' behavior, nutrition, and health issues deeply. They value expert advice that combines traditional medicine with alternative therapies and want to be proactive in preventing and managing their pets' health problems. The channel resonates with those who view their pets as family members and are motivated to provide the best care possible through education and open-mindedness.
Paws, Reflect & Heal with Dr. Randy
When the Immune System Turns Rogue: What Pet Parents Must Know
Dealing with a diagnosis of autoimmune disease in dogs and cats can be frightening for any pet parent or pet owner. In this video, Dr. Randy Aronson, The Pet Vet, and veterinary student Olivia Sacci tackle the topic of autoimmune diseases and reveal a powerful integrative approach. Learn why Dr. Randy focuses on tackling the root cause and how this strategy offers a path to healing that can significantly reduce the need for traditional immunosuppressant drugs.
Dr. Randy explains that autoimmune conditions, such as pemphigus and lupus, are complex inflammatory diseases where the body attacks its own tissues. His holistic treatment strategy moves beyond conventional medicine by first addressing the gut microbiome. By using advanced fecal DNA testing and blood allergy testing to identify and eliminate inflammatory triggers, the goal is to correct dysbiosis and bring the body’s inflammation under control. Discover how this focus on foundational health—including diet correction, supplements, and even treatments like Fecal Microbiome Transfer (FMT)—empowers you to improve your pet's long-term wellness, longevity, and health.
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Send your questions to randy@drrandypetvet.com so Dr. Randy can answer them in future episodes!
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Products and Resources I Recommend
Microbiome Testing
Animal Biome - Gut Microbiome Health Test
Nutrition
K9 Natural
Other...
Hi, Dr. Randy here with my co-host Olivia Sacci from the University of Arizona Veterinary School.
Speaker 1:It's nice to be here, everyone.
Speaker:And we're going to answer a question from Carla in Costa Rica about autoimmune disease.
Speaker 1:Okay, so our question today is: what are autoimmune skin diseases?
Speaker:That is a great question, Carla. Thanks, Olivia. So autoimmune skin disease is a situation where the body is attacking itself. It's an inflammatory disease. And I often get at it through a little different ways than some other veterinarians, but let's talk about these diseases. When the body is attacking itself, it can produce crust, scale, sores, ulceration. It's really nasty. Thank God they're somewhat rare, but we do see them. And there are a bunch of different autoimmune diseases that we talk about. One being Pemphagus foliaceous, another being Pemphagus erythematosis, there is discoilupus erythematosis. There's also systemic lupus. But um I don't want you to worry about those names. They're not important. That's for us to disease.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's my midterm this week. You don't need to know that.
Speaker:Okay, that's right. But these are really nasty diseases, and and they're they are solvable, they are curable. Let's talk a little bit about how we diagnose them.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And it's not just autoimmune skin diseases, right? You can have other autoimmune diseases as well.
Speaker:Correct, correct. For example, in that systemic lupus, uh, autoimmune disease could attack many, many organs. We see lupus of the kidney, we can see lupus of the uh lung, uh, et cetera.
Speaker 1:So how do you go about treating those kinds of diseases when you encounter them?
Speaker:That's a great question. Um, so normally what I do is I want to make sure I have a solid diagnosis. Some of them need to have a skin biopsy or blood testing to figure that out. But once we've got that, the treatment for me is to attack the inflammation.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker:So the first thing I work on is actually the biome, microbiome, uh called dysbiosis. A lot of times the microbiome, which is all of our good and bad bacteria, are out of whack. And this creates a tremendous amount of inflammation in the bowel, releasing what we call cytokines and some of these inflammatory mediators. And this is where this gets started. So a lot of people will look at just putting these animals on medication.
Speaker 2:On immunosuppressants, but then that can open them up to other sorts of infections and everything. Correct. So that's why I wanted to know your kind of holistic integrative medicine approach, which is interesting that you're going to the microbiome directly.
Speaker:Yeah. So I um sometimes I have to use the medications to quell the disease somewhat while we're doing this. But what we do is we get a fecal test for the microbiome. It's a DNA test of what all the good and bad bacteria are in there. And we also often will do an allergy test, a blood allergy test, to find out what their dog or cat is potentially allergic to in the environment and also in their diet, and eliminate those. With those two pieces, we can start getting this animal back on board and eliminating the inflammation.
Speaker 1:And so, how does eliminating the inflammation help with the autoimmune disease itself?
Speaker:That's a great question. So once we once we have the inflammation reduced or really under control, then a lot of times the necess the necessity, excuse me, I could say that word, the necessity for drugs is not that important. And we can actually correct the diet, use potential supplements for the microbiome change or something called FMT, fecal microbiome transfer, and really make this animal well.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's that's amazing. I love learning about the alternative therapies that you offer or that you know about, because that's not typically something in veterinary school that we do have a lot of conversation about. It's about the very traditional methods of treating animals, which would be those immunosuppressants. Um it's good to know.
Speaker:Yeah. So we want to, you know, we want to get this word out there. So uh this is really important to make sure that people understand they have options.
Speaker 1:Exactly. So thank you guys so much for joining us, learning a little bit more about your pets. Um, you can find both of us on social media. Uh for Dr. Randy, he's on both YouTube and Instagram at Dr. Randy Petvit. For myself, I'm on Instagram at Dr. Sochi. That's spelled D-R for Dr. S-A-C-C-I for Sochi. It's one of those kind of crazy Italian names. Oh, I love it. Um, and make sure to subscribe, follow so you can kind of see the information we're coming out with. Thank you guys so much.
Speaker:And tell your friends and who are pet guardians and pet parents about this information because the more we can get this word out, the better off our pets' wellness, longevity, and health will be.
Speaker 1:Exactly. Thank you, Dr. Randy.