Lyme Disease EXPOSED: A Holistic Veterinarian’s Perspective

Lyme disease is one of the biggest health concerns for pet parents—but are we looking at it the right way?

In this episode of The Crunchy Carnivore Podcast, we take a deep dive into Lyme disease from a holistic veterinarian’s perspective, uncovering what’s often overlooked in conventional conversations. From tick exposure to immune resilience, this episode goes beyond fear-based messaging and into a more balanced, whole-body approach to prevention and care.

We explore what Lyme disease actually is, how it impacts dogs, and why some pets develop symptoms while others don’t. You’ll also learn how terrain, lifestyle, and overall health play a critical role in your pet’s susceptibility—and what you can do to support them naturally.

But this isn’t about perfection or panic. It’s about understanding your options, asking better questions, and making empowered choices for your pet’s long-term health.

In this episode, we cover:
• What Lyme disease really is and how it affects dogs
• Common symptoms (and why they’re often missed)
• The role of the immune system in disease expression
• Holistic prevention strategies beyond tick control
• Natural support options for dogs diagnosed with Lyme
• How to think differently about risk, resilience, and health

Whether you’re new to holistic pet care or deep into your journey, this episode will challenge what you thought you knew—and give you practical, grounded insight you can actually use.

Resources:

Lyme Prevention- A homeopathic Lyme prevention protocol by Dr Jessica Levy

TickCheck- Tick testing that can determine with 99.99% accuracy if the tick that bit you carries Lyme or 10 additional tick-borne diseases.

Standard Process- Immune supporting for Lyme are Canine Immune System Support and Echinacea C

Gussy Gut- Daily Boost is an incredible immune support option as it addresses the health of the gut microbiome.  Save 10% with code GUSSY116431

Helios- A trusted homeopathic pharmacy where you can find thousands of remedies.  Top choices for Lyme are: 

Rhus tox 30c, Bryonia alba 30c, Hypericum perforatum 30c, or Ledum palustre 30c

Natural Flea and Tick Prevention- Check out Wellspring's guide to prevent and treat a wide variety of pests all done with natural and non-toxic options.

Foundations Bundle- Learn how to build immunity with homeopathy, feed a raw diet, as well as prevent and treat pests naturally.  Get everything you need to learn the foundational pieces of raising your dog the way nature intended with Wellspring's Foundations Bundle! 

Don't miss future episodes!

Make sure to follow to catch more insight into the holistic approach for animals in an inviting, honest, and realistic way, right here on The Crunchy Carnivore Podcast.

Connect with Dr Levy & Melissa

Instagram |  wellspring_haa

YouTube | Wellspring Holistic Animal Academy - YouTube

Website | wellspringhaa.com

Email | wellspringhaa@gmail.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I will say, as a holistic practitioner, and not to jinx myself, I don't find Lyme disease that difficult to treat. I know with humans and with dogs who are treated conventionally, you'll see a fair amount of relapse where they kind of seem to get better and then they get worse. I have had that occasionally with holistic treatment, but usually at some point within, you know, maybe the first two or three months, there is a resolution to it.

SPEAKER_02 0:36

Welcome back to the Country Carnivore Podcast. I'm Melissa Weinhammer and I'm here with Jess Khalivi, and we are gonna tackle a topic today that um strikes a lot of fear into the hearts of pet owners across the globe. Um it's really that thing that everybody thinks of when they first find a tick on their dog. The first thing that people think of is, oh my gosh, did my dog just get Lyme?

SPEAKER_00 1:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:02

Lyme disease is um a pretty fear-driven thing. There's a lot of fear around Lyme. And um, you know, it is definitely can take its toll on health. And so we don't want to minimize that by any means. But we really just want to shed some light on the truth about the disease, how big of a risk is it, what can you do to prevent it, how do you really detect it, and some holistic perspective on what to do if you really do think that your dog did contract Lyme. So we're just gonna kind of go through this topic um a little bit at a time. The best place, I think, for us to start is to really look at what is Lyme disease. So, Dr. Levy, can you just explain to everyone very simply what is Lyme disease?

SPEAKER_01 1:49

Sure. Lyme disease is caused by a bacteria. The name of the bacteria is Borillia bricodorphari. And it is a spirochy bacteria, so it's kind of shaped like a corkscrew. Uh, and it is transmitted, uh, probably the majority is by deer ticks, which in this part of the country is a very common little critter to find. I think Lyme disease generates um a lot of anxiety and fear, and I hear a lot of people say, I'm a chronic Lyme patient, or my neighbor's dog died of Lyme disease, or you know, people have been sick with this, it turns into this chronic illness. Um, and so that's why I think it is such a concern. And then, of course, anytime people find a tick, like even walking on their dog, that immediate thought is, what if my dog gets sick from this? And how would I know? Um, so the common symptoms of Lyme disease are a shifting leg lameness. And what that means is that you wake up one day and your dog is limping in one of its back legs, and you're like, hmm, that's weird. Well, maybe you strained yourself on a walk yesterday, or maybe we were doing something active, or maybe you jumped off the couch wrong, and you watched your dog, and you're like, well, let's see. Let's, you know, I mean, the most common approach is let's see if it's still there tomorrow. Sure. And if so, then you know, you'll go to the vet. And then the next day, maybe that's a little bit better, and then a day later the dog is lame in a front leg. And that is usually the biggest clue that it is actually Lyme disease. The pain and inflammation seem to move from joint to joint. Not always. I have seen dogs who had Lyme disease who were just stiff in the pelvis or had pain in their spine. So it could show up in that way as well. But the shifting leg lameness is the most common, sometimes accompanied by fever, lethargy, loss of appetite. Um, and so I've seen cases where the dog would normally go out in the yard and like hunt squirrels and run around. And instead the dog goes out in the yard and kind of stands there. I've seen cases where normally, if you start putting together the dog's food, the dog is in the kitchen, like, yes, what are you doing? And instead the dog kind of stays in their dog bed, even though they're like, oh, what are you doing in there? And so it can appear in different ways. Like I said, the shifting leg lameness, sometimes accompanied by lethargy, fever, loss of appetite. And how would you know if your dog had a fever? Uh, well, they're gonna want to stay in bed, they're not gonna feel great, they're not gonna be as active, basically. Um, so that's typically how you might have some inkling that your dog might have symptoms of Lyme disease.

SPEAKER_02 4:34

So what is, you know, I think what's helpful, at least for me, is when I am looking at something and I'm trying to make sure that I'm having um, you know, an appropriate perspective on it, I always like to think, okay, so what's the worst case scenario? Like let me gain some perspective. Okay. So let's say a dog does contract Lyme. Um, you know, really what is, you know, what is the worst case scenario uh for the health of that animal? Is this something that once they they get it, you know, even if they receive treatment in one way or another, they're gonna be affected for the rest of their life? Is this something where if there is early, you know, earlier treatment and you deal with it, they're really not gonna have any any effects? Is this something where it's just if it doesn't get treated, then we have a bigger problem, kind of like heartworm?

SPEAKER_01 5:27

That's a good question. I don't know if anybody really knows to the answer to those. I will say, as a holistic practitioner, and not to jinx myself, um, I don't find Lyme disease that difficult to treat. I know with with humans and with dogs who are treated conventionally, uh, you'll see a fair amount of relapse where they kind of seem to get better and then they get worse. Um, I have had that occasionally with holistic treatment, but usually at some point within, you know, maybe the first two or three months, there is a resolution to it. Then you think about like, you know, what about Lyme nephritis? Can it get into the kidneys? What about neurological Lyme that some people talk about? And those are things that honestly I'm just not really sure if they actually exist. There's this idea that because the bacteria is shaped like a corkscrew, so it that's how it could get through the blood-brain barrier and affect the brain. Um, but I think those are not common symptoms of Lyme disease. Can it affect the kidneys? I think the answer is just that those things are unclear. Um, but in any case, with holistic treatment, you can still address an issue of possible Lyme disease without relying solely on uh one treatment.

SPEAKER_02 6:42

Well, so I think that kind of helps to put it in perspective a little bit. And I think correct me if I'm wrong, but you're we are literally dealing with a bacteria. And so, you know, this is one of those things where um the treatment you were saying is pretty effective, and it's not that difficult, especially if you have a really healthy animal and you've really built up their system for them to um resolve this issue. I mean, it is a a bacteria.

SPEAKER_01 7:09

Right, but it like when you think about bacterial infections, right? It's always that interplay between the bacteria and your body. Eventually, even with the use of antibiotics, it's your immune system that has to do the work and kind of put the bacteria back in its place.

SPEAKER_02 7:24

Well, we'll so we'll get to the treatment aspect here in just a little bit. But I think what would be the best thing for us to talk about is, you know, what can we do, you know, to prevent the ticks from landing on our dogs in the first place, because then we avoid Lyme altogether. Um and so if you followed any of our stuff before, um we've talked about conventional flea and tick medication. Um, and so we're gonna kind of start there and then work our way through. Um, but for anybody who's looked at any of the packaging, the warnings, uh anybody that's used these products, it's not uncommon to have a very negative experience. These are highly toxic chemicals that are being put on or in to your dog. It gets into their bloodstream. These are neurotoxic chemicals, they cause seizures, let alone the damage it does on their immune system, causing allergy type symptoms, um, you know, the spinning in circles, like there's some pretty nasty, pretty nasty um effects from these chemicals. And so we always really, really caution anybody and say you should never ever put those in or on your dog. I don't care what kind they are, I don't care what brand it is. If it is a conventional flea or tick product, stay away from it.

SPEAKER_01 8:41

Would you agree? 100%. Yeah. It it's tragic. If you just like go on Facebook and look up the name of one of these chemicals, the stories that pop up just one after the other of dogs having been killed or doomed to a life of seizure medication by these chemicals. It it's really a tragedy.

SPEAKER_02 9:00

I mean, there's entire groups depending on which product we're talking about that are literally like such and such product killed my dog. 100%. And there's thousands of people in these groups. So it's really not um, it's very misleading to look at these packages too where it says possible side effects. You know, it makes it sound like it's not very common and it's it's extraordinarily common, like it it happens all the time, and it's just it's there's nothing, there is nothing good that's gonna come out of using those chemicals. And quite frankly, they don't prevent anything. So we've talked about this before, too. You know, a lot of people put these things on their dog or or give them the chewable, thinking it's going to repel whatever this pest is. It doesn't repel anything. Right. Once the pest lands on your dog and then bites your dog and takes on some of the blood from your dog, there's toxins in your dog's bloodstream that will kill the pest. That's how they work. They don't actually repel anything. And so our aim is to obviously not harm our dog with chemicals and actually repel um these pests. So and ticks is a very good example of that because we don't want, you know, we don't want things like disease to come into our animals. So um Dr. Levy.

SPEAKER_01 10:07

And and we don't want our uh we don't want ticks hitching a ride on our dogs and just coming into the house.

SPEAKER_02 10:12

Yeah, I don't even want to come in in the house thinking of that. Yeah, exactly. So, Dr. Levy, will you share with everybody just some of our favorite, you know, options that are not um, you know, chemical options that do a very good job of repelling.

SPEAKER_01 10:25

Right. And so, of course, step one is feed your dog a balanced raw diet, build that healthy dog that is going to be more resistant to parasites and less appetizing. You could stay out of places where the ticks are. So, ticks, at least, at least here at Minnesota in the upper Midwest, we have two distinct tic seasons, spring and fall. And the ticks are already out, even though there's still snow out there and it's kind of cold today. But the ticks will come out before the snow is even gone. Over the heat of the summer, ticks go through a metamorphosis, so you hardly see them. And then in the fall, you start to see the nymphs, the little tiny baby ticks come back out. And then in the fall, up until there's a hard freeze, the ticks are gonna be back out. And so if you look at those seasons, that's kind of a good time to stay out of the tall grass, uh, keep your dog away from areas that are gonna be laden with ticks, stay out of the woods, essentially. So we can just keep our dogs away from those things. Uh, as far as things that will help to repel the ticks, uh, springtime makes a supplement called bug off garlic. That one works really well. Amber collars, EM collars, um, all the different tags, the pet shield, the pet protector, the easy defense tag, the oh, what's the one that Dr. Judy Morgan has on her website? The tickless. Flea's gone. Oh, okay. The tickless ultrasonic device. It says on the website it repels everything for an eight-foot radius. And so that just basically keeps everything away, which is again, that's the effect that we're looking for. Some people use essential oil sprays. There's just all sorts of different ways out there to even prevent ticks from getting on our dogs in the first place. In the other podcast episode that we did, we had a conversation about how long does it take one of these feed things or one of the topicals to kill the tick versus how long does it take a tick to transmit disease? And boy, it's kind of a battle down to the wire between those two things. Uh also, I don't want, I don't want toxic chemicals brought into my home, whether they're coming in on my dog or oozing out through my dog's pores. No, thank you. Um, and then uh, you know, there's other ways to keep the bugs down. I know that there are, like I think Wonderside makes a yard spray. There are garlic sprays for your yard. And if you're able to, get yourself some chickens, ducks, and geese. And uh that will keep the bugs down like crazy. I've heard turkeys are also really good for that, too.

SPEAKER_02 13:01

Oh, nice, nice. So another thing that's good to know is with these natural options, um, especially if you live in a more heavily, you know, tick-populated area or insect-heavy area, you will probably need to use multiple options together. You'll need to use a layered uh approach, which um I do every year. I think I probably do three different things, um, two things on a regular basis, and then um I have a spray that I'll use if they are gonna go out into my woods or something like that. I'll spray them before they go outside, you know, into the heavier, you know, heavier areas. Because I know there are fishermen and hunters, they like take their dogs, and you know, so there are times where even when it's tick season, you're gonna want to have your dog out there. Um just know that with those types of things, you're gonna really want to layer your approach as far as uh the repellent goes. Um, but you absolutely can do that with all these options because they're non-toxic. So you can you can layer them and you can use multiple things. Um so let's say you uh you do your due diligence, you you you've got them on a good raw diet, they're less appetizing to pests, you've got your kind of natural uh repellents that you really have found to be effective and they're good, but oh, you still find a tick on your dog, you you didn't catch it right away, and it it's been attached to your dog. You know, now what do we do? Now how do we know, you know, what's the next step, and do we have to worry about Lyme and when and all of that? Right.

SPEAKER_01 14:22

And it's hard to say. I don't think anybody knows what the incubation period is. And so then the question is uh I because I have people who ask, like, should I take my dog in the next day and get them tested? Probably not. Like, I mean, there's probably some sort of incubation period. We don't know what it might be, but typically it takes your body a little bit of time at least to recognize that there's the bacteria there and to produce antibodies against it. So unfortunately, the tests that we have for Lyme disease are not great. The tabletop test, the 4DX, so that test is a really good test for heartworm. Although, even there, again, you would run a confirmatory test. Don't ever accept these tests blindly. And then it also tests for Lyme, Erlichia, and Anaplasma. Those are three tick-board diseases. Those parts of the test are looking for antibodies. And basically the bluer the dot or the darker the blue that is supposed to correlate with the level of antibodies. So if your dog has a lot of antibodies to Lyme disease, and you're thinking, well, maybe this is more active infection, theoretically, the the blue dot should be a really dark blue. Um, unfortunately, that doesn't necessarily or always correlate with a confirmatory test. The confirmatory test for Lyme is called the quantitative C6. And so your vet would draw a second blood sample, send it to the lab to have this test done, and that's looking for a specific antibody against one of the proteins of the Lyme bacteria. And there too, the laboratory kind of says, well, if it's fewer than this number, we're gonna say it's negative or an inactive infection, and if it's more than that number, we're gonna call it an active infection that requires treatment. But even there, like you still have to say, let's say the dot turns blue and there's something wrong with my dog, but is what's wrong with my dog Lyme disease. Right. And it may or may not be, even if the dot turns blue. And so that's where I find testing for Lyme disease for dogs is just as bad as it is in humans. It's it's hard to make that correlation. I've seen many cases where obviously people take their dog to the vet because there's something not right with it. Sure. And then they do the Lyme test, the dot turns blue, and the vet's like, aha, Lyme disease, antibiotics. Maybe, maybe not. Like you still, I think, need to do your due diligence, do a good physical exam, do the rest of the blood work, like really think. These are the dog's symptoms. Are they symptoms of Lyme disease? Or could there be something else going on and the dot turned blue? Because then you see cases where uh I've seen dogs come in and like every year the dot has turned blue and the dog has put on 30 days of antibiotics year after year. Even without symptoms. Oh, yeah. Wow. And you know, what does that mean? What are you treating? I had somebody who came in with a dog and the dot had turned blue. They did 30 days of an antibiotic, retested, the dot was still blue, 30 days of antibiotics, and they'd been doing this for six months. Oh my goodness. By the time they came in, and dog was never had symptoms. Never had symptoms. There was never anything wrong with the dog. And so, like you have to have symptoms that correlate with the blue dot in order to say, okay, yes, I accept that this is probably Lyme disease. And so I'll admit, like a lot of the cases that I treat for Lyme disease have not gone through any kind of testing because the symptoms are fairly clear-cut in a normal case of Lyme disease. You know what you're gonna see. Is testing necessary? I think we can kind of get lost in the weeds on testing. Then there's other kinds of testing. So uh some people say that their dog has Lyme disease uh because it's been muscle tested or has had electrodermal screening, or I've seen cases where the pet psychic said that the dog had Lyme disease. I don't know. Maybe, maybe not. Uh, but in any case, I think that there have to be physical symptoms in order to say, yes, this is Lyme disease that I'm treating.

SPEAKER_02 18:30

So what I'm hearing, Dr. Levy, if I'm correct me if I'm wrong, is even if the dot turns blue on this test, if the dog is not showing any symptoms, it's entirely possible that dogs can have have the antibodies to the bacteria because they're fighting the bacteria, but they're not actually succumbing to Lyme disease, and their body may just take care of the bacteria without really much assistance at all. So just because the antibodies are present does not immediately mean that Lyme disease is a thing.

SPEAKER_01 19:05

Right. And then the other thing that happened is several years ago, uh, the laboratory that makes the 4DX test came out with an announcement. What, what? We made the test more sensitive. And that is a problem with these types of tabletop tests. You're always balancing sensitivity against specificity. The more sensitive the test, the less specific it's gonna be. What that means is if the test is too sensitive, you're gonna get more false positives. Right. You're gonna pick up a lot of dogs who have some sort of antibody that cross-reacts with the test and therefore will test positive. So more dogs will be put on antibiotics than is necessary, and you'll kind of pick up a fair number of dogs who don't actually have Lyme disease. So they'll kind of be caught up in this. And honestly, I think it was just considered a win-win, right? Because you'll pick up more of the cases with Lyme disease that you might have missed if the test was too specific, and you'll sell a bunch more antibiotic. Win-win. Okay. So so that I think is a is a challenge because it's just telling you you're gonna pick up a lot more background noise in dogs that don't actually have Lyme disease and don't actually have antibodies against Lyme. So if you think about this, you know, dogs who come in, let's say they are lame, like, you know, or test positive, like what else could it be? Well, there's a lot of other tick-borne diseases out there. Um I've seen cases of tick paralysis. And so that's a case where it's a direct um sort of an allergic reaction to the tick saliva. Tick saliva contains toxins, just like all on its own. Sure. And so classically the dog kind of goes down, can't walk, can't get up.

SPEAKER_00 20:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 20:56

Um, and you look all over the dog, find the tick, and remove it, and typically within 24 hours, they'll recover and they'll be able to walk again. There's not really any other treatment for it, although in the conventional world they would probably get antibiotics anyway.

SPEAKER_02 21:10

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 21:11

Um, and I've I've had people come in with their dogs certain that the dog had Lyme disease because it's having trouble walking. Uh, but it turns out sometimes just to be anal glands.

SPEAKER_02 21:20

Oh, so super simple. So well. Yeah. Or like a chiropractic issue.

SPEAKER_01 21:25

Like there could be other reasons.

SPEAKER_02 21:26

Completely other things.

SPEAKER_01 21:27

Why their dog is limping, walking funny, or having trouble with it.

SPEAKER_02 21:30

I think when we're so afraid of something, it's like it a lot of things can look like that thing that we're afraid of because we're just, you know, the heightened sensitivity to doing it. So I think one thing that's that's important just from a practical, because we're all about practical common sense, you know, solutions for things, right? So I find a tick on my dog. The the amount of time that it takes for a tick to transmit Lyme's disease, Lyme disease, Lyme's, Lyme disease is what, 48 hours? 24 hours? What is your best?

SPEAKER_01 22:01

I don't think anybody really knows.

SPEAKER_02 22:03

Yeah, it's there's a lot of misinformation.

SPEAKER_01 22:05

Some different information in that range. And then, like, we looked at how long it could take the feed-through chemicals to kill the tick.

SPEAKER_02 22:12

Right. So they're kind of running.

SPEAKER_01 22:13

Yeah, it's about 48 hours either way. But some tick-borne diseases only take five hours to be transmitted. And I have met people who didn't take the tick off their dog because they had given the tick, they'd given the dog the toxic chemical, so they were like, well, that's gonna kill the tick. They're just gonna let the chemicals take it off.

SPEAKER_02 22:32

Oh my goodness. Well, so my I think my point is if you do, you know, if you are concerned about your dog picking up ticks and you or you live in a really, you know, high tick population area, doing daily checks, just daily body checks on your dog is a huge prevention in and of itself. Because if if you know you do a you know a quick one in the morning and a quick one at night, you're catching it pretty fast if a tick's actually going to be on your dog. So that's probably step number one. Um, and then really if if if they still still do get a tick and it's been attached for a little while, your best course of action is just to just to be observant. Okay, I knew, I I know a tick, you know, bit my dog. It might have been on for a day or more. I'm gonna watch and see if I notice anything. Just try and make it make it a point to not be so hypersensitive to it that you're gonna start seeing things that aren't there. Really try and be a little bit more objective and go about your business, kind of lock it away in your head. Okay, that happened on Tuesday. Um, and then just kind of as you go through, if you start noticing symptoms, symptoms that are classic Lyme, then maybe you want to, you know, take a little bit of action to that. Um, but it's really that simple. Do some regular, you know, regular daily checks on your dogs on the body. Um, and then, you know, if you do happen to find a tick that's attached, remove it as quickly as you find it. Um, and then just watch. If symptoms don't manifest, Lyme is not an issue.

SPEAKER_01 24:02

There is also um a laboratory that will link where you can mail in the tick. Oh, wonderful. And see, you can like you can check if it's carrying lime. I don't know how many diseases they test for. But I know that that is available. Um another thing is that if you happen to have a super short-coated dog, let's say you've been camping, let's say you went hiking in the woods, let's say you went on a nature trail, lint roller. Oh lint roll your dog before you get back in the car, and it will pick up those little ticks that are just starting to walk across your dog. So sorry, it does not help for the big hairy ones. Yeah, but that's a that's a really helpful trip tip though. Yeah, because that's something that you can do um uh like before you even get back in the car, so that you're not even bringing those ticks home with you.

SPEAKER_02 24:50

Yeah, that's great. So, okay, so let's say that you know, people have kind of, you know, you you find a tick on your dog, you're watching, and then all of a sudden you do think, oh, uh I might be seeing Lyme here. I think I might have a problem. Um, we're gonna talk about uh the standard treatment for ticks, for for Lyme disease, excuse me, and why that's really not the best option, and what is the best option?

SPEAKER_01 25:17

Mm-hmm. So typically, of course, um uh, you know, a lot of people, even just after finding a tick on their dog, think I need to get antibiotics. Uh the antibiotic that's used most commonly for Lyme disease and the other tick-borne diseases too, is doxycycline. Um, doxycycline is also a powerful anti-inflammatory, so it has a strong anti-inflammatory side effect. So a lot of things get better with doxycycline, and it does not help tell you. Like you could say, well, I don't know if my dog had Lyme disease or not, but I gave him doxycycline and he got better. Yeah, that still does not mean that it was Lyme disease or any other tick-borne disease. It could have just brought down the inflammation, which is what the Lyme would cause.

SPEAKER_02 25:59

Right.

SPEAKER_01 26:00

But yeah. So the issue that I find, I think, I think this is part of the reason, this is my opinion, undocumented. Um, I think part of the reason that people run into things like chronic Lyme, or I see dogs with relapsing Lyme disease. I think, yes, that's what will happen if you rely on antibiotics as your treatment. So Lyme is, I think, known to create biofilm. And so um, I think of it as like those um mylar blankets that like firefighters out in the West pull over themselves to protect themselves from fire. And so you start your dog at an antibiotic, and the spirochete, the bacteria, just goes whoop, biofilm. Can't catch me. And they essentially hide out. So many years ago, I had a Lyme researcher tell me that no matter how long you use antibiotics for, you cannot eradicate the Lyme bacteria from the body. And to me, that makes antibiotic treatment nonsensical. Like, then how do you know? How do you know if you should give it for 10 days, two weeks? Now 30 days has kind of become the norm. Like, what's that magic? Is that how long the bacteria lives? A month? Like, why is that the magic number? Just cuz. Um, I don't think it's necessarily based in anything super scientific, although I could be wrong. And so when I treat dogs for Lyme disease and other tech-borne diseases, I actually don't use antibiotics. Again, I think it um provokes the bacteria into creating biofilm, and then then you're gonna see relapse, then you're gonna see chronic symptoms, then it's gonna be a lot more difficult to deal with. It's a lot longer of a road to actually come out of. So, really, it's all about then what do you do? You deal with the immune system directly. There are supplements that will support the immune system. There are supplements that will enhance the immune system's efforts. So I use standard process canine immune system support a lot. Because you want that quick rise in white blood cells, you could use echinacea. Um, standard process makes one called Echinacea C that comes in tablets. There's echinacea tea, there's all sorts of uh options out there for that.

SPEAKER_02 28:23

Now, with the echinacea, because that is um it's a plant, uh, is the standard process version a little bit more bioavailable than just giving like the echinacea tea?

SPEAKER_01 28:33

Yes. Okay. Yes, and also less likely to you don't want to push the immune system too much. Uh so if you for one thing, in order to get a realistic amount of echinacea tea into your dog, it might be difficult. Right. Because they'd have to drink quite a bit of it. And then also you don't want to push them into detox, which means you don't want to cause diarrhea. You don't want to push them into developing a rash. You're all you're trying to do is support the immune system and have it do what it is naturally gonna do anyway. So you have your raw food basis, standard processed canine immune system support, something like Gussie's gut, that's a nice uh internal immune system support. So um the Gussie's gut supports the microbiome in the correct way. You could also use kombucha scoby. I use that quite a bit. SCOBY is the uh it stands for Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeast, and that is the yellow snot-looking stuff that ferments the kombucha. It's a very broad array of bacteria and enzymes, uh, more than you could ever find in a bottle. So that would be quite effective. I also use the standard process canine musculoskeletal support because not only does it support the joints and the soft tissues, tendons and ligaments, and the muscles themselves, but it also has baswellia in it. Boswellia is your herbal anti-inflammatory, very safe for dogs, very safe at high doses. Uh, with something like Lyme disease, you might want to try to reach a therapeutic dose, which in dogs is going to be 40 milligrams per kilogram of baswellia. Take the weight of your dog in pounds, divide by 2.2, that turns the dog into kilograms, times 40. That tells you how many milligrams of baswellia you would need to give. And that is a daily dose. And so you could um split that up however you want, but baswellia is so safe. Let's say you're giving your dog two whatever tablets of baswellia, and you're looking at the dog and thinking, oh, that is not enough. He's still hurting. Give more. It's super safe. Um, I've used a lot of body work when treating dogs with Lyme disease. So um massage therapy, craniosacral therapy. Maybe I've used chiropractic a little bit less because of the velocity of the adjustment. So something a little bit slower, a little bit lower intensity. Yep. Yeah. And then homeopathic remedies. So um with homeopathy, we don't like to talk so much about this homeopathic remedy for that disease or for that condition. But I will say, probably the most common remedies I've used for Lyme disease. Uh Rust tox, so rust toxicodendron is made from poison ivy. Um, bryonia is made from wild hops. Um, hypericum is made from St. John's wort. That's a really good remedy for spinal pain, spinal injury, nerve injury. So I would use uh bryonia is an excellent remedy for any situation where movement is painful. So, in a human, you would think it's the kind of headache where your headache is so bad it hurts to move your eyes. So, this is the dog who is basically not getting out of bed or going out into the yard and just standing there instead of going and chasing squirrels. Rust tox is the remedy for conditions that are where you're stiff and sore when you first get up. These are the dogs that have a hard time getting up out of bed or getting up off the floor, but then kind of once you get going, you feel a little better, but then you start to get sore again. Um, so it's that kind of almost looks like arthritis kind of remedy. And then hypericum is for shooting nerve pain. So things that are kind of like sharply painful, it seems more abrupt than the other two conditions. Basically, for this kind of thing, you only need 30C potencies. You shouldn't really need um anything stronger than that. So if you have a regular homeopathic kit at home, or if you don't have a kit, but you have a health food store, they'll probably have everything you need.

SPEAKER_02 32:51

And 30C is a pretty uh that's probably the most common potency you're gonna find if you go to your natural food store, your co-op, whatever. That's that's typically what they're gonna, they're not gonna have a 200C or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 33:01

You'd have to go find a pharma find a pharmacy and actually uh then you just give one or two pellets, don't touch them with your hands, just put them from the vial directly onto a little bit of something numbmy, but you want the pellets to touch the inside of their mouth.

SPEAKER_02 33:14

I do it directly from the inside, I'll pour them into the cap of the vial and literally just open my dog's mouth and pop them right in their mouth, and they'll swallow sugar pellets for the as far as they're concerned. They just swallow them.

SPEAKER_01 33:26

The tiny it just depends on the dog as to whether they'll let you do that or not. Um, and then just give it a little bit of time, and then you know, you gauge later, did that have a positive effect or did it have a positive effect and it wore off? Now I think I need another dose. You just kind of there's not going to be a rote protocol for treatment because you have to wait and see what happens. And another way to uh that we can prevent Lyme disease is with homeopathic remedies. So the homeopathic remedy made from beryllium burgdorfry is available through homeopathic pharmacies. Uh, the way that I typically have people use it is you'll need four potencies. The potency is the strength of the remedy, the dilution factor. You'll need the 30C, 200c, 1M, and 10M. And then what I have people do is depending on what your tick season is, uh here, here we are in tick season, and it's what, mid-March? Almost, almost middle of March. Um, we've had an early spring this year. Uh, and so you could give one dose of uh Borillia Bergdorferi 30C on March 1st and April 1st, one dose of the 200C on May 1st and June 1st, and continue on through the potencies. If there's an extra month at the end when you've already gotten to the 10m potency, just keep using the 10m once a month. What that does is it will help activate your dog's immune system so that if they are exposed to the Lyme bacteria through a tick bite, you're already in treatment mode. You're helping their immune system deal with the disease that is transmitted with the bacteria.

SPEAKER_02 35:20

And we'll make sure to um link a write-up and um kind of layout of the remedies and where you can order them. We'll put that down below if that's something that you would like to implement in your prevention each season, so that it's just you have something that um it's easy to follow, especially if you're new to homeopathy. It can be a little confusing to hear, you know, names and potencies. And so we'll put something in the description box uh down below for that. We also have an excellent um parasite prevention and treatment guide where we talk about a lot of different things. We talk about all sorts of different parasites, not just ticks. Um, and so we'll link that down below as well. Um, but uh hopefully this just kind of lays it out in a little bit easier to understand way. What really is Lyme? How much do I really need to worry about it? What are some practical ways to kind of, you know, go about my dog's life and be on the watch for it, but not be in such a state of fear about it? Um there's plenty of things that you can do, and I don't think, you know, it is certainly not something that we want our dogs to get, but it's it's also not this big scary monster that's waiting around every blade of grass, like we're kind of made to feel like it is. So um, Dr. Lee, do you have any final thoughts or anything else you would like to share in regards to just kind of how people maybe perceive or approach Lyme?

SPEAKER_01 36:44

Well, I think it okay, obviously, in my opinion, this multimodal approach where you support the immune system, use your homeopathic remedies, use your body work specialists, in my experience, that is kind of the best approach that will also prevent future relapse and really just get that dog's immune system right back on board. Of course, the prep work that we do by feeding our dogs the raw food, uh, reestablishing normal microbiome function, uh having a stronger dog to start with when they encounter that tick, uh, you know, that's all that's all gravy.

SPEAKER_02 37:27

Well, thank you for joining us on this episode of the Country Carnivore Podcast, and we will see you next time. Thank you so much for joining us. Our goal is always to encourage others to seek out the holistic approach by way of education and empowerment. You can check out our online resources at wellspringha.com. You can follow us on our YouTube channel, Wellspring Holistic Animal Academy, and you can also find us on Instagram at Wellspring underscore HAA. We hope that this has been helpful and that you continue with us on your journey to holistic health for your pets. As always, we're here to be unapologetically all natural.