spk_0: 0:20
caring for an animal holistically requires an understanding of its true natural needs. Holistic animal care is not just about addressing issues that are going on inside of it, but also about identifying outside influences that may be affecting his health. And it requires an understanding that every animal is an individual with a unique set of personal needs and nuances that are unlike those of any other. So where does the path the holistic wellness begin? How do we determine the correct course of natural care for our beloved companion? How do we learn to look beyond the symptoms of disease to find the cause and reach a cured of solution for what ails air pets? Where do we start? Hi, I'm Greg pilfered and welcome to your vital pet. Today we will be discussing the topic of holistic medical decision making with world renowned holistic veterinarian Kristina Sham Bro. Kristina Sham Bro is an internationally known homeopathic veterinarian and author of The Healthy Animal Journal. Siri's Fleas be Gone homeopathic tutorial and many articles She has spoken and taught thousands of pet parents and veterinarians over the last 40 years. After 35 years of being the phone consulting homeopathic veterinarian. She now does pet health coaching by phone and Internet to help you decide what would be the best approach to heal your companion and prevent future problems. She is currently one of the faculty for the Holistic Actions for Companion Animals Academy. Weekly Internet talks allow members to get to hear about holistic healing approaches for many experts and ask any questions about the health of their animals of the faculty. They can also post questions on the 24 7 Web forum and a 10 live and live stream classes for free. Her mission is to empower people to heal themselves and their animals in ways that also heal the planet. Yeah, Dr Sham bro, we have been friends for Oh my gosh, I mean, I think I met you at the age via Mae's annual conference in Burlington, Vermont. Thinkinlike 1995. I mean, a different millennium. And you know, you've you've been there as a pioneer of what you do since I've known you one of the most outstanding and certainly best known homeopathic veterinarians I've ever met. And you're always thinking outside the box and figure it out. New ways to make it easier, more effective, safer for people to take care of their animals holistically. Christina, it's great to have you on your vital pat. What are you up to right now? What's going on? I mean, every time I talk to you, you're you're busy, you're busy. You're always doing something. What's what's going on
spk_1: 3:08
in your life? Well, thank you, Greg. And I just I know everybody listening has been enjoying all these podcasts that Greg has been able to put into place because he knows so many people and and has reached out and been a presence in the holistic field. Um, I fell in love with, um, Greg's first book, Uh, because he's a photographer and the photographs were awesome. And most importantly, um, Greg talked in that book about what I think is really very important, which is looking at the whole animal in the context of our whole planet. So Greg and I were really on the same wavelength and that I'm always looking for How can we empower you to heal yourself and heal your animals in ways that heal the planet? Now, I did not learn that when I was in veterinary school. It's just, you know, we were taught to stop symptoms, things we learned early on in veterinary school. We sort of forgot later on, when we were told to give vaccines every year, every year or every three years, for instance. So always be gentle with your veterinarian, your conventional veterinarian, because your conventional that area just hadn't learned how to see animals and people as a whole. So given that you're on this podcast, I think you're already on this path. So what's new for me is that I've joined with an incredible home idiopathic veterinarian, Dr Jeff Fineman. And, um, he's created some wonderful ways to help you stay with the holistic path with a lot of hand holding ways that we can talk about later. But really with a new way of thinking about how do I make a decision as to what to do next for the health of my pets? And it's called H M D M for holistic medical decision making. Now, it's not just about when your animals ill. It's also for deciding if the lifestyle choices you're making are the best for your individual pet. One of the keys that underlines H M D M and holistic health in general is that every animal is an individual. Just like every herb that Greg teaches you about is has many facets to it and respond and will help different animals in different ways. So hmd, um is a way that you can develop the skill to know how your pet is doing, and there's three easy steps to it. Step one is to set a goal. Now, if you have a breed of dog that tends to bloat and you notice that your dog has been sort of burping now doesn't feel quite as good. Maybe the stomach is distended a bit and you're going, Oh, this may be a bloat. This is an emergency, and you're gonna go right to the clinic to a veterinary clinic, probably an emergency veterinary clinic. Your goal at that point is to save the life and to do whatever is needed. At that point, however, you can still have the goal of taking a moment when it's possible to think about building health in general through the treatment. But your current goal may be just what I need to do right now. Thio, take care of my pets emergency or your goal. Maybe your pets are pretty healthy, and you'd like them to live a long life. So for each pet, you want to set the goal of discovering what is needed with this pet This dog, this cat this worse too. Have them live the longest, healthiest life possible where you may have an animal. It has minor problems. Chronic report, recurring ear itching, maybe a goopy, smelly here, Um, itching, skin diarrhoea, constipation, smelly breath eating dog stool, uh, eating plastic, various different problems. And your gold there could be. I want to make my pet feel more comfortable. I want to do it in a way that builds the overall health so that they can live a long life and a healthy life. So that approach upsetting the goal will really help you in the next two steps.
spk_0: 8:29
Basically, what you're talking about issue. We've had this discussion, of course, many times is looking at the big picture, you know? I mean, it's hard for us, especially in the United States having so much of her fingertips, so much wealth, so much opportunity. It's so easy for us to just pick up a quick fix and we're so tune in to just looking at the symptoms of what is ailing R Patz and ending ourselves and then forgetting about the bigger picture in the process. And you know, what we're talking about here is yes, bring comfort. But thinking about the big picture, what do we need to do in order to not only bring comfort but to provide a higher quality of life, to optimize the quality of life for that animal in the long run? So and you're right. I mean, every every individual is different with different needs. And so I love this Cristina because it not only works, but it gives pet owners theon pertuan ity to really look into the deeper aspects of their relationship with their animals, to find the issues that really not just affect the animal, but also us. We're all linked, like you said earlier. Everything in this in this beautiful planet everything around us is interconnected and holistic medicine has to take in the bigger picture, not just the symptoms. So I
spk_1: 9:43
love and it is integrative medicine as well. Because there are absolutely conventional medicine conduce miracles when you have a dog that's floated or you have a horse that's got colic and that stomach is twisted. Surgery is life saving, and while sometimes holistic medicine pincher, I can fix it. It's good to know that the emergency fix is right there, but then you move on to look at the whole, including our beautiful planet. So that's great. So that's one. Now Step two is the biggest step, but it depends on what your circumstances are, How much of it you'll through? Step two is to do research. Part of your research is coming and listening to all of these podcasts, and you'll have so many ideas for how to improve health in general that you may get very overwhelmed. Well, should I be giving all the supplements that that person talked about and the second podcast talked about five other things to give. And what about the 10 other things, man? Each of them sound wonderful. Should I be doing a, uh, laser with my dog every day? Should I be? You know, it can be overwhelming, but the fruit. So as you move into this research step, take a breath and remember, it is just research. You're not making any decisions yet. And there are two parts to the research. One, which I've already spoken about, is learning from conventional books from podcasts from at the Holistic Actions Academy that Dr Jeff and I run every week. We have a different speaker, and we have an ongoing forum online, where people ask questions from the Internet from your local veterinarian from your trainer from a holistic veterinarian. So they're multiple sources, and you have to be a little critical of the quality of the information you're getting. So that's one source of research. Is information from outside the most important research. It's actually the symptoms that your own animal is showing its your animal symptoms that air your clue as to how you are doing. And as to the for that animal, have you made the right choices? You know what? Step back us a minute, because this is a very important part of holistic health in conventional medicine and in life, in general TV and print ads, they have us looking at the cause of illness is something outside of us, so Oh, your dog has a yeast infection in the ear your dog has back of bacterial diarrhea with giardia or salmonella or you're you're, um, dogs. Paralysis was caused by a tick fighting it. Well, there's some. So those external circumstances usually are not the cause of the symptoms. How do we know this? Think about 25 dogs at a dog show and one dog comes in with kennel. Cough is every. Are all of the 25 dogs gonna get kennel Cough? No. Are some of them going to get just a mild coffer to that goes way in a day or two? Yep. Are some of them gonna actually get diarrhea because being exposed to a respiratory disease? Yep. And why is this? The reason is that symptoms were not caused by the trigger. The outside caused symptoms were caused by an imbalance in the energy field of the body. In homeopathy, we call it vital force Chinese medicine. It's cheat. Aggravated medicine. It's prana. The Nate. The energy field of your body, when pushed out of balance, causes symptoms to try to get itself back in balance so often by looking at all of the symptoms that your animal is expressing, and this is not something that you're gonna be comfortable with immediately. But over time, as you practice this over and over again, by looking at all of the symptoms, you'll be able to decide how important this new current symptom is so for, and also looking at the circumstances surrounding what may have triggered that symptom. So, for instance, you have a dog who got up this morning and woke you out of bed, and you rushed outside because he needed to go out or he had diarrhea in the house and he's walking across the yard straining. So let's imagine several different dogs with this happening person. One says, Oh, my dog has really bad diarrhea. I'm going right to the vet. My goal is stopped. The diarrhea as quickly as I can goes to the vet, gets drugs. The diarrhea stops. Person number two says. Okay, there's diarrhea. That's one symptom. Michael is maximizing health, Um, and soothing. Any symptoms? What could have caused this diarrhea and what other symptoms air going on? So one dog where person asked that question may be right and alert and happy and active and comes in after the diarrhea and says, Where's my food? And the person stops and things Well, you know, yesterday I had a bunch of kids over for a birthday party, and my dog ate an awful lot of cupcakes and probably some other things that the kids threw on the ground that might not even have been real food like plastics, piece of plastic or a piece of paper. And he's feeling good. Overall, there no other symptoms. Let me wait and see what's what's going on. Maybe I could do something gentle, so I'll go to the Do more research and see if I can find a gentle, holistic soothing for the diarrhea. So you find making rice water so you make race water and give it to the dog. Were you find on your shelf some marshmallow root or some slippery elm, and you give that. And what usually would happen in that case is the dog continues to feel good and the diarrhea goes away. Within a day or two, the next person may notice that the dog isn't feeling that good, and we have a doctor. Jeff created an acronym for this. That's really shines the light on total help. It's called Game B. A. M. A beam of light B is for behavior. He is for energy. A is for appetite, and M is for mood. So where the beam on the first dog was really good? The beam on this dog isn't so good. So there was this training and the diarrhea and the dog just seems a little under the weather today and but comes in and does eat. And so this person has the choice to make of going directly to the veterinarian or trying some treatments at home if they feel the beam is not too bad. So one dog with poor being might just not. You know, I didn't want to even get up the other dog with being just a CZ, not as perky, and so the one not getting up. Maybe you need to go to the vet and have a little look see the one who's not, who's just not as perky as usual and seems to be maybe a little afraid or a little Barkey. So the behavior is a little different with that when you could do some symptomatic treatment with holistic approaches and keep re evaluating to see what happens. So the keys to Step two is two parts one is valuing symptoms as an attempt of the body to heal itself. And rather than having the goal of stopping symptoms, your goal is building the health while you sued the symptoms. So the body naturally heals itself. And number two of research is what are some of the ways we could do that now. If it was the bloat case and you were headed to the veterinary clinic because you had a dog that tended a breed that bloated, you might have a few homeopathic remedies or herbs on hand for an emergency. As someone's driving you to the veterinary clinic you gives thes, you get to the veterinary clinic and the veterinarian does the evaluation and says, We need to do these five tests leaving there. You could do a little research and say, Well, why do we need to do all of those? Can we start with one and see what happens? So part of H M. D. M. Is to have you be grounded in being your pets advocate and also being the advocate for your for your pocketbook, for your money. So not to do everything everybody tells you but to stop and think what is it that needs to be done now and do that research? So that's step two. That's the research.
spk_0: 20:00
That's great. I mean, stepping outside the box and figuring out things. It's really about taking control of your health and your animal self through insight. You know you're right about symptoms. I've always said that in my lectures, and my writings is they're just outward signs of what the body is trying to do for itself. And changing to that way of thinking is critical. Whether you're practicing or using homey apathy, herbs, Ira, Vedic medicine, whatever, goal is the same. We're trying to bring the body back in the home of Stasis silicon hell itself. And we have to think differently to get there. We have to look at symptoms differently in order to get to that. That level of healing
spk_1: 20:42
Absolutely. We have to love symptoms and see them is the language of the body.
spk_0: 20:47
So my thought is that obviously we're kind of segue waiting. We're Segway into journaling because
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on us almost yes, they
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all wait for you. Okay, go on. What's number three?
spk_1: 20:59
So number three is several parts. It's basically taking action, but first. Before you take action, you want to pause. You want to take a breath? You want to meditate on all the research you've done? So you wanna look at the beam, how your animals doing in general, what you've done before and how the animals responded and then put together an action plan First, I'm going to try this, that I'm gonna try this. If that doesn't work, I'm going to the bet. I'm going to the vet, but I'm not going to do everything they say. I'm gonna decide which things I want to. D'oh! So I'm gonna put together this and then I'm going to do more research. So you put together your action plan and then you take action. And a key part of this third step is you're going to be evaluating if the actions you took are building health in general and helping the body eliminate this current symptoms or not. You know, our bodies air very limited. They only respond in a certain number of ways. One way that they respond to any treatment to different lifestyles. Two different foods is what we call a cure. And that is the current symptom. Gently slowly goes away, they feel better. Overall, their beam is great. Symptoms don't keep returning over the next months, years, weeks, months or years. And although they may get sick again at some point, they'll recover fairly quickly. The second is Pal E ation, and that is the symptoms go away. They feel a little bit better, but you don't see this long time. I'm great. I really feel good, and that's a temporary elimination of symptoms. Even worse is suppression. The symptoms go away quickly, but the animal feels worse overall, and palley ation and suppression are most common with drug use because they're anti eyes, antibiotic, anti diarrhea and I, uh, vomiting. And but that can also happen with holistic approaches. So therefore, now we're looking at you need to make a list of the current symptoms that was part of your research, including the beam and the overall symptoms. But it's also good to have a list of past symptoms so that when you're doing this evaluation, you're then able to go back and look at all of those symptoms and see which ones are getting better. Which ones are getting worse. And if the symptoms sometimes skin symptoms get bad. Maybe there was blowed or diarrhea or, um, pancreatitis, and they're starting to feel a little better. And then all of a sudden they get a hot spot rather than seeing the hot spot is a bad thing, you'd say, Good. We're feeling better in general a little bit. And now the energy field. The body is healthy enough to start pushing its illness to the outside. Hot spots don't kill animals. Pancreatitis might. So therefore, as you learn more about how the body heals, then there cleanup of the library. All I did for you as the body heals itself, it goes through different steps. And as you learn more about holistic healing, you'll be able to better and evaluate how your animal is doing. And therefore you'll be better able to do this at home now. To do this, it makes sense to keep a journal. So when people begged may write a write a book, Dr Sham Bro write a book, and I went there so many good books out there already about feeding a holistic diet, not vaccinating and using herbs and using telling, too, in touch and acupressure and all these wonderful healing methods. I really can't add to that. But then I realized what's missing is your being able to track these symptoms the language of the body. So the Healthy Animals Journal is for dogs or cats, and it's in print, and it is away that you contract right down the symptoms on a bookmark that they've ever had in the past and start a treatment and record the treatments in the book and then record the changes that happened after the treatments. And you don't do the changes in just the diarrhea or the ear problem or the stomach Titus in the Cat. You look at all of the symptoms, and I've also done an e book on my website for cats and dogs. Separate. So the Healthy Cat Journal and the Healthy Dog Journal Soon to come is the Healthy Horse Journal. Who? Joyce Front. Dr Joyce Harmon helped me, right? But it's not up yet. Um, so keeping a journal in whatever way you do it, you could do it on the computer. You could do it on a calendar, but there's usually not enough room there to really record everything. You can create your own Journal. But in some way it's important to continue on an ongoing basis tracking symptoms because then you'll know when you read about well, and it makes sense to you that the best food for dogs and cats is a fresh, raw need or lightly cooked diet with pureed vegetables. Um, and you decide. Thio, try that. Is it helping or not? You look at all the little symptoms and you find out. Oh yeah, now there's no I discharge thee here. Code is glowing One person I just was speaking with put all of her dogs on answers fermented goats, milk and some Keefer and her 3 14 month old puppies are changing. They got better energy, and one of them immediately stopped eating poop. The 2nd 1 after a week stopped eating its own poop, which they've done since they were babies, and the 3rd 1 is now eating its poop as soon as it hits the ground. Said that dog may need something in addiction made me a different type of treatment. So that's why keeping a journal is important and following this h M d m. Using the journal and seeing symptoms as clues to the underlying imbalance will help use. Keep your animals on a long term path because
spk_0: 27:55
really the basis of effective holistic medicine. I mean, whether you're learning about taking care of your animals yourself or you're working in communication and close proximity, so to speak with a holistic veterinarian, this information is invaluable. You've gotto the more you have, the more you know about the individual that you're taking care of, the easier it will be to find a curative solution to his or her problems, and it will be much more effective with your holistic veterinarian. Communication is everything, and it's obvious that your home your path I'm listening to this. A little smile on my face because, you know, homing a pass, their particular about details that the science and the healing homeopathic medicine requires. This you need to convey all the little quirks, all the little nuances. You know, my my dog limps on Lee when it's raining. He's itchy in March, but he's not itchy in April. You know all of these things. Put together a picture of that individual. It's just it's critical. It's vital to pursuing a holistic path,
spk_1: 29:03
and it's even important. I'm sure with herbs. Greg, right? Don't you have the hearts that work better if an animal was chilly or an animal seeks? You know, like you know, one
spk_0: 29:12
of the misconceptions about Western herbal medicine is that we take herbs too stimulate or create an effect in the body. And we think that the herb is acting upon the body. When the reality is this. The body is also acting upon the energetic sin, the chemistry of the herb. And so the individual is. It's all about the individual. If we think in terms of I'm treating a dog just like any other dog, then we're missing the point. We're just going back into the al empathic, conventional way of thinking that we can, for instance, with nutrition, we can fit everything into one box and feed 30 million blocks. It doesn't work. It's what this journal idea is really a good one. And I encourage all of you to get Miss Tina's book her journals and tell us about your Web sites in your service is so people know how to get get ahold of you, Christian.
spk_1: 30:04
Great for, um, for 30 years, 35 years I did. I was the homeopathic veterinarian consulting by telephone often. And, um, five years ago, I switched to doing head health coaching because there's so many other good that very homey a pass you could work by phone. So what I can do for you is to help you figure out what's next for your animals. Um, or maybe you're doing different treatments and you're not sure whether there is the right path or not, or what you can do at home. A ballistic prognosis. And also I match you up with the kind of a holistic vet or veterinarians that you and I on the call think is best so I can empower you to move to the next level of health number two. And so to do that, you can go to my website, which is my healthy animals dot com. Do it on a computer. It doesn't seem to work on all mobile devices right now. Uh, still working on that on dumb, or you can call me at 410771 4968 and set up a phone appointment. The second thing that I really and also on my website when you click on resource is you could order the healthy cat journal Healthy Dog Journal, and I also wrote a book, Fleas. Begone! That's a Kindle book So you can get that, um, through Amazon and, um, the Healthy Animals Journal in print. You can get directly from the where you get it on Amazon as well, and then you can hit. Resource is, and I've got all sorts of articles on my website about herbs and homeopathy and acupuncture, et cetera, And secondly, you can come to the website for the Holistic Actions Community, Dumb Ballistic Actions Academy. So that is www holistic actions dot com and you condone for free. You can read everything that's on the website. Do a lot of research if you decide you'd like to be a member, and B will be able to interact live every week as well as all every day 24 7 on the website. Um, then if you put in the code, the digit too balance all in capitals and and the digits 20. So to balance 20 you could do one week for $1. And if it's something you're interested in, and if you are, then you can become a member, and animal rescues can, um, after that week for a dollar, your membership fee would be passed price. So I really and there's so much to learn again. Use the H. MGM did not get overwhelmed. That's the hardest thing. And I guess there's one more piece here that, um, oops is so important as you begin to learn about different ways that build health in animals and people and help our planet as well. You may feel guilty. Oh, why did I do that vaccine? I know she got sick right after the vaccine and got heart problems off course. I should be feeding a fresh food diet. How could I think that dry food would be good for a cat who was raised in the originated in the desert? These feeling guilty doesn't help your pets doesn't help you and doesn't help the world. It actually is a negative. You always air doing the very best that you can, and some days that's not as good as others in retrospect. But we're all still learning. I told people to do things when I first started in the early 19 eighties that nowadays I wouldn't tell people to do. I would actually say, Oh, don't do that But I told them to do it. We used to tell people to feed for 20% grains in the diet, and we don't usually recommend that now. So just a CZ ah, off the cuff. So that's why it's important to never feel guilt about anything that ever happens. Remember that health is journey, not a place you get to. It's a path and it goes one direction and then another and then another. And as Robert Frost said, You don't want to agonize over the path, not take it. Just be joyous about the path that you do take
spk_0: 34:51
right on, Dr. Sham bro, Thank you so much for coming onto your vital pet. This is wonderful. You know, it's good. That's good to hear your voice. I look forward to the next time we rub elbows wherever that might be, and I look forward to having you back on your vital pet. If you'll come back,
spk_1: 35:07
I will come back. You can have Mia's Austin is. You want me? I have multiple things I could talk about.
spk_0: 35:14
Well, thank you again, Doctor Christina. I always like calling you by your first name and and everybody check out that journal. It's really important that you keep that journal in and again. Thank you. You take care of yourself and have a good day.
spk_1: 35:31
Thank you. Bye. Everybody,
spk_0: 35:34
thank you for joining us. Be sure to tune in often to your vital pet on your favorite podcast channel, where I will continue to bring you the voices of leading pet experts and cutting edge information about natural approaches of care and consideration for that vitally important critter in your life. Listen on the way to work while you're cleaning house cooking dinner whenever your companion will be glad you did thistles. Greg. Children talked against.