Dr. Jeff Feinman: Well, thank you for having me.

Kerstin Ramstrom: I’m so glad that we could do this q&a, because I had gone out to our community to ask for some questions. And I just wanted to make sure that we had a chance to delve into some of the most common problems that people were seeing with their pets.

And so the first thing I wanted to talk about was osteo-arthritis, which seems really common in dogs and cats. And so when someone’s thinking about that in terms of the imbalance that their pet is dealing with, what can they do to directly address that, and support their pet while they’re dealing with it?

Dr. Jeff Feinman: Wow, that’s great that you went there first, because that is perhaps the quintessence of the best example of individuality. So how would you address it, is different than how you support it, because it’s based on the individual and all of the methods of support that we discuss are based on manifestations, not that arthritis in that individual.

And I’ll give you one quick example. And that is we’ve known for many years that X ray evidence of severe hip dysplasia may or may not cripple pet. On the other hand, a pet may be having major, major arthritis problems from minor little X ray abnormalities or very little arthritis. And it’s all about how that individual responds to the structural changes known as arthritis. Arthritis is typically a breakdown of the joints, joint fluid rumbling and all these things that can be life limiting and the way that we prevent that or even support that is dependent on the individual, but always starting with, you know, fresh food feeding, minimizing vaccinations, because we know from the research that vaccines and arthritis are directly linked. There’s even no kinds of arthritis that are due to vaccinations, through supplements, diet. There is a pulsed electromagnetic frequency devices like the CC loop that are awesome, awesome support for dogs. We talked last time a little bit about the blueberry kale smoothie, the wild blueberry organic kale smoothie. That’s great, great support for arthritic pets. But I guess I would say that is a really important part of your research into the symptom of your pet, the individual pet. And that is so important, because it’s evidence of susceptibility of your individual pet. That’s susceptibility and sensitivity are the determinants of how much any trigger, how much any disease is gonna impact life.

And susceptibility is improved by supporting the body. So we actually reduce chances of a susceptibility by supporting the body.

Kerstin Ramstrom: Okay, great. And in terms of fleas and ticks, which are common, I’ll call them a parasite. I don’t know if they’re medically considered a parasite….

Dr. Jeff Feinman: They’re an ecto-parasite, outside the body.

Kerstin Ramstrom: Okay, fantastic. So the next question I have is on fleas and ticks. How do you deal with those pets?

Dr. Jeff Feinman: It depends on the individual, and I apologize… every question you ask me, the answer’s going to be, it depends on the context. And they’re dealt with differently. Fleas are already on your pet. The very best way to deal with them is with the flea comb, which is a fine tooth comb that you can use to take the fleas off, and then get rid of…. liberate the fleas or don’t get rid of the fleas that way. But the flea problem is mainly an environmental problem. So the fleas live in your house so actually, once you get rid of the fleas on your pet, they’re going to probably come right back, because they’re living in the carpet or they’re living on the baseboards. So a lot depends on environmental cleanup, which you do by vacuuming, vacuuming, vacuuming. Diatomaceous earth sprinkled into the carpet, letting it sit for an hour. Some people have fleas living in their yard. We can have beneficial nematodes, which are an organic form of flea control, actually eating the larvae of fleas…. nematodes eat the larvae to reduce the flea population.

Kerstin Ramstrom: What’s a nematode?

Dr. Jeff Feinman: A worm, a little tiny microscopic worm that lives in soil. Google beneficial nematodes, you’ll find there are a bunch of them out there. Hardware stores carry them, a lot of holistic pet stores carry them, and you just sprinkle them in the grass, in the yard dirt. And water them in and they live out there and feast on the flea larvae.

Kerstin Ramstrom: Fantastic.

Dr. Jeff Feinman: They’re actually…. It’s something that did the same for ticks.

Kerstin Ramstrom: Oh, wow. So you can look for those at the store?

Dr. Jeff Feinman: Don’t think you find those commonly, but you can find them online for sure.

Kerstin Ramstrom: Okay, good to know. Oh, that’s interesting. And so I know that the remedies that many vets give you…. I had to give them to Mr. Felix at one point where you put the…. there were some drops that I had to put on his fur – and I always felt terrible doing that because I didn’t want to touch him for like two days after I put those drops on there. Because I knew that they were trying to kill ticks. And I didn’t want to get it on my hands and in my mouth. But then I kept thinking, yeah, but it’s all over him too. And I don’t like that. So besides the comb, is there anything more beneficial that we can use? Are there essential oils or anything that are helpful for that?

Dr. Jeff Feinman: There’s there are a ton of other things. Flea combing or bathing are what you do when there are fleas on your pet. You know, you get rid of them off your pet, you get rid of them in the environment. Then, like, Earth Animal has a whole internal food-based flea protocol. There are essential oils, AnimalEO.com has a way and other essential oils that can help keep the fleas and ticks away. There are a lot of natural strategies for that, you know there are powders. Buck Mountain has a wonderful flea powder that can work very well. And these are, you know, more naturally based products. And one thing I do want to say about fleas is they do seem to be attracted to imbalanced animals. And sometimes the strategy is upgrading the diet, supporting the body, and the fleas don’t come around as often. And a great example might be the two pets that live in the same household, where one’s covered with fleas and one does have fleas, does not have many fleas. Or one has a horrible flea allergy and the other doesn’t. And that’s based on the individual.

Kerstin Ramstrom: Fantastic, I know on your Holistic Actions website, that you have a free “Fun-damentals” course. And under the toxics category of that course, there is more on fleas and ticks. And so that’s a good resource for people too, among the other things that you just mentioned, which, that’s such great advice, because I know people are really frustrated with having to do with fleas and ticks on a more conventional basis.

And then in terms of skin allergies, and I realized this is going to be very dependent. There’s a lot of factors that go into this one. What are things that we can do to support our pets with that?

Dr. Jeff Feinman: Well, that is an important question, because it’s starts HMDM at number one: what is your goal for your itchy pet or your pet that has hotspots all the time, or ear problems all the time, or other allergic manifestations? If the goal is to support the body and get rid of the symptoms, then you can do that, you know, with baths, with various natural supplements and products. But our goal is to cure the underlying immune imbalance that results in hyper-sensitivity or allergy in the first place. And the more balanced that they are fewer the allergic symptoms you can see. So frequently the strategy for allergies, is the same strategy for arthritis or other support with fresh food, with the Happiness Protocol,  with the Terrain Optimizing Protocol. Things that help the body to do its job as well as it can do. And part of that is normalizing the immune balance that results in allergic symptoms.

Kerstin Ramstrom: Fantastic. So if you participate in the Premium membership or the All-Access membership, you’ll have access to that. How wonderful that those resources are now available. I remember when I had Mr. Felix, there were no resources like this available. And that would have been so helpful to me for all the health issues that he had over his very long 18 years. But it’s fantastic that you have that available now.

The next thing that I wanted to talk about was diabetes. Obviously this is a very big concern and people and is becoming a bigger concern in pets. Do you have any recommendations for that?

Dr. Jeff Feinman: Well, the number one thing is diet, when it comes to diabetes diet and weight control. Especially in kitty cats that often eat a dry-food-based diet and are often overweight, both those things are risk factors for bringing on diabetes. And cats that when they resolve, the body is able to actually resolve the diabetes. You know, I know kitties that go on insulin that are able to actually go off insulin just by losing weight and going on fresh food diet.

Kerstin Ramstrom: Okay, fantastic. And as we’ve already mentioned, that fresh food diet, we had talked about it in the previous episode, that you can find out more about that in the free Fun-damentals course, on the HA! website. So that’s fantastic. Okay.

And in terms of otitis extrema, which that’s the technical name for it, we all know them as ear infections. Are there any topical solutions? I think what we’ve seen is the trend from what we’ve been talking about is, there is clearly a body environment issue when any of these things are popping up. And so the first step would be working on, you know, the underlying environment in their body. But in terms of ear infections, are there any recommendations you have for drops or anything that would make that less painful for the pet as it’s going on?

Dr. Jeff Feinman: Sure. Sensitive ears is a really big issue. Even sometimes when we’re supporting the body, you know, if an ear problem crops up, it’s hard to keep supporting the body in the face of a sensitive or painful otitis externa. And yeah, just like you said, otitis externa, it’s just an external ear infection. It’s always a manifestation of allergies. So often the first manifestation, you know, when they’re puppiesm, they have red ears, and then the vet says uh, you know, it’s got an ear infection, let’s put the steroid in the ear. The redness goes away, but does that actually kept rid of the underlying problem or not?

But to answer your question, there are lots of drops. topicals, other ways to support ears, but it depends on the manifestations of the symptoms. For example, a red ear is gonna be different than a year that’s full of discharge, or a swollen ear, but they’re all called ear infections, or otitis externa. So it may just be that’s like an enzyme like Zymox, which is an enzyme product is all that you need support the ear or cleaning out the ear is all that you need. Garlic and mullein. A lot of the same things that support us we have of otitis externa work well for animals.

Kerstin Ramstrom: Okay, so a garlic mullein ear oil would be an appropriate thing to use?

Dr. Jeff Feinman: It would be totally appropriate.

Kerstin Ramstrom: Great.

Dr. Jeff Feinman: Yeah. But when it comes to painful ear infections, it’s a good idea to see your vet to make sure there’s no other underlying problem. But it’s all part of the context. You know, that’s part of the information you get, so they’re going to give the conventional treatment, which is a steroid antibiotic cream. That will get rid of the symptoms quickly, but it may not get rid of them permanently. And often, they go away, come back, go away, come back.

Kerstin Ramstrom: Okay. And especially if it’s coming back, that symptom is trying to tell you something.

Dr. Jeff Feinman: Right.

Kerstin Ramstrom: Fantastic. Dental disease. I know my vet was always trying to get me to brush Mr. Felix’s teeth. And I will tell you, he would have none of that. There was none of that going on at our house. And he paid the price. I think he only had six or eight teeth left in his mouth by the time he moved to the dearly departed. So what would be some of your advice for maintaining animal’s teeth? It seems to me they weren’t born having a bathroom with a cup with a toothbrush. Is it the diet that we’re giving them now that tends to lead to those dental problems? Or is it something else?

Dr. Jeff Feinman: Well, you went to the place that I was about to go to and that is that they don’t brush their teeth in the wild. But, you know, it’s like Archie, who doesn’t like his teeth brushed, but he’s asleep right now, he’s gonna have to miss the demo, you know, their pearly white. Because it’s usually combination of genetics. So certain breeds have more dental issues than others. Whereas, you know, mixed breeds that, like Archie, tend to not have the same problems that like a small little pure breed dog has. Diet is a huge one. There’s a vet in, I believe, Doctor Lonsdale in Australia, teaches the raw meaty bone diet, it’s a diet based on eating raw, meaty bones. And that’s how animals actually usually keep their teeth clean, is by eating big chunks of meat and big chunks of edible bones, not recreational bones. Brushing is not really a big part of that. But you can brush very easily with a chicken neck or something that they brush their own teeth with that they want to eat.

Kerstin Ramstrom: Okay. It’s interesting, because one of the things that Anthony William mentioned in the live that he did about dental issues was that in humans, lots of protein in our gums is very detrimental to our teeth. But of course, we have to remember that our pets, dogs and cats and other animals, they are not constructed the same way that we are. Their stomach digestion is different than ours is. And the things they need to eat, to support their best health are different from what we want to eat. And so while this is not the recommended approach for humans, these are, as we would say, completely different beasts.

Dr. Jeff Feinman: And yeah, I do I do apologize, because I know we didn’t go into that in this episode. But yeah, that is…. a fundamental issue is eating a species appropriate diet. And whereas people are designed to be more plant based and vegan, dogs and cats, not so much. And yeah, the protein is a big issue for people and can be for animals, but not so much.

Kerstin Ramstrom: Yes, I think that’s a great point, species specific diet, it matters. Great. So I know that urinary tract issues are very common with pets. What are your thoughts on those?

Dr. Jeff Feinman: Wow, that’s that’s a great, great question. I’m glad you asked that one because it’s really important, very common. And it may be among the best examples of the importance of Holistic Management because now we’re finding that a big part of what used to be called Feline Lower Urinary Tract Disease or feline interstitial cystitis. A lot of those symptoms, which are clues that something’s going on in the body, but a lot of them are secondary to lifestyle. So the number one way to address that in kitty cats is environmental enrichment. So extra hiding places, because scared cats may manifest their stress via their urinary symptoms. The bladder is one of the cat’s big stress organs. Increasing water consumption in kitty cats, actually dogs and cats. Big supportive way for the body to be able to heal from a UTI. Cranberry extract, vitamin C. All these things are great ways to support the body while it heals. But all along, you want to avoid the number one trigger for urinary problems in dogs and especially cats and the number one trigger is dry food.

Kerstin Ramstrom: And why is that?

Dr. Jeff Feinman: Every dry food is 40-50% or more carbohydrates, which cats don’t need. Which predisposes them to diabetes, obesity, to all kinds of things, as well as urinary problems, like cystitis, and even kidney problems. And the other big part of dry food that you want to avoid is sub-clinical dehydration that it can create in the body. When a kitty cat is chronically sub clinically dehydrated, then they’re prone to developing kidney and bladder problems later on in life or even when they’re younger.

Kerstin Ramstrom: Wow, we dealt with lots of those at my house. I wish I’d had this information 25 years ago, my goodness. And we had lots of dry food because that’s what the doctor told us was the best thing. And that reiterates your point that we just talked about a second ago, species specific diet, and if that dry food is 40 to 50% carbs, where cats need primarily a meat-based diet. We did talk about this more in the first episode. So if you want more on that go to that first episode. But what you’re saying is most of that dry food doesn’t give him the balance of nutrition that they actually need. And it’s dry.

Dr. Jeff Feinman: Yeah, and they are complete and balanced. But as Randy Wysong, who is a vet nutritionist, that has a one food, it’s a myth. The complete and balanced myth is that that’s not necessarily what’s providing the best food for a dog or a cat. Just like we know that you can’t be healthy as a person eating a processed food diet. And there are links, direct links to cancer. The more processed food you eat, the more diseases like cancer, you can be predisposed to.

Kerstin Ramstrom: Wow, such good information. Okay. Hopefully that will save somebody from dealing with what Mr. Felix and I dealt with. It’s, I really wish we’d had that then. so fantastic.

Dr. Jeff Feinman: I know it’s important because the environmental enrichment piece that is the key is part of what is given PLN urinary symptoms now, the name Pandora syndrome. And the reason I even mentioned Pandora as in a plethora or Pandora’s box of symptoms and diseases that are all helped by environmental enrichment itself. We have a blog, on strategies to help Pandora. I believe it’s on like…. Are urinary problems inevitable in cats? It’s one of the more recent blogs, but if you’re on the Holistic Actions website and you just searched for the word Pandora, it’ll probably come right up.

Kerstin Ramstrom: I’ll put a link to it in the show notes, so that people will be able to find that easily.

Dr. Jeff Feinman: Awesome.

Kerstin Ramstrom: Great, thank you. Moving on from that. I wanted to talk about some other things that come up with pets, and one of them….. Right now it’s August, and most recently, it was Fourth of July weekend. And all the fireworks shows were happening. And I know so many friends who have dogs that are so traumatized by fireworks and lightning, what drives that? And is there anything they can do to better support their dogs for that? It seems to me like that’s more of an emotional support situation, but I wanted to get your thoughts.

Dr. Jeff Feinman: Well, it depends. It depends on the context of the disease and the individual and the severity of the symptom. There are a ton of research-proven ways support… whether it’s CBD, a thunder shirt, or, you know, other strategies that support the body. And it may just be playing calming music or isolating them in the bathroom where they’re not hearing the vibrations, or feeling the vibrations from thunder and seeing the lightning. But that may be one of the areas because all these areas that you’ve described, can be helped by helping the underlying imbalance. When it comes to fears, phobias and behavior issues that maybe aren’t being helped 100% by or enough by the strategies. In my opinion, the best way to (help) them is homeopathically and homeopathy is just a science based on symptoms, whereby you help balance out the energetic imbalance that created the thunder phobia or any phobia, loud noise phobia in the first place. And I mentioned homeopathy there because fears and phobias are a great example of susceptibility. And what homeopathy is best at is decreasing, or normalizing the susceptibility of the individual to triggers like thunder, fireworks, any loud noise, riding in the car or any fear or phobia.

If you’re looking for additional support in your own health journey, you can learn more about how we can work together directly by going to my health coaching website at CarefullyHealing.com or by finding me on social media on Instagram at @CarefullyHealingwithKerstin or on Facebook.

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Thank you for joining me today on the Quest for Healing Podcast. These discussions are not intended to provide medical advice, but rather to give you examples of methods and modalities that you may find interesting, informative or helpful. Please work with your doctor as you undertake your own health journey.