About

Holistic medicine views the patient as a living creature. It sees the totality of the living being with a vital force interacting with the rest of life. Disease is seen as a disruption of the energetic flow of the individual, which needs to be strengthened and balanced to return to health and harmony.
One of my greatest frustrations as a conventional practitioner is knowing that, in many cases, the drugs only suppress the symptoms while the underlying disease continues to worsen. Holistic practitioners see the symptoms as the patient's best response to the disease. When symptoms are suppressed, the disease goes deeper into the patient and expresses later as deeper pathology.
​I still use conventional medicine where appropriate. It is wonderful for treating acute emergencies, for repair of mechanical defects (eg fractures), for most bacterial infections. Holistic medicine works great for chronic degenerative diseases, chronic pain, immunodeficiency and allergic conditions and behavior problems. In most cases, this is a slow process and can have ups and downs before the patient's condition can return to balance. But it is worth the journey. The veterinarian and pet parent must be able to work together and communicate well during this process.