Brendan, Dr. Conor Brady, and Nick answer audience questions on raw feeding and veterinary care. They review efficacy studies for Librela, a monoclonal antibody for canine arthritis where 44-47% of dogs benefit, and discuss confusing safety data across different countries. They also cover lick granulomas, lipomas, ear-tip crusting possibly linked to mold toxins, and announce a Raw Pet Medics event in Istanbul March 23-24 with researcher Anna Heim-Björkman.
Chapters
Tonight, this should work. If it's not, follow us over on YouTube. If you all want to know in advance, just because of the last couple of weeks, find us on YouTube. Wonderful channel. You can join us there. Loads of people. We can actually see you comment live if you go over there. But for you guys on Facebook, it's great to see your comments. I'm actually just about to plug you in so I can see anybody who's saying hello. We are live. I've double-checked. So we should make it like a game.
It should be like a game each week where they don't know where we're going to be on. It's like a treasure hunt and we leave very cryptic clues.
Catch me if you can. Yes, dashing around the world. Talking of which, we're doing question and answers, by the way, guys. And it's really good because we can freestyle. We can think out loud and what have you. I really like these, these events. Just want to, um, we've all been recording some, some promos. Uh, we are going to be in Istanbul this, uh, this year in March the 23rd and the 24th. It's a big 2-day international event. There's going to be these funny guys from Raw Pet Medics, so I'm told. And more to the point, there's going to be the star of the show, who is Anna Heim-Björkman, who the leading researcher pretty much on the planet in raw. If you can make it, I've just looked at some of the flights and they're ridiculously— I mean, it's about £150 return or something from Heathrow. Yeah, from Heathrow to Istanbul. So it's not crazy. However, it is online. Are you guys excited?
Yeah, I can't wait. I love a 2-day event. What sort of a nerd are you that with these events I get more excited about having more work to do with these events. So like, you know, because you can really get the information out, and particularly the second day, the way it's structured, of the way that Yaz has laid it out, is cool. So it's, it's, you know, we can tuck into a subject and you put it out there and then you delve into the inflammation and what it comes in, how it filters into these different diseases. It's just lovely. And you're sitting there with some— oh, I imagine it's with vets we're speaking to, aren't we? We are, we are.
Yeah, and the public. And I was there last year and I had over 50 vets in one room.
Brilliant.
For the whole day. It was only one day. And can you imagine that in the UK?
Yeah, it would never happen.
They were so attentive. They were quiet as church mice until about 3 o'clock in the afternoon. And then the questions came through. They were keen, really, really keen. So I think it's going to be great.
Yeah, it's going to be great. I mean, you're right. How often— we have the, you have the RF, Raw Feeding Veterinary Society conference each year, and when it's on in the UK, you'll get 50 to 100 vets, you know, and add on nurses and whatnot in a room. But outside of that, no matter who we appeal to, I can't imagine we would get 50 to 100 vets, certainly many conventional vets, turning up to listen to us talking about nutrition or anyone, you know, even if Anaheim Borgmann came over and was doing a talk on research in nutrition, would we get 50 to 100 conventional vets in a room? Probably not.
Yeah, that is interesting that we get that in other countries and It's been really good, hasn't it, the last couple of conferences where we've had the general public, we've had vets, vet nurses, you know, other dog walkers, all the way through to dog nutritionists, to physiotherapists, chiropractors, whoever is in that line of interest in nutrition. I think it's been really great to sort of have that merge and almost cross-pollination of ideas. So I sometimes feel that just vets Yes, there's an element of it's— there's some things that you know clinically, but I think so much more is known by the general public these days. It's great to actually have much more interaction across the board.
Must be tricky for vets. It must be tricky for you guys, certainly for a conventional vet that's unprepared for the conversation. You can sympathize with them when they are then speaking to someone about something and they kind of realize they are not as well versed in this in the subject and nutrition being a pillar, one of the 5 pillars of veterinary medicine. And so that must be difficult because people are coming in, I mean, you speak to some people on your page and it's like, oh my God, I barely know what she's talking about. You know, they're so well clued in because we're such nerds for this stuff. So that is, it must be hard for conventional vets to have some of the conversations, you know. And now we're talking about flea treatments and wormers and questioning annual boosters and, you know, suddenly neutering is a big thing. And, you know, these are big, big questions for, it's hard for vets to stay on top of all this stuff, you know, particularly if they don't come to our conferences. Yeah, yeah.
Anyway, well, there we go. First CPD, you know, join us.
Conor, you put out a post recently about Librella. This is the monoclonal antibody product for pain, arthritis.
And yeah, I had a second— as a non-vet here, guys, like, I had a second— I was talking to a client there and you know, dog had a bit of arthritis somewhere, so okay, what can we do here? Dog had a bit of extra weight on it and the diet we could fit, all basic stuff and a few little supplements, great. And she mentioned that the dog had a bad reaction to Labrella and I thought, oh, that's not the first time I've heard that, but I've also heard good things as well. So I knew very little about it and so I just thought I'd put it out to the public. And when I did, I shared the couple of studies, there's two studies out there on the success of it, and I shared it with the public and just gave them a little bit of background as to this drug. Now, most— there is an awful lot of people out there that know a hell of a lot more about the drug than I did, and we'll get them— we'll start whoever wants to tell us a little bit about the drug. But when I gave the success studies, I'll just give you these figures here. In the first study, 44% of the dogs treated with Librella, checked by a vet, appeared to benefit compared to 17% of the dogs on placebo. So straight away, isn't that interesting? When 17% of the dogs were seen to benefit in the placebo, they got nothing, they got saline solution. But listen to this, in the other study, 47% of the Librella-treated 135 appeared to benefit while 37% of the dogs in the placebo group benefited. So 47 versus 37 getting a placebo. So you're talking about 10% of a group of 135 dogs, 13 extra dogs in the group. And I'm saying, whoa, like, you know, if the differences are so fine in the benefit, there has to be as close to zero side effects to it because you have to treat so many dogs to see some benefit that the side effects have to be utterly minute. So I said, what's the story with the side effects? And before I posted, I had a quick read of the Dogs Naturally magazine piece on the Brella. Very good, guys. You want to check it out, go to Dogs Naturally magazine, type in the Brella, friend or foe type article on the Brella. It's pretty fairly written. And they said, here's the human version that they couldn't get to market. They spent millions and millions and millions, but they couldn't get it to market. Two separate safety committees said, no, no, we can't have this drug given to humans. And out it comes then for pets. Now, If you were to be a little bit dark, you might say, hmm, I've got questions. So what of the safety data? Well, it's very hard to find out about the safety data. And as soon as I posted up on the page, you can see a number of people have had some very bad reactions, but a lot of people had good success. So I'm going to talk to one of you guys about that because I know little about that. But one person highlighted when it comes to the safety data, it's very confusing because the US and EU insert highlights it's just a couple of little skin issues. 1 in 10,000 have a minor bit of pain at the injection site, bit of itch.
Skin issues.
And then the guys check out the Canadian insert and it lists all these side effects. So that was worrying and I thought, okay, where are we with this drug? And it really heated up the conversation, so I started stepping back. And that's when I told you guys there's a vet out there, Josie Bullock, that I think we should get on. She knows an awful lot about this. Yeah, for the moment, can you just— can you tell us a little bit about why some dogs are having a bad reaction to this pain med, or what type of medicine is it? Somebody help us out with that.
Yeah, I would say, look, it is a monoclonal antibody treatment, okay, for a start. So it has— it is a protein. Now let's just simplify it for a moment. This is an antibody that's made against a specific neurotransmitter. In this case, you know, that whether they use that in similar to Cytopoint, they'll look at a specific molecule, so interleukin-31 in Cytopoint, where that antibody will plug onto it and therefore allow the immune system to take that excess out of the body. Therefore, in Cytopoint's case, reducing the itch. In Librella's case, trying to reduce the wind-up of pain. Okay, so that's very simplified. Now, it is a mouse antibody, so to get enough, they use a mouse cell line, they produce loads of it, and then they convert it by chopping off the reactive parts which recognize the foreign— oh, sorry, the active agent that you want to take out of the system. And you put on a big canine part in the case of Librella, or a big feline part in the case of Silencio, which is the same drug but for cats. And what you do in that process is you're trying to fool the body into not seeing it as a foreign mouse protein being injected. Okay, so we know that about 2% of dogs or cats, depending which one they're given, will recognize it still as foreign, and so it will just have no effect whatsoever. So very quickly the body will recognize it as foreign, take it out, and therefore in about 2% of cases quoted by the company, if it's not working after injection, to stop using it.
And that's with no drama, Bren? No drama?
Yeah, no drama. It just stops working. However, what they are neglecting to say is there are some important parts in some of these transmitters that they play. And actually, if you ignore certain circumstances, for instance, if it has another concurrent neurological disease, or it has, you know, the part of its pain is to do with maybe disc disease or something that is actually impinging nerve anyway, nerve transmission, then using this drug can be really not the best thing. And in arthritis in the early stages, if you want to reduce inflammation and support better joint healing, you know, this is not going to be that drug. So we are seeing quite a lot of people using it because in pain relief, as a part of a bigger jigsaw, for some dogs it can be really, really useful, game-changing, you know, to quality of life. And that's— those are the, the big portion that say this is great. However, for those that have something concurrent, or it's just being used as a last-ditch effort and they've got concurrent disease, You know, we have to say if your dog shows any signs of ataxia after the first one, stop. Ataxia, that's wobbliness, that's, you know, slowness on the reflexes of the usually the back legs, but you know, it's not really functioning properly as far as feeling where its feet are. It may be that neurologically its balance centers are going. Please, please, please do not repeat the medication.
Okay, definitely one of the side effects leaping off the page is a dog that goes very wonky after some—
some of those you want to know, is that just concurrent disease and they're using the drug inappropriately in those circumstances? And I think the other thing that I'd like to mention before Nick comes on board is the difference between different countries as to what they will place on a datasheet. So some countries will want some degree of they can trace that data and say, yes, this is to do with this drug. And others will say, actually, if anything is reported in a public forum that they think that this is connected, they'll put that on the data sheet. Really? So yeah, absolutely. So there is, you know, if there's it just is dependent upon who is controlling those. And I think that's possibly why Canada's allowed a lot more to go onto that data sheet than the US and the UK. Now, I'm not saying which is right, absolutely not. I'm just saying there may be a difference there. And I think it would be great if— remember, in the UK especially, but I believe this is the case in the States as well, there's just different ways of reporting it. Vets, I would love it if vets would report every time they see any reaction as a suspect reaction.
Here, here.
Remember, guys, you as a general public, if your pet has seen any suspect— you don't need to define that it is, but suspect adverse reaction— you could report it too. Look up through whether the FDA or whether it's for the VMP.
We'll put the links up on the Facebook page.
Again, we have in the past. If you search on our Facebook page and look up drug reaction You'll see the post that we've put for those already, but we'll repost it so it's at the top. But please, you can report these yourselves. We would love it if this— because that then means that they have to look at that instance, and if there's enough incidents of recognizable symptoms with a particular drug, they will have to then put it on the data sheet.
Sorry, the yellow card system for vaccinations.
It is It's exactly the same.
Yeah. Nick, how many, many vets report side effects to drugs? What's the percentage?
Well, back in the day, in the '90s, I looked into this and, and Bren just quoted it, but it's a paper from about '94, 1994, and I was absolutely flabbergasted that within the medical profession, yeah, human doctors, they demonstrated using the yellow card system that 96% of adverse reactions are not reported to the authorities. So that means you get 100 people, and I think it's probably the same in veterinary medicine, you get 100 people who have an adverse reaction, and that's anything from a bit of a rash, bit of a sore arm after a medicine, whatever, to death. And 96% of those— yeah, so 96 of those 100 people standing in front of you with something wrong following a medicine, anything from an aspirin to cytotoxic, you know, chemotherapy, they're not being reported. And this is very much my experience. If I can just circle around to, to Librella, just a couple of thoughts. Just going back to basic principles, because as you know, I like basic principles. If you put protein into the body of— even if you try really, really hard, if you put foreign protein into anybody's body, the likelihood of you getting some kind of negative response is really pretty high. You know, if a bee stings you, things can go absolutely AWOL, yeah. So if you've actually entered it into, say, the muscle of that recipient, then I don't think there's any surprise that the Canadians have got a list as long as your arm of potential problems, okay. So that's number one, whatever the protein, it could be oxo, it could be albumin from an egg, you know, you do that very, very carefully, and vaccinologists have known about this for a very long time. The next thing is IL-31 doesn't just take part in the pain cascade because—
before you mix up there, so that's cytokine is IL-31, so NGF, so it's nerve growth factor for the Librella.
Okay, Librella, nerve growth factor, basic principles are the same in that nerve growth factor doesn't just influence nerve growth, just as, you know, insulin doesn't just regulate sugar, it regulates a thousand things. Okay, so Mother Nature is very conservative. Yeah, she'll have one fantastic molecule and she thinks, all right, I'm going to get it to do this, and I'm going to get it to do that, and I'm going to get it to do this. We humans, when we are pretty dumb, we come along and go, we don't like that part of your operating system, so we're going to knock that out. But at the same time, you knock out 2 or 3 or 4 other subtle, subtle, subtle pathways, and these are called side effects. So that's that. And reporting, yeah, we've just done that. And the last little thing that I've got on my list from our conversation just here, Josie Bug. Conor, can you get a hold of her? And she's done a lot of work on Nebula, and I think we could have an entire— we can talk about antibodies, we can talk about monoclonal antibody. I love the whole monoclonal, because when I was in college, that's when it all kicked off, 1986.
Brilliant. If you ever go to the States and you sit down for, you know, just to catch up what they watch on the telly, oh, every 5 minutes there seems to be an advert for another monoclonal antibody for some human medication. So I'm not surprised that they went down that route.
Because they're so, so, so specific. It's a beautiful technology. How it's used is another matter, but the technology is beautiful.
I'll get on to Josie, guys, and I will get her on the show and we'll do a show about that and pain relief and a couple of different options. And yeah, neurological issues, I think Josie was the vet, or there's a good few vets on that page actually, and most of them singing off the same hymn sheet. You need to warn people that any dogs with neurological issues should not be going on Libra, that they're the ones that are coming up with the outstanding side effects.
And so, okay, that is an interesting warning, but you know, I'd actually like to rule roundup because there's been another one by Dogs Naturally in the States with regards to gabapentin, which is another pain relief, not being FDA approved. Okay. But loads and loads of people using it for pets. Well, okay. So, and it's something that I see in the UK a lot, loads and loads of people using gabapentin.
How is it not approved?
But we've got a way up there because actually the pathways are sort of understood. And if it's in a balance of a rounded pain management scheme, I think, okay. But if you're just sort of like, you know what, I don't know what to use, I'm just going to use gabapentin.
Yeah, that's not an approach that should be considered, particularly when there's not 9 other steps beforehand that we didn't take. You know what I mean? Just let's decrease inflammation in the body and see if we can get rid of this arthritis inflammation in the joint. Where is this inflammation coming from? A sick gut will make your joints sore, you know.
Sort of have to be a little bit cautious with that as well because we know there's some great complementary medicines, herbs and things like that, also aren't FDA approved. So, you know, from a point of view of we've got to be careful, you know, before the cow paints the pot black, you know.
From a point of view of, you know, herbs and things that grow out of the ground to me seem a lot more, you know, permissible than something made in the factory.
But then, you know, we look at Devil's Claw interaction with turmeric. You know, there's all sorts of crossovers with how they work on anti-inflammatory pathways. You've got, you know, aspirin is willow bark extract. You'd say yes, it might be safer if it's still in the herbal form, but how many extracts are being made from these herbs? I want to know how much stuff is herbal medicine.
So I want to know how much willow bark you have to eat before you get a negative side effect, because there's plenty of groups that use willow. Oh, that's going to be a good one. I'm going to check that out. Like, it's hard to overeat in the, in the compounds found in their natural form. Not impossible, God knows, but it's hard. And the body generally takes them in a separate way. Guys, we have got— we've just spent—
I've got just one more, one more. No, no, it's about the FDA.
Okay.
Uh, and, and, and, uh, the UK regulatory authorities. Oxygen is not, uh, officially recognized as beneficial to health either. Yeah, it's not a regulated substance. Yeah, okay, so just to— I've been watching Dr.
Malik, his podcast, and my mind has been blown. He's your new man crush.
Yeah, but Nick, I've got to say, if you've read James Nestor and Breath, then you'd know why Oxygen hasn't got an FDA approval because it can be downright dangerous if used inappropriately.
It's a wonder we're not all bursting into flames. You know, it's fantastic. Oxygen is toxic as hell. Yeah, we've just learned to live with it. Plants, they really like it. They like CO2.
While we're going off on tangents, um, that's what Lane says, I'm like a puppy chasing a crisp packet.
It's quite accurate.
At least you're not chasing your tail.
Did you know that E. coli eats all the oxygen or uses all the oxygen in your gut, and, and that is what permits the anaerobic bacteria to do their thing in your gut? And so when you see E. coli, because there's so many different species of it, only a couple of them are, are a little bit nasty, and the rest of them are, they would Oh, they've got no consequence at all. They've actually— most of them probably have a function we just poorly understand. But a lot of E. coli, they— so they consume the oxygen that's in your gut. And if they weren't there, you couldn't have anaerobic bacteria doing their thing. And I thought, how interesting, because oxygen is a poison to the bacteria in your gut. So I thought, oh, so you can't just— you can't just napalm E. coli, you know. And if you napalm yeast, E. coli will grow. Napalm E. coli, yeast will grow because the two of them work hand in hand as well. So, oh, it's so interesting, guys. Okay, look, we are Raw Pet Medics. You'll find us on patreon.com/rawpetmedics. Medics. Thanks to everybody for sending in their questions there. We have— we swore we'd get to tell them tonight. I've got another one. Oh God, and we will get to them after Nick's quick tangent.
They're killing themselves on Facebook, they're laughing their heads off. You know, we've got people—
Pfizer are making DNA for the vaccine using E. coli, just to big up E. coli, just to say that they're not all bad. Yeah, they are actually using them for, for other purposes.
Yeah, that's right. Shall I call out a couple more? Listen, this one, this one's come up in two different forms, so it'll be good enough. Okay, flea and worms has come up a lot of times, guys. We'll do another show at some stage in February on flea and worms, okay? And so we're not going to just deal— we've hit that two or three times. If you just Google those or search those words on our Facebook page, you'll get a number of lives on them Phantom pregnancy was 2 weeks ago, 3 weeks ago with Lisa Hansen and neutering. Check that out, half that was about phantom pregnancy. Okay, licking bum excessively, stroke, lick granuloma. A client here whose dog is constantly licking her bum and to the point of utter distraction, not anal gland issues. And then on Patreon we have here a lick granuloma on a leg that will not go away. Very raw feeder, sorry, very natural raw feeder. That type of thing. So first of all, to the bum one, is it possible the dog has a lick granuloma on her kind of anus kind of area and that's what started this? That's where this dog is. What else can make a dog lick its bum? And then maybe to the other person for the lick granuloma on the leg that won't go away.
Okay, I'm going to jump in there just to give you the simple overview. The reason you get a lick granuloma is that the dog is irritated in that area for some reason. There is a caveat on that. And, and is, is going at it. For example, the classic— and here we go, here's the caveat coming along— is the classic is Jack Russell or Golden Retriever who's left alone for a long time. Nothing wrong with their— classically, it's on the wrist. Okay, Jack Russell left in the, left in the builder's van for hours and hours and hours on end, get bored, and rather than sucking their thumb because they haven't really got one, they will just chew the first thing that comes to their attention. And they can chew and chew and chew. And a lick granuloma is an area that's been overlicked. You can get an area of proud flesh, and they're a nightmare to heal. A, because proud flesh is difficult to treat, but B, because they just go at it and go at it and go at it. Yeah. Okay, so there's a psychological aspect, but there's also a physiological aspect. If that Jack Russell, Golden Retriever, or any other dog is going at an area, you've got to think, is there a foreign body in there? Is there arthritis there? Is there some other thing? Maybe they've pulled ligaments, something like that. And they just got, they've got a sore joint and they're just going at it because you and I would just go like this and complain to your wife.
Kind of like a bad tooth and you just keep at it.
And you just keep at it. Yeah. So classically, you know, lichen granuloma, it's, you're licking it. So they're not on the face because you can't lick your face. Yeah. If it's on your face, you're going to go like mad. If you've got a bad ear, you're going to go like mad and you're going to go create a great hotspot here. If it's on your bum, it's because most likely there's some kind of irritation on your bum. That's either going to be your skin. Yeah, okay, so on the surface, it's your skin, could be the nerves, there could be some kind of neuropathy, could be that the anal glands, they're a bit infected. And so therefore, that's inflammatory, might be a tumour, God forbid. You know, if you just think of any disease process that brings your attention back to that area, okay, boom, you can get the lick granuloma, boom, so to speak. Yeah, any, any—
yeah, so, um, two interesting cases on that, that factor. Um, I've had one, and I think she watches, so I'm not going to mention anything else other than, you know, hi if you're out there, you might recognize this case. Um, had a, um, a German Shepherd who had intense itching around the anus, and we went through all of the things with regards to skin disease and sensitivities and allergies and everything. She'd been on medications from previous vets, from us, to try and determine what's gone on. She'd had test doses to suppress any itching, and discovered that they just really weren't touching it. And actually, I'd also been looking at some other symptoms that she'd had as far as lameness and issues with her back. We'd had her to a chiropractor, I'd been doing some acupuncture, and sort of reviewing the case and using particular points. And I was thinking, this back is getting more and more sensitive, and the itching under her bum was particularly bad. And I asked for them to redo the MRI, and actually we could see that there was a degenerative disc disease within the spine which was causing bulging discs onto the nerves. And actually what we found was that when we started a different pain relief protocol and weaned away from all of the treatments that she was having to try and reduce the itching, that's actually reduced the itching. So neuropathic pain. Yeah, so a little bit like pins and needles. Okay, you can imagine how itchy that is.
Yeah.
So I've seen that in forelimbs as well, so where they get neck pain. So I guess if your dog is on a leash or they've ever pulled on the lead because they've been keen to get to play with another dog, or anything like that, that's a possibility. They've had a bad birthing. We've talked about that before, and it's never been corrected, those sort of things. So think neuropathy is certainly a possible— or neuritis. So an inflammatory, almost irritation with the nerve. The other really interesting one, which was a golden retriever, was we initially thought typical anal gland type breed, let's, you know, we'll go down that route— just constantly had an itchy anus regardless of what we were doing. We tried various trials. What we discovered was they actually had a change as soon as we stopped them giving the carrots as a treat. It stopped all of the itchiness. So whether the carrots were causing a yeast excess or a thrush-like symptom within the rectum, but it was— sorry, showing as a symptom actually on the exterior anus, that's a possibility. Thrush can be quite itchy. Yeah, but it's not a typical food group that you would consider within the allergies, but it could be something as stupid as that. Yeah, you know, and it was ridiculous because we were just getting so frustrated with, you know, what is going on with this dog? Why is it so itchy? And literally we went through all the treats and we said, right, we're gonna simplify. This is the only treats you can have. Yeah, he's got the carrots and it stopped.
Ah, yeast is an obvious one. I'm really hoping I said that to, uh, the— I spoke to the lady with the bum issue, with the, with the dog with the bum issue, and I would have thought yeast would have been thought about, but Yeah, so the endogland issues has been, has been ruled out, but that's not to say that the anal glands aren't still inflamed. Like, they, they don't— they're not all going to be overloaded and full. I mean, you can still— I imagine it gives you a lot of relief when they're squeezed, I'm sure, but it's— that doesn't take away the fact, imagine, that the anal gland is still in trouble. No, it could still be itchy a few days later and build up, and then over 2 or 3 weeks later, then you need it refilled.
Okay, that's, that's going to be an interesting paper on ATP linked to anal gland issues in the 2000s with regards to, you know, if you've got an atopic dog, there were something like 10 times more likely.
Well, that makes sense.
I can't remember the exact figures being likely to have anal gland issues.
That makes sense. If you think that, like, if you were to blame anal gland issues on an inflamed gut, okay, and inflammation and inflammation from the gut, and Helsinki said it takes a year before that pops up on the skin. Well, those dogs start to get ate up, being more likely to have these gut inflamed gut issues. Well, who knows? Okay, guys, let's move along. And there's a— there's a— there's this— this one has come up before, we've mentioned it before. But somebody— let's keep this one really quick. Is there non-surgical solutions to fatty lumps?
I'll go—
I'll go with that.
Brendan's thinking. There is There is talk in the homeopathic community, veterinary homeopathic community, about using belladonna, and I've used it a couple of times, and I can't say for certain, but I think it might be useful just using belladonna 30C. Belladonna is a remedy that we use. It's the classic— is the child that's teething, or the child that has a— in the human medicine has a fever. Yeah, that angry, they're red, there's just all this going on. It's very energetic.
Earache thing.
Earache, a lot of inflammation. Okay, and that's the classic. And the lipoma is the opposite of that. It just kind of sits there, doesn't do much. I'm a lipoma, don't worry about me. That's kind of what lipomas do. And so it was absolutely bizarre, which is why it stuck in my mind and why I've used it probably half a dozen times. And I I think it might be useful. It might be determined by the constitution of the dog, you know, the vitality, the makeup of that dog, but it's going to cost you pennies. And so if I had somebody who was on a fantastic diet and was having great fats and no rubbish and was on, you know, on a minimum vaccination regime and a minimum flea and tick regime and, you know, all the good stuff, and there was a lipoma there and it was just kind of coming along, just kind of saying hello, I would definitely go with something like belladonna 30C weekly for 6 months. Why not, Bren?
Yes. So that's really interesting, isn't it? And I so hope Fiona has clipped out that your impression of lipoma for future reference. That's from a point of view. I am not sure that I would say that it's just innocuous. I think it's a body's expression of an inflammatory change. But I have used various remedies. Pulsatilla actually comes up with in the materia medica as a useful remedy for those fatty lumps. And, you know, there are some similarities in you know, where you're at with those calc carbs, which is the chronic of belladonna, also comes out in some of those. So especially for the slightly rotund Labradors that have them, I still come back to, you know, is it just an excess production because it's a benign type of growth and therefore you're more into psychotic psychosis and using some of the remedies around, you know, that we'd classically think with Thuja and things like that, or would we go for carcinogen? And actually, more and more I tend to revert back, and that may be to do with my constitution, towards using remedies that treat cancers and how we plus them. And it's not just about, you know, the potency and what you're giving, but actually how you combine that and push the body and what building blocks you give them alongside it. And I think this is one of the reasons that I've been so interested in nutrition and so interested in changing what, you know, the root causes of some of that is. Not just thinking that I can give a homeopathic medicine to cure all of these ills, um, and that's all I should need to do. Because actually, we're taught when we learn homeopathy, as Nick will attest to, that actually there is so much more to homeopathy than little white tablets. It is actually How do you correct the diet? How do you correct the environment? You cannot sort out malaria if you're still living in the marshlands. You need to move them into a healthier environment to live. You need to change all of those things. So in modern life, what does that mean? We talked with Planet Paws about this. We've said you've got to watch about what's coming out of the exhaust or tailpipes if you're in the States. You've got to watch about where you're walking your dogs, what fields are sprayed with. You've got to watch what your Wi-Fi is doing in the house, you know, what you're using for your cleaning products. There's so many other things. So just because you're feeding raw and you're following us thinking, I'm doing everything for my dog, I'm feeding raw, I'm avoiding vaccines, I'm, you know, doing all of these things, why is my dog still getting lumps? Oh my God, there is so much more in the environment to look at.
Oh, we've lost him.
Oh, we've lost you. You've gone on mute. What's going on?
Sorry, my kid was outside.
She was gone. That looked like really interesting.
I was working— I've been waiting patiently as well. I was working with a herbalist there on a few little bits and pieces, and she said, look, you know, people keep wanting to just produce this product, but you don't even think about how the lymphatics work, and you've got to get that moving. There's and I thought, well, there's something I don't know about lymphatics and drainage and stuff. I really don't understand that. And then I'm thinking lymphatics, lymph, fatty deposits, and I'm just having to Google there. Is there not like a thing where people have like a stagnant lymphatic kind of system for whatever reason, or an overload of that system, and you get these fatty lumps? Humans get fatty lumps from that. They're not as big. I mean, the dog ones are just like big plums on some of these Labradors. But I thought maybe this, this, like you said, there's a whole heap of different systems that are working. Guys, I want to move on to one more question from Patreon because I've We want to finish up nice and like more promptly here, 1945, so we can move to Patreon. This is another one from Patreon. Um, this lady says— this is a good one. Um, uh, oh, where is it? Uh, Nikki Hamill said, what about the little dry crusty bits at the end of the dog's ears, please? I saw another dog with that 2 or 3 weeks ago. Have you ever seen dogs, the ear tips are crusty and dry? I've seen that before on a dog. What is that? What do you do?
So my interpretation of a lot of those— so just watch whether it's just a dry crust, or when you get there, is there a slight thickening of the tip? Because if there's a slight thickening underneath the crust, okay, then that I consider a vasculitis, so an inflammation of the blood vessels, a little bit like chilblains in people. People, okay, how your extremities can be really inflamed and, you know, really, really itchy, like, you know, just incredibly itchy. But I see this on dogs and sometimes they even look like they've been eaten away. Yeah, because they're starting to— yeah, sort of from that side of things. Now I've had some really good results with some of the Saccharomyces, which is one one of the molds that you find, if I get this right, Nick, on similar to ergot, isn't it? Yeah, so on grains and things like that, and it can cause that same vasculitis and reduction of blood flow in extremities. So you're almost getting a gangrene, okay, of this. That's what is going on. The blood supply is cutting off and the the oxygen is not getting to those tissues because of the vasculitis, the inflammation in those blood vessels stopping the blood cells getting to the tissue and delivering the oxygen. So yeah, you can get all sorts. So there's various things that you would treat chill blains with. I've used and been effective. I've got a wonderful little whippet that I've been treating for that in the past, and she is probably must be getting on for at least 6, 7 years from when she was like really an immune-mediated condition, so an autoimmune condition that was causing it. And she is doing great guns. You'd never think that she had those problems now when you look at her. You know, affects the paws as well sometimes, not just the ear tips. So just watch out.
My thought would be if you've got those kind of things and it is a vasculitis, which is possibly— I mean, there's a number of reasons why you could have vasculitis, but if it's like an autoimmune thing, the problem is not with the ears, the problem is with the immune system. So you've got to review the vaccination policy, you've got to review the diet, you know, the whole thing. Yeah, fundamentally, Bren and I probably have a very similar approach to many disease processes that you can't treat whatever it is that's the tip of the iceberg until you've actually had a really, really good look and you've modulated what's below the surface. Yeah, because what happens with the iceberg, if you chop off the top of the iceberg, it's just going to roll over and deliver you with another tip of the iceberg. Yeah. So I think the answer to many, many of the questions that we get is going to be get the basics right. You know, the food, the vaccines, the— I'm not saying don't vaccinate, I'm just saying take a very big rational run at the vaccine question. The pharmaceuticals, the pesticides that you put on or in your dog, make sure you've got those right. Look at the environment, you know, is it healthy for you? If it's not healthy for you, it's not going to be healthy for the dog. Do your best. You probably won't do it for you because nobody does, but Do it for the dog. Yeah, this is really, really useful, and there's a whole other show there. Also another show, lymphatics.
I love lymphatics. I know nothing. I want to learn about that. Cool, let's force that one in. I want to, uh, cool. Uh, guys, we are Raw Pet Medics on patreon.com/rawpetmedics. Thanks to everybody for supporting us there and keeping us going. We do appreciate that. We see you And yes, keep your questions coming in and thoughts, and we appreciate that. If you can, great. If you can't, it doesn't matter. We're here every week anyway. We're going to jump over to Patreon now and give another 10 or 15 minutes of a few. We have a million questions still to do, but there's a couple still hanging around. How long do I give probiotics for after antibiotics? That's a cracker. Types that they're using, so we can have a quick touch on that. That's important because people are using too much probiotics these days, in my opinion. And a couple of other cool questions. There was a question there, guys, about the kibble diet. Cats that are, I have to use the word allegedly, but there's something going on maybe over in the US here and we can see the reports. So until it's officially announced, we don't really know, but now there's a few little reports coming in, one or two dogs, one death apparently in the UK connected to a kibble. But these are kind of client-led stuff. And so just let us get your thoughts on that and, you know, Is it possible for something in the US to be happening in the EU at the same time? Are they the same pet foods? Do they all, you know, so let's have a look and see if we know anything about that.
And also on balance, let's have a quick touch as well on Patreon about the Enterobacteriaceae outbreaks as well. There's a paper being written in the last couple of weeks in Raw Food in the UK. So let's have a chat about that too.
Oh, that's a lot.
Okay, all right guys, brilliant to see you all. If you want to join us, have a look out for the advertisements for the 360 conference over in Turkey. We'd love to see you there too, even if it's remotely. And we look forward to seeing you next week. For everybody else, if you can follow us over to Patreon, look forward to seeing you there. Cheers.
