Brendon and Nick break down tick prevention and treatment for dogs, comparing prescription options like NexGard and Bravecto with natural alternatives including essential oil sprays and dietary supplements. They cover Lyme disease, Anaplasma, and other tick-borne illnesses, plus how to safely remove ticks and manage drug side effects like seizures in epileptic dogs.
Chapters
All right, you're not live yet. You're not on.
Yeah, we are, we are, we are, but they can't see you.
You can do what you like, Nick. Nick's just getting—
Good evening, everybody. I'm just gonna dash off to me shelves and grab a few little bits and pieces. Bren, it's all yours. Which is what you want. You're a little— Bren has been trying to keep me from entering the show for the last 10 minutes, but I've been battling him off like a medieval knight and a dragon. And I'm here whether you like it or not. Brent, all yours for one minute.
Oh, you're a star. Hello everyone, I just hope that if you, uh, have a possibility of joining us on Patreon, help support us on patreon.com/rawpetmedics, um, do please join us there, support us. Although we give you all of this content potentially for free, we obviously value your enormously for the price of a pint. Okay, that's a beer, not water. That would be wonderful. So do support us wherever you can. Of course, we're going to be talking about ticks tonight. We're going to be talking about all things holistic. We're going to maybe touch on some conventional products. We're going to touch on some disease. And so now that Nick's back in his chair, I'm going to show you his beautiful face.
And, um, hello everybody, I'm back. I just went to look for some, um, Vermex to do a nice, uh, product called Fleet and Tick, but I've had a big tidy up and, um, I don't know where it is. By the way, uh, Bren, put on your Zoom, make sure you have on your Zoom and your phone. I haven't because I've been battling with you for the last 10 minutes.
Yeah, yeah, we like to panic at the last moment.
Yeah. Thank you, mate. So considerate. How are you? How have you been the last week? And we haven't got Brady, so it's— we might get a word in edgeways this week, which would be great. Brady, if you're listening to this, hope you're having a good holiday. Yet another holiday. I don't know. Where is he? I don't know.
I think he was just— I think he's actually talking to somebody else for some money. That's the point, because he has to work unlike the rest of us, obviously. Oh yes, we do nothing with our spare time.
I just do this. I just swan around on my yacht all day long. That's it. It can get boring.
The CMA will be on your tail, don't you worry. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So listen, how are you? How have you been the last week? Any news and views?
News and views? I'm just always learning. I just love to, you know, this has provoked me to relook at tick-borne disease what didn't I know? What do I know? It's always a good revision. And I like to go that even actually, if there's— I did post a paper, somebody said, God, that's an old paper because it's from 2014. And I'm like, well, hold on. These are tick-borne diseases that I was talking about. This is not the latest in metabolomics. There is stuff to be learned from some of that historic stuff. And I think if you start criticizing papers that are 10 years old, Dr. Conor Brady will have a little bit of a heart attack about his whole references for his book. So don't—
yeah, there's some good stuff from the '20s, '30s, '40s, '50s, etc., um, but you just have to be a little bit careful when you're looking at that to make sure that technology hasn't superseded. If they were simple, um, studies at that stage and they were well constructed and what have you. I think they're as valid as they are today, you know. And you have to just bear in mind that science and the evolution of scientific thought and what have you has changed. And so you have to read them with that view. But, you know, life was life, health was health, vitamins were vitamins in the 1920s. And I think there is a lot of good. There are a lot of good papers there. So don't automatically dismiss it. I do. I try to look at papers on very modern topics like microbiome, metabolomics, and what have you. I will try and look for the last 5 years or so. However, but if you're looking at vitamin C, there are some studies that go back to the 1880s. So fair dues, fair dues.
Yeah. Although I will bring in some of those tick-borne diseases that we're going to talk about today, you know, like Lyme's middle of the 1980s really for them to truly recognize it and then to expand on— in the UK? Well, no, no, just, uh, understand and actually name it for the Borrelia that it is, um, you know, because before it was just a recurrent fever, um, you know, that they, they identified. Uh, looking all through the rickettsial diseases and the the latest things like Anaplasma, the transference of Anaplasma in around 2000, 2004 across to Europe, you know, that is now talked about. The numbers of these that are bacterial disease versus protozoal disease such as Babesia, and within the bacterial diseases, the spirochetes like the Lyme, the Borrelias. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Get really interesting. So we're going to show a few things around that, you know, all of the spotted fevers that you'll find in some of the ones which are related to the rickettsias, which is the anaplasmas as well. So yeah, that's, that's really, you know, something to be aware of when we're balancing the side effects of some of the modern drugs for ticks, which aren't always 100% effective and aren't always going to kill the ticks immediately, okay, versus the benefits of looking at some of the repellents that we can look at, how to produce those, how to make those up naturally, We were having a chat to Rodney and Karen last week, that, you know, from the book, the Forever Dog Life, and how you can make up some of those products and why that might be a worthwhile thing. So I think some great bits in there that we can deal with today.
Okay, let's start with the really simple stuff. Therefore, let's look. So Borrelia is, is a a bug that is carried by ticks, and only a small proportion of ticks, maybe 2-3% of ticks. Would that be— would that fit with your region?
It depends on the area.
It depends on the area.
It does depend on the area.
The wetter and warmer, up to a certain temperature, will promote ticks. If it's Absolutely freezing and a good frost will really reduce those. This winter we haven't had a lot of frost and so I think we've got a lot of ticks this year. Certainly there's a lot more conversations about ticks. So basically it's a bug which is carried by ticks and it gets into humans and dogs because ticks put their mouthparts in through the skin in order to guzzle loads of your blood but they have they, they kind of have a backwash effect and some of their saliva and therefore some of this, these, these bugs that they carry actually enter your bloodstream. If you're— and this is a fantastic point that Karen was making, it's a very old point, but it's a very good point to make. She was saying if your immune system is in good shape, that you're not overvaccinated, you're not overmedicalized, your microbiome is in great shape, you're eating good food and what have you, which is the stuff that we've been talking about nonstop for 3 years or more, your chance of getting tick-borne disease, if you happen to come across that 2 or 3% of ticks who are positive for the bugs, is much reduced by— she was saying a factor of about 90%. I'm not sure how much really great epidemiological science has been done to be able to give us those figures accurately because it depends on whether you're in Wales or in Scotland or in England or what have you. A lot of this data is coming from the States, and down in the southern states of America it's really warm, it's really, uh, damp, humid. And I'm not sure whether you can equate Georgia with Northern Scotland. Yeah, so I think there's a lot of moving parts here, and I think, to be honest, there's, there's, there's more unknowns than there are knowns. But we're going to be talking about some of the things that, that we know, and if we don't know stuff, we'd say it's unsure at the moment. I don't think anybody can tell you how much Lyme disease there is in dogs in the UK. The figure I've heard recently is that about 8,000 people, human beings, people, not dog people, no, that's confusing. I'm talking human beings are affected. I don't want to complete, to make it complicated. So the figure I heard from, from Sally Tobin sent me some stuff from a BBC snippet and he was saying 8,000 people per year are affected by Lyme disease. So do you want to just give us a little bit of what is Lyme disease and how does it manifest? Is it a common cold and it disappears in 3 days?
Well, that's just it. So if your immune system's up and running, if you do get some bacterial disease, generally you would be able to deal with it. And I think that's really what Karen was talking about. It's not just that you won't get bitten by ticks and you won't be attractive to ticks, it's the fact that if you do get an infection, you probably will deal with it. However, there are a number of modern-day stressors that can lead to people getting this. And, you know, we know some famous people that have, you know, been waxing or waning with disease for many a year, many outdoor-type people who then suddenly went to the doctor and then, you know, they said, well, you know, what do you do? And, oh, ticks, you know, are a risk and a thing. And they suddenly go through the investigation and they find they've got Lyme disease. And you wouldn't have necessarily thought that they were unhealthy beings being out and about. But, you know, the thing to watch for— and I've had this myself, but I'm going to just show you one of these— is if you get a tick on yourself Okay, then classic for Borrelia is to look out for this target-type bite. Okay, so if you then get a, um, a bite and you get some redness and then you see this spreading— because often if a tick bites, there is a risk of the bacteria on your skin surface getting in and causing infection versus this sort of thing, which is where something else has got a hold.
It's not always that obvious, okay? And I can say that from experience because Ophelia, my daughter, she was a couple of years ago maybe, she was bitten by a tick and she had a red swelling and there was a, is it a target or isn't it a target? And I thought, I'm not, I don't want to condemn her to 30 years of Lyme disease and therefore made the decision to give her an antibiotic. This child has never had a vaccine, never had an antibiotic in her life. She's 10 years old now. She was about 8-ish at the time, and it broke my heart. However, 30 years of waxing and waning, joint pain, fatigue, aching, aching headaches, low energy, and what have you. That's no life.
So almost ME-type symptoms, isn't it?
Yeah, that's the thing. It's for some people, it's It's pretty variable, but it's not, it's not fun, and it does last a long time. There's a, there's a woman up the road who's, who's had Lyme disease for 30 years. And I think the thing about Lyme disease is if there's the slightest suspicion, hit it hard early, whether it's you or your dog. The classic is doxycycline. I think it's 10 milligrams per kilogram, but your vet will guide you on that for about a month. Even Karen was saying to go with doxycycline. You can Google it, doxycycline, and doxycycline is very good at getting into the bloodstream and killing baddies in the bloodstream. Okay, that's kind of why we use it.
And it's also actually got some immune stimulatory properties. That's the interesting thing about it.
Yeah, but it also knackers your microbiome, which will have a negative effect on your immune competence.
So Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, there's all sorts of compromises.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So the, the thing to look at, there are other options, you know, we've talked about other options for treating lymes before, you know, methylating, you know, a methylated form of glycine and then using some of the nose aids for it, etc. You know, it is possible to go through that process. I think the thing to remember, don't panic if you see a tick. For a start.
Totally.
The thing to remember is there are some maps that are across the world. You can look in the UK, you can look at the United States, you can look at Canada, and they will direct you to where in wildlife they believe the various diseases are endemic, i.e., that they are in pretty much most of the deer that are affected, you know, that usually carry the limes, etc. And this is why, so for instance, it's not just about where it's warm and wet, it's where those wildlife are prevalently infected. So even some of the Outer Hebrides, you know, I think Uist had a huge problem with limes because of the infected deer on the island rather than anything else. So we generally, just to give people in the UK, I know I'm going to go a little bit broader in a moment, but for the UK, we generally would consider, look, if you're going to go on holiday to— with your dogs and yourself— to the west of the Highlands, you know, down all the way through the Lake District, sort of Wales, down through to Dartmoor, Exmoor, across the bottom through the New Forest, up into Thetford Forest and the sort of wetlands of Norfolk and even then pretty much really watch for ticks, watch for them and take them out and I'll go through a tick hook trick in a moment but to be fair I think watch for ticks, they can vary massively in size from tiny little pinpricks as nymphs all the way through to the adult stages and the downside to some of these bacteria is that they can infect the ovaries of the tick so they can be passed to the tick's offspring and therefore continue to infect not just from the one adult but from all of the offspring that they produce. So that's why it can spread pretty rapidly. So do be aware that they, um, those are the hot spots to watch out for. Be aware to look over your dog meticulously if you've been out in the woods. Some people will use a barrier, little coat things, sort of mesh over them so that the ticks can't— you know, you can literally peel it off at the end of the walk and the ticks are off. Some people will talk about the repellency options that are there. If you've got a dog that you do not look at and you're not really bothered, there are some people that will reach for the medications purely and simply for convenience. I'm not going to shout at them, but you've just got to be doing that with information. So look at some of the side effects, look at what they can do, which drug you're using if you're going to use those, the effect on other friendly insects if you do that, the environmental impact of using those things as well. So this is all about support. This is about making sure that you do the things that are right to stop horrible disease. Sometimes we have to take compromise if we're really worried about high prevalence. So, you know, talk to us about what you're using, your experience of ticks, you know, put them in the comments below. You know, if you're using something you found really effective, we all want to know about it. If you're using something and you've found that it's not that effective, isn't this a great place to share your experience as to why that wasn't effective. Was it how you put it on? Was it what did you use? Did you use a combination, not a combination? If you've used a conventional product, don't sit back on your laurels and think, that's it, I've done my bit, I don't need to look at anything, because ticks can still attach. Okay, so yeah, we want to make sure that we're dealing with that.
I think, I think this is a classic dilemma in that If you don't use a pharmaceutical, you're going to have to do a lot more work to keep the dog tick-free. And if you do use a pharmaceutical, you may be risking exposing dog to these neuroactive compounds, isoxazoline compounds— that's the NexGard and the Bravectos, etc. of this world. So it's a bit of a Yeah, you're stuck. You're a bit—
I'll just give you an idea if you've not—
you're stuck between a bit of a rock and a hard place. There's your next card.
These—
and Simparica is similar. Yeah, okay. And so this is not a simple conversation. And so if you think you can go to the vets and in 5 minutes you can get a definitive answer, I I really don't think that is the case. I think it's much, much more complex than that. In a nutshell though, check your dog after you come back from a walk. If you've got a Shorthaired dog, that's pretty easy to do. We've got Whippets, I'm pleased to say, so it's pretty easy. But if you've got a Spanish Water Dog, blimey, you know, I don't, I don't think you can categorically say that, that you can guarantee that your dog is ever going to be tick-free. Yeah, because you've got big dog, loads of hair, black, and I don't think you could ever say for sure. However, there is a proviso here to say that if you take two dogs, let's say you've got two Labradors, and you take them into the woods, what I will often find is that one will always come out with, you know, 6 ticks, for example, during tick season, which is spring, summer, and autumn, and when it's mild, it'll be winter as well, but mainly spring, summer, autumn. If you take those two dogs, because of the differences in their skin biome and the makeup of their skin fats and their metabolic reasons, one will be a tick magnets, okay, and so we'll get 6 every time they even think about going to the woods. And the other one will get 1 at a push, okay. Any, you know, whichever woods you go to, one will always get 6 times more. And this is a bit like, I think you've heard me say it before, but I'll say it for people who haven't heard this story before. You know when you're sitting out of an evening having a little G&T out out of doors, okay, and it's the summer, you know how some people are really affected by midges, okay? There's some, oh, I'm getting bitten by midges, this is terrible. And other people within the group, you've got a group, maybe 8 people, other people go, oh, they never touch me, okay? And that, I think, and I've got no science to back this up, don't you just love them? So some people attract these insects, whether it's CO2 that you breathe out or whether it's your— what are they called? The hormones that you exude from your skin. Brent, what would you— pheromones. Okay, whether it's a pheromone thing or a microbiome thing or whatever it might be. So some people, some dogs attract insects, and a tick is an insect. And some are much less attractive to ticks and insects. And that, as far as I can make out, is a luck of the draw thing. So, but it does, it does play into this conversation because if you've got a dog who's not that attractive, you'll probably get away with the more, the less druggy treatments, which, preventions that we will talk about shortly. And if you've got a dog who's a massive tick magnet that only needs to think about leaving the house and going to the woods and they get ticks, then you're going to have to work a lot harder, and that may involve some degree of strategic use of those pharmaceuticals. For example, I can go into the garden here, it's fairly wild, and all day long, short, never get a tick, never ever ever get a tick. My mother-in-law can go into the garden for 10 minutes and she will get a tick. Okay, same day, same, same short, same leg, different person, different degree of attraction. So work out where your dog is there. Are they, are they a tick magnet or are they not that attractive to ticks? Because then you can, if you've got two dogs, you can say, right, I'm going to put all my energy into dog A and less so into dog B, which means you can, you can focus your money and your energy. Just had to say that, and you won't really find that in the textbooks, but that's very, very much my experience.
And remember, I mean, the one thing that does change over time, and I forgot to say, is that, you know, the maps for where those diseases are prevalent, uh, from Rocky Mountain fever, you know, some of the rickettsial diseases, and some of the other Anaplasmas, etc., you know, are useful. And we're going to talk about tick paralysis and what that is slightly later on, but for now, let's just talk about this. Something really interesting that you said there about, well, is it the microbiome that's different that makes a difference? And that's one of these things. I know you've talked about them before. There's some great collars here, but you see the beads that are on those? These are the things, EMB.
So those look like harbour hounds They are indeed.
So these are Harbor Hounds.
Okay, so there's a company called Harbor Hounds and you can get them online, and basically they put these EM beads into these collars and somehow miraculously, magically, they do seem to work. And they are non-chemical, they're just kind of ceramic beads. Okay, sounds like magic. And had I not had an effective microbial extract set into them, haven't they? Really?
I thought that's something EM stands for. No, EM is electromagnetic. It's EM. It's a— it says on the, on the site, it actually explains it as effective microbial material that's set into the ceramic.
Okay, well, if you look on, on sites which just sell EM beads, because people with, with fish in tanks use them as kind of filtration things, they call them EM for electromagnetic, and they use them as filtration.
Yeah, and that's what I thought originally, but actually if you look, so even some of the bowls which are made in ceramics, I, I saw a great share on the post about bowls that we shared from, again, Rodney and, and Karen, and somebody found in Germany an a product called, which makes their ceramic bowls from the EM ceramics, and it's, yeah, effective microbial extracts within them. Really? So these, yeah, so have a look at that. It does say on Harbour Hounds too, and it is. So these are really effective. I actually, a colleague of mine shared these with a farmer who put them on his collies However, he got a new puppy and forgot to get one of the collars for the puppy. Yeah. And this year he has discovered he's not picking ticks off any of them except the puppy that doesn't have one on.
Amazing. That's a nice little trial. Yeah, I actually made one of those for my mother-in-law and she thinks it is quite useful. Yeah, when she remembers to wear it.
Yeah, yeah, I suppose, you know, if you make them large enough, you could wear it.
Yeah, all you do is you get like, you get 3 laces so that you plait them because otherwise they all slide down to the bottom. And I'm sure they'd probably be all right if they did slide down to the bottom, but they might go jingling, jangling, and they'll knock against each other. So you just plait it and put one— you can get probably about 30 or 40 for £15. But Harbour Hounds do very nice collars, and that's probably the easiest way to go. Okay, what other Um, what other—
I will share, I will share that, um, that post about the bowls.
Yeah, do, do, do, because I'm pretty skeptical, I have to say. EM. Okay, so, um, there you go.
I think, guys, how can you be that skeptical when it still repels the, um, uh, the microbiome could repel, be as repellent for ticks?
Yeah, that I have no doubt about because of the sitting out in the evening and the midges story. But yeah, let's, let's not get sidetracked. Let's, let's maybe do a little bit more work on the EM thing and how on earth they get effective microbial things into a ceramic which is glazed at about 1,200 degrees. That's where I'm thinking that's very strange. Anyway, um, so what, what I was going to say was other, other means of— so non-pharmaceutical means. Bren has just shown us the dreaded pharmaceuticals, and they are generally quite effective, but they have other effects on you, the dog, the family, and the planet. So— oh, he's got all the things here.
Go on, Nick, you know you want to talk to us about essential oils because you've got a product that's got them in them.
3-point— okay, I know I do.
You've got to talk about—
I use a 3-point approach, guys, in order to try to hit dogs really, really hard in order to not have to use the pharmaceuticals. The Bravectos, the NexGards, the Simparicas of this world. Okay, and those are three. It's very, very simple. So we'll go from the inside, work outside. So on the inside, you can either use— I use Vermex, do Verm-X, do a product called Flea and Tick. Okay, and it's herbs, you put them in the food, and 99% of dogs will tolerate them very, very well. And they make you slightly make the dog slightly less attractive to fleas and ticks. Great. So that gives you an extra percentage away from getting inundated. So that's really, really useful. What about on the outside? There's two products that I use. Number one product, which I think is fantastic, and but my wife makes it, okay, so I have a vested interest if I want to stay married to, to put this up, to put this out. Okay, it's a DermaDog insect defense spray for all those lovely podcast people. It's called DermaDog. It's by DermaDog. Yeah, you go dermadog.com and you look for insect defense spray. Okay, and it contains amazing things like lemongrass, rose geranium— that's the, that's one of the keys. The other one is cedarwood, cedarwood oil, and that's really, really important. Which leads us on to the other one, which is an American product called Cedarcide. C-E-D-A-R, like the tree. C-I-D-E, like pesticide or fungicide. Okay, Cedarside, American thing. If you've got big dogs or horses or you need to cover lots of dogs, it's much more economic because you can get this in liters and or more. Okay, so the regular one is called Cedarside. The super, the extra strong is called Cedarside Extra. So if you're in a really ticky area, that's definitely the one to go for. If you're in a not very ticky area, you might get away with just the regular Cedarside. So there you go, treating on the inside with Vermex flea and tick, very good, very easy. Just put it in the food, forget about it. And you're treating on the inside on the outside with either the DermaDog Insect Defense or the Cedarcide or Cedarcide Extra. And Harbour Hounds, I— Harbour Hounds would— I would use, definitely use those, Brent. Sorry, sorry.
Okay, yeah. So what were the— is there 3 oils in the DermaDog?
In the DermaDog there are lemongrass, 3 of the lemongrass, rose, geranium, yeah, and cedarwood.
Oranium.
Yeah, yeah. And it smells great.
Cedarwood. Okay, so I'll tell you what, we use it on the kids.
If, if the kids are going really into stuff, we'll just use it on their legs. Okay. And I'll use it, I'll use it on me and in my hair, wherever. If it's a really ticky area, I'll just use it. Okay. Safe as houses.
Yeah. So, um, something really interesting, and a shout out to Rita Hogan, um, with regards to this, uh, and I would back it up, is there are many, many options from lavender and rosemary all the way through to neem oils to, you know, even, you know, there's products that are like this that have tea tree in, lavender, etc. So that's the Botanica range that are done for you. So you literally just put a spray on the top of that and it's ready to go, okay, for on your animals, to actually making it up. The essential oils I showed you, you know, literally if you get a medical grade essential oils type thing, you'll often find those in there. But the thing to do, the little trick I would always say, and Rita backed me up on this, is take one of the active oils, put a couple of drops on a handkerchief, and then just place it where your dog's favorite bed is, or, you know, where they always like to go. And if the dog will sleep with it and cope with it, absolutely fine. If the dog suddenly stops going to their favorite place because they can't stand the smell, look at another option because there are some other options. Okay, but do test. And I think the thing I love about the insect— I've had nothing but good reviews, which is great, but I'd always still say please test any of those products that you're going to use so that you don't start putting on your dog something that repels ticks but drives them insane.
Yeah, totally good idea, because what you can do is you can just spray it on your hands, um, and if the dog, uh, some with some essential oils, for example, our lot Bluebell, for example, she will bark when Ellie takes the top off an essential oil. She will bark at the bottle of essential oil, some of them but not others. How amazing is that? So I think, yeah, spray it on your hands and just offer it to the dog. And if they really, really run for the hills, then it's probably not the right thing for the dog. You can use it for your legs, you can use it on the other dog, whatever it might be. Okay, so there is some wisdom there.
And Tina's got a question. So if we've got dogs with epilepsy, I know we've talked about rosemary in the past because people get super worried about that. However, What would your advice be with regards to some of the other essential oils for epileptic?
The only one that I am aware of is rosemary. There may be others. I think you need to talk to somebody very clever like Caroline Ingraham. I think she's carolineingraham.com and email her or get one of the books and have a look through that. Great books, really, really good books. There was another.
Yeah, and I would always say, therefore, you know, to back that up, the other things to look at always— by offering it, you'll get an idea of whether that dog's irritated. Remember, it's a stimulus. So when you're talking about a dog with seizures, if the olfactory stuff sets them off, if there's a smell that sets them off with their seizures, then obviously there is a risk that using something that smells quite strong could set them off. However, if it's not that area of the brain that's particularly setting off the seizures, they may be perfectly safe. And so as long as you're doing it under supervision, i.e., you're giving them exposure whilst— don't just do it and then disappear from the house and leave them to it. Literally watch them. And if they do have an episode, take the oils away and don't use those particular oils.
And if they do have epilepsy, guys, do be very careful about using the pharmaceuticals. I've got one case that stands out in my mind is Simparica. This dog, uh, he about 4 years ago, he had a dose of Simparica for the first time in his life. He started having fits, okay, within days, okay, and had a fit every month. We did a detox homeopathic. We got the homeopathic, we got Simparica, and we made a homeopathic remedy out of it. And I know it sounds like witchcraft, but bear with it, dog never had a fit again, okay. So So if you're worried about essential oils, be very worried about the isoxazene pharmaceuticals because the FDA in 2019 came out and said they are related to neurological disease, including epilepsy. Okay, so this is in dogs who've never had epilepsy. Boom, you can induce it in some, not many, but you can in some dogs. So let's just be totally aware this is mucky water.
Not only can there be a It is, and not only can there be an issue with a gene fault for MDR1, but you can switch the MDR1 gene on and off. So that's something else to be— and that's a way of the brain detoxing from some of these drugs. So actually, by changing what— how your dog's health is and what's going on, so whether you impact that through remedies, whether you impact that through methylation, you can switch these dogs on and off for their MDR1 gene. So, we know, for instance, that actually the detox gene doesn't have to be absent. If you give them some of the other drugs, such as the cyclosporine, so the atopicas, that actually switches off that MDR1 gene. So, actually, effectively makes them as if they have a gene fault and can't detox the brain. So if they're on another drug and then you give them one of these potential seizure-inducing drugs like the isoxazolines, it can make them worse because they just can't detox fast enough.
Okay, just tell us how you switch on and switch off your MDR1 gene, Brendon, because that was very titillating.
So basically it's about whether the transcription of that gene happens.
Yeah, but just on a practical basis, what do you do? What do you do to help the dog with this gene?
Well, certainly make sure you're not giving a drug. So make sure you're not giving a drug that would switch it off. Okay, okay.
Most vets wouldn't know what an MGR gene was though, so how do people—
well, look, you know, we've got to be benefit about things.
Okay guys, Google MGR1.
They should look it up.
Yeah, MGR1, look drugs that will inhibit MDR1 expression, okay? And if there is a problem, methylation, is that the way to improve expression of MDR1?
I think it's one of the ways that I would certainly try, okay? It's about improving health and detoxification, and methylation also, we know, works on some of the other detox genes, okay? So, you know, if you read Dirty Genes, for some of you guys, you're probably already doing that because we've already mentioned it. Nicola is on, so I know that you must have that book by now. And so the— so that's methylation is one form. I just know remedies, as you've just said, for detoxing, you know, for reversing some of these must work on a similar basis if it's that effective. You know, it's going to have an effect to switch the body. So these are options that you should look into because they can be effective.
Debbie Riley says, I missed the start of the session. Have you spoken about garlic and the way of reducing attraction to fleas and ticks? Debbie, we haven't, so that's really, really good. And we'd be remiss not to mention discussion about garlic. So number one, Debbie, you can get a replay on YouTube or wherever you get the—
or here, because you'll be able to replay it on Facebook.
Okay, so let's get into the medicine. So garlic, I love garlic. I think garlic is great for dogs. So for a 20-kilo spaniel, I'd be giving a medium clove. Make sure it's crushed, put it in the food. Most dogs really, really like it. And I think that's a really good idea. You'll read on, you know, 400,000 Google hits will say, oh, garlic is toxic. Yes, if you give, you know, 20, 30 cloves a day to—
is it 20 cloves per 10 kilos?
Ridiculous. And frankly, guys, for 7 days at least, I think as Paracelsus said, everything is toxic. It's the It's the dose that counts. Yeah, so let's, let's just put this. So if you're giving, so if you're giving a medium-sized clove, not a bulb, a clove, you crush it per 20 kilos. So if you've got a 10-kilo dog, you do half a clove. If you've got 30, you go 1.5 medium-sized cloves. Okay, so it's really pretty safe stuff. Our 3 guys downstairs, they get those. So I'm really comfortable with garlic. Will it make your dog suddenly impenetrable to fleas and ticks? No. Will it just push, give you a few extra percentage points to reduce your load? Yes, it absolutely will. Will it have loads of other effects? Yes, it absolutely will. Positive effects, that is.
And some of those are antibacterial. Yeah, some, some of those are antibacterial in their own right, so, you know, that's a benefit for some of the tick-borne diseases, etc. Remember, there are mixes out there that have garlic and apple cider vinegar in there as well, and even echinacea as, you know, immune support. So, you know, look at those, those products are all valid. You know, you've talked about the Vermex product, which is oral. Do you know the herbs that are in the—
I've had a big tidy up, so I haven't got a pot handy. But if you give me one second, I will tell you the— all right.
Okay.
I'll tell you the ingredients. You just—
okay.
Give me a second.
But so, yeah, you look that up and I'll just carry on. Yeah. So from a point of view of the You know, so there are herbs again, just as I said with the essential oils externally, which can be quite pungent, and you can mix those with carriers. You can even put them into— I think Rodney and Karen put them into an aloe vera and then they sort of aqueous solution alongside that and then put them into a spray bottle to spritz your pet on a regular basis. But you can test your animals with the herbs that go in, because again, if your dogs are intolerant of certain herbs, then sometimes giving them constantly through the tick seasons can cause some other ailments. So do again watch out for, you know, do your dogs want that? Maybe put it on the side or put it in a little portion and see if they'll take those herbs. See, you know, if you're starting to get some aberrant effects, they're overheating, they're becoming itchy, they may be getting a bit of a loose stool, then just relook at the herbs that you're using and maybe look at one of the other tick products that's out there. Have you found the herbs that are in—
Yeah, coming back to Vermex, the ingredients: mint, ginger, fenugreek, neem, lemon balm, and garlic. And it's quite a potent— when you open the pot, it's got a bit of oomph to it, but You just dose according to the dog's weight and it's dead easy, and most dogs will, will go for that really, really well. So that's that one. Now, Brent, um, last 2 minutes, but I, I'd, I'd like to talk about, uh, blood testing, which is something that Karen raised, something she's done a really deep dive. I don't think we're going to be able to do it here. If you've got any other little bits and pieces, I'd just like to say, but thank you very much.
So let's do blood tests.
Okay. But I just want to say a big thank you to, um, our podcast people. You can get this, uh, this, um, program on lots of different broadcasts. Many, many thanks to our Patreon supporters, absolutely wonderful. If you'd like to support us, please go to Patreon and look up Raw Pet Medics, simple as that. And, um, we are going to next week— we were supposed to do it this week, but we haven't got the final details to— we're going to tell you about the event in San Diego in October that the Raw Pet Medics is going to be going to, and the other event in Florida, in Orlando, a week later, Orlando, that we're all going to go to as well. And we're going to give you some details of those. We're just trying to finalize some of the details, and we're going to have a competition as well.
I think it's all Yeah, in fact, actually, we're going to do a giveaway next week. Yeah, because we've got some other tickets to give away, not just to that, but to some other organizations that we're affiliated to. And so we've got some freebies coming your way next week. So guys, if you want to get into some of these conferences and see and learn more, you know, watch next week, you might be able to to get some more tickets. So do look at that.
So lots of, lots of those.
Uh, so not just if you're on the wrong side of the Atlantic, there's also amazing side, lots of freebies for next week.
And we'll do that, let's do that, shall we?
I am going to put, uh, if you— yeah, well, we're going to do that in Patreon, but I am going to give you a little video of how to use these, okay, as well. So separately, so do— they're really useful to have, they're dead easy to use. They're a bit plasticky, but they are super useful to have. Some of them made from recycled plastic. And I'd also— a very last thing, if you successfully remove the ticks, it's always useful just to spray the area with something like that, okay, just to give it a clean, because the normal bacteria that are on your skin surface, if they get in where the ticks cause some damage, that's a bit of an issue. And then in the last 30 seconds, let's just— tick-borne disease is one thing, but the tick paralysis that can affect all mammals is carried by certain ticks, a certain type of ticks, especially the brown dog tick, okay, in the States. So certain states of America have a particular issue with this. Certain areas in Australia have issues with this. But it's down to the toxins that is in the saliva. So as soon as you remove those, you know, it usually only becomes an effect if you've missed the tick for 3 days. So taking the ticks off is really effective. Usually you don't see any of the fever, you don't see any of the infectious signs, because it's the saliva that's got into the bloodstream that causes an ascending paralysis, a little bit like the poliomyelitis that you can get with polio and other toxins. Okay, however, if you remove the tick and you support the dogs, usually the neurotoxin is alleviated very quickly and they can return to full health within days as long as you find the tick and remove them. So we saw a case, there is hope.
Yeah. I think we saw a case of that at college with, uh, it was called, uh, coonhound fever. And somebody, one of the lecturers, showed a video of a dog that they'd had, and they did exactly that. They removed the tick and supported the dog, and, uh, over several days, possibly several weeks, he regained his ability to walk and what have you. So yeah, good stuff there. Okay, let's jump over onto Patreon. Okay, so to talk about testing, I think that's really important. Good guys, thank you very much.
It's wonderful to see you all again. We managed to get through a whole, um, episode without the wonderful Dr. Conor Brady, um, but he will be with us, I'm assured, next week, uh, for the ticket giveaway, because that's why we've held off, because he just likes giving away lots of stuff.
Fabulous. Okay, great guys, thank you so much for your support.
Brilliant. See you all over on Patreon.
See you on Patreon. See you next week.
