Allergies + Food Sensitivities Part One

Hi, this is Rita Hogan and welcome.

To the Dogs are Individuals podcast. I'm a clinical canine herbalist and I've.

Been practicing for over 20 years. This podcast is all about your dog.

Through an herbal lens. So let's get to it and dive right in. Welcome to the podcast. Carolyn wrote into the podcast. And thank you, Carolyn for writing into the podcast. You can do that through my website@canineherbalist.com Carolyn wrote. Hi Rita, this is more of a request. Could you please do a podcast episode on food intolerance and sensitivities, the symptoms and how to deal with them. I would love a resource about this to share. There are very few resources that talk specifically about this topic. I am happy to oblige, Carolyn. We are going to get into this. First, I want to thank my sponsor, adored beast apothecary adoredbeast.com and for this subject, they have two good products for gut issues. I mean, they have lots of good products for gut issues. They're very much a probiotic specialist company. But their gut soothe and their gut seal are great products to use for dogs that you're kind of working with and trying to figure things out. I would say that the gutsoothe is more for dogs that are warmer but can be used acutely for cool dogs. And just see how it goes. If there's more like loose stool or burping or the acid reflux gets better, it's probably energetically not appropriate. The gut seal can be used for almost, I mean can be used for any energetic of dog. If you don't know what I'm talking about, go over to my website, canineherbalism.com and check out my courses. Check out Canine energetics. It will blow your mind. So another product that they have is the leaky gut protocol and they also have the yeasty Beast protocol. You can find them on their website@adoredbeast.com or on my website, canineherbalist.com let's get into it. Food sensitivities. It can be an issue. One thing, there's a couple things right off the bat. Don't like it when people feed their dogs cold food. Don't feed your dogs cold food. Make sure that it's room temperature or just slightly warm. Room temperature is great for dogs that are warm. Slightly warm is probably a little bit better for dogs that are cool but never cold food right out of the fridge. It shuts down the digestion and that's one of the biggest problems with food intolerances. And for those of you that have never heard me speak or haven't worked with me. I tell people all the time, everything's connected. So food sensitivities are not isolated from anything else. Okay? It's all connected to gastrointestinal and liver and kidney and lymphatic health, nervous system, heart, the whole thing. So the gastrointestinal tract affects everything because everything is about assimilation and elimination. Okay? So with food sensitivities, things are not getting assimilated correctly. So don't feed cold food, please. Another thing, dogs were not meant to eat the the same thing every single day. And I know there's some dogs out there that for some reason, what we're going to talk about can't eat hardly anything. And so you just got to do what you can do. And I totally get that. But for if you don't have a dog like that, rotate, rotate, rotate, rotate their food, find three to four foods that they do well with and keep rotating. Rotate different vegetables, rotate different proteins. I rotate probiotics. I also rotate superfoods. So you want to rotate. Variety is good. I like Seasonal Healing and I talk about it a lot. I'll have another book coming out in a couple of years right now from Seasonal Healing. I also have a sister course to that book, so we're looking forward to that. And Seasonal Healing really helps you stick on variety. So that's why I love it. And, you know, people and dogs are not meant to eat things that are out of season on a continual basis. And us humans tend to feed and eat ourselves the same things all the time. And that's why, you know, people get into this conversation about anti nutrients and things like that. Well, you know, you don't have to worry about anti nutrients and thyroid depleting foods and foods that speed up the thyroid and foods that, you know, that have lectins and things like that when you're eating seasonally because you're not eating them that long. So variety is the key. Just going to say that those are my two, like, precursors to this conversation. Allergy sensitivity. What's the difference? Right? An allergy is when the immune system launches a major inflammatory response, basically to an antigen, which is like the antagonist in the story. And the antigen is harmless in itself, but the immune system has went, oh my God, you know, and usually it's anaphylaxis or a major shutdown in the body. That's usually an allergy. And a sensitivity is when the immune system makes an inflammatory response to, to again, a harmless antigen in itself. But the inflammatory Response isn't, as I would say, pronounced as an allergy. So you wanna just be careful with that. An allergy, most likely, you know, it's a disease, okay? It is chronic, it is explosive. And sensitivities are more subdued, annoying, they lead to chronic illness, things like that. And we need to. I think working with sensitivities is more important than working with allergies because allergies usually need veterinary intervention or a good homeopath to help desensitize your dog to that antigen by giving it super small amounts of things like people who have peanut allergies or nut allergies in general or are deathly allergic to bee stings, things like that. Allergy sensitivity is when your dog eats chicken and starts itching like crazy. And then one more little ditty which can overwhelm, but just to have the knowledge, just to have the conversation, or some may say theory, which is fine with me. You have different types of protein and animals are what they eat, and they are what they eat, eats. So the cleaner the animals that you get for your food, the better and the least amount of reactivity you're going to get. Because factory farmed chicken reacts different in the body than pasture raised chicken. So you want to look at how the animals that you're feeding are raised and what they're eating. Genetically modified foods are going to be in the meat. So consider that when your dogs are having sensitivities, try different sources of that protein to see if that has an effect on your dog. And again, everything's connected, okay? Everything is connected. Start looking at things holistically and how the body is connected, the food's connected, our air and water is connected. Make sure you're filtering your water. Another conversation. But make sure you're filtering your water. I don't care. Stop giving bottled water to your dog unless it's absolutely necessary. It messes with their hormones. Another conversation. Okay, so let's look at the system in the body that deals with specifically food sensitivity. So you've got your stomach, you've got your lymphatic system, small intestine, large intestine, liver, and what's called a portal vein. Now the portal vein is how the stomach and liver talk to each other. And yes, I'm simplifying this, okay? There's lots of technical physiological things that go on. Sure. I'm simplifying. When you put two strings together with paper cups like kids did when they were young and didn't have technology like my mom, you think you can talk to each Other. Well, just imagine one cup being the stomach and one cup being the liver system. Liver and gallbladder. The portal vein is that string and it's how blood nutrients get to the liver. It's how toxins in the blood get to the liver. And then you have the lymphatic system which deals with fat based toxins, fat based nutrition. It's a dual system, just like the portal vein and then it gets to the liver. The stomach helps digest food. It makes this thing called chyme, okay? It uses different types of enzymes, hydrochloric acid, histamine, the whole thing. And histamine, you need to have good histamine levels in order to have good stomach acid. And I will tell you, if there's one thing that I had to pick out to deal with food sensitivities, it would be good stomach acid. Chyme goes into the small intestine where it gets further broken down into amino acids and different, you know, it gets assimilated. And then the waste from that, things that don't get assimilated get put into the large intestine. They get all the nutrients that are in the large intestine that should be there get absorbed and then the waste products go out through the poop chute, okay? That's how it goes and that's how it should go. And the body knows what's supposed to be there and what's not supposed to be there. Now, without enough stomach acid, the Chyme has things in it that it shouldn't. Undigested proteins. And so undigested proteins get into the small intestine and they don't get digested the way they're supposed to. And then the immune system marks them for termination. They're like, hey, there's an antigen which is a protein in this area and it's not supposed to be here. We need to take care of it. And then it just sounds the alarm. It marks it for termination. And it could be a simple piece, little smidge of broccoli and that's all it takes. So good stomach acid ensures that. And then there's a whole other conversation about small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. And that is when bacteria from the large intestine get into the small intestine. And this can be from a lot of reasons, from a tissue state perspective. Again, those of you that took my energetics course, this is too much relaxation. But there's lots of reasons for that. Leaky gut, you know, different viruses, stress, tick borne disease. There's lots of reasons why bacteria will get from the large intestine to the small intestine. And it doesn't have to be pathogenic bacteria. It can be commensal, good bacteria. But when it overgrows in the small intestine, you get a lot of problems. And if your dog has chronic acid reflux and you've tried everything, most likely they have small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, which is known as sibo, which is another conversation, but I'm gonna mention it. It's for those dogs that, you know, you've tried all the stuff I'm talking about, and still your dog's a mess. Most likely sibo, especially if they belch, they fart a lot, they're on a really good diet. They're on an energetically appropriate diet. They have acid reflux, they're itching their skin off, things like that. That usually indicates sibo. Okay, so now that we've looked at the system, okay, we want to make sure that you understand that what goes in the stomach goes to the small intestine, Right? And it also goes to the kidneys, it goes to the large intestine, and through the portal vein, things go to the pancreas. The pancreas sends things to the stomach. The spleen also sends things through the liver, the portal vein, and is involved in the lymphatic system. So, again, everything is connected. It's kind of your sensitivity network. Stomach acid is super important. And when there's not enough stomach acid, we and your dog cannot break down their food. And so digestive enzymes are really important part of this process. And some things bring down digestive enzymes. And dogs evolved on a raw diet, okay? And raw diets are full of digestive enzymes. If your dog has been eating raw its whole life, then you probably have good stomach acid. If you haven't been giving antibiotics or steroids, which bring down stomach acid, they also cause small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. Dogs must adapt to a kibble diet, and they're adapting because we feed so much kibble. Sure, there is components of that, but they must adapt more to a kibble diet or a cooked diet. Okay? They didn't grow up on cooked food. There's nothing wrong with cooked food, but it needs enzymes. You need to add digestive enzymes to all cooked food. And if you say, oh, well, I added an enzyme in, my dog got acid reflux. There's two reasons for that. One, you gave too much. As I always teach, the dosage on the package is not necessarily your dog's dosage. Start out at a quarter of the dose. And work your way up slowly. Number two, wrong digestive enzyme. Start out with a really plain enzyme. Then you can work your way up to like a pancreatic enzyme or a proteolic enzyme or different types of enzymes. I can tell you that in my experience, I have not seen a scientific study about this. So those of you that need a scientific study, you'll have to breathe in and breathe out and just kind of be with the moment, be in the present moment. In my experience, probably over the last 12 years, I have noticed that digestive enzymes with bromelain don't do that. Great for hot dogs, dogs that are like past the warm spectrum and they're heading towards hot. And some dogs that are just plain old, kind of a little to the right of warm or just really, really warm. Right. Not hot. For those of you that don't understand, check out my energetics course. Don't do really well on bromelain. It tends to cause them to have acid reflux or they can only tolerate small amounts of it. So that is the reason why your digestive enzymes aren't working. And you can also use like a liquid enzyme. You can use even a homeopathic enzyme. There's different options for that. We might. I guess we'll have to have an enzyme podcast. I think we've had a small one, but let's have a large one. Talking about like every enzyme out there. That would be fun. And I'd probably learn. I'd learn a lot. I'm sure I would. So processed kibble and cooked food need enzymes. The liver and the gastrointestinal tract have to process the food. Okay. It has to break it down. If it doesn't break it down, it leads to food sensitivities. Enzymes are essential for appropriate nutrient assimilation. And remember, everything is assimilation and elimination in the dog's ecosystem. If you switch your dog from kibble to raw food to freeze dried food to dehydrated food, you need to add enzymes. I would keep them on enzymes on dehydrated food. I'd keep them on enzymes for freeze dried food. Maybe just a little bit, a little help. Freeze dried. I'm not sure. I would definitely keep them on enzymes for about six months and then you can go off those enzymes three to six months. It depends on the health of your dog. If your dog's having any type of gastrointestinal distress for anything, keep them on the enzymes for about six months to help their gut transition to raw. Remember that stomach acid, good strong stomach acid equals protein digestion and that's what you need to get when it comes to food sensitivities, our proteins getting into the small intestine and, and causing an immune response. Undigested proteins equal, you know, can cause leaky gut, and they can cause food sensitivities. Definitely. Food sensitivities can be caused by leaky gut. It's like, you know, it's a. This equals that, that equals this, and these are undigested proteins in the blood. When it gets in the blood, there is lots of problems marked for termination by mistake. It equals food equals a pathogen, and that shouldn't be the case. And it causes an immune cascade. Okay. And this is all traced back to low stomach acid. Carolyn asked for some symptoms of low stomach acid and low and immune issues like sensitivities. Okay, so skin conditions can definitely be one. Not all the itching, biting, scratching, licking hot spots. We can definitely have an immune cascade going on in the background. Hot ears after eating, 30 minutes after eating. Hot ears, burning ears. Definitely. Something is happening. Acid reflux, going to sleep immediately after eating can indicate something is happening with the immune system. Is that 100% accurate all the time? No, but it's something to look at. Okay, something to look at. Diarrhea, constipation, alternating diarrhea and constipation, stagnancy in general, liver conditions, inhalant reactions. So your dog starting to get reactive to things that they're inhaling. And of course, poor assimilation, poor elimination. Your dog's going to have some allergies or some sensitivities. Mostly sensitivities, not allergies. But they could have. They could develop some frequent infections, constantly having infection, and of course, almost besides digesting proteins, number one, depleted microbiome. You do a biome test. The microbiome is poor, Poor diversity. Low stomach acid. Okay. Can be a big indicator of that. We really want to stop giving antibiotics for anything but death. If your dog is going to die, give the antibiotics. And if your dog isn't going to die, try other means. Natural antibiotics. They're much more responsive and more effective for lots of things. If your dog has diarrhea, they need to have diarrhea. Diarrhea is the way that the body gets rid of toxins of things. I don't want this in here. The second day, still bad diarrhea. Sure. There's many, many great, wonderful things that can deal with diarrhea. And we will do an episode on diarrhea and an episode on constipation. Maybe there will be the next two episodes diarrhea and constipation, but they don't deserve antibiotics. 99.9% of the time, the standard of care for most allopathic medicine is antibiotics for any type of diarrhea. Well, this, you know, just to be safe, just. Here, take this. Metrodiacinol. And metrodiacinol, which is also called flagyl, turns on inflammation markers in the body. It turns on inflammation in the body. It has been clinically proven to turn on inflammation in the body. And it's given for a lot of things, including sibo, which it makes it worse in the long run in most cases. So be careful. And also elephant in the room here. If your dog has had more than one round of antibiotics in their lifetime, most likely they need some gut repair. Well, my dog had antibiotics three years ago, so it takes over two years for one round of antibiotic use to heal, even begin healing the gut. Okay, so if your dog has had multiple rounds of antibiotics, they have some form of gut depletion. You need to treat the gut. And it doesn't happen overnight either. I get people like, well, you know, I gave them the gut program for two months and they should be better by now. No, they shouldn't. It takes a long time. If you've ever had a human problem like this, you'll know it takes a long time. It doesn't happen overnight. You have to be consistent and have patience with yourself and with your pup. Okay? You deal with the external while you're dealing with the internal. You make them comfortable while you're dealing with the internal. And things like apoquel and cytopoint are not meant to be given long term. If you want some information on cytopoint and apoquel, go on, go over to Dr. Judy Morgan's website. Dr. Judy Morgan or Dogs Health, Dogs Naturally magazine. They have some good information on cytopoint and Apoquel. Educate yourself on that before you give it to your dog. You know, just be knowledgeable in the risks of giving that to your dog and what it does to the immune system. If your dog was on steroids, probably some problems there, especially developing allergies. Even though they give steroids for allergies. Steroids save lives. Not saying that, you know, steroids saved my pug's life. One round. He couldn't breathe. Life or death. Give him the steroid. Right? Zero fur left. Give him the steroid. But work really hard holistically to get things back on board so that you can go off that steroid as soon as possible. Because long term steroid Use causes terrible issues in the body, which is another episode. God, we're just coming up with episodes left and right here. So let's get back to stomach acid. So what causes low stomach acid? Wormers, poor fats, PUFA oils, polyunsaturated fats, rancid fats, oxidized fats. They can cause low stomach acid, so don't use them. You can look it up. PUFA oils, poor fats, you know, cottonseed oil, corn oil, refined peanut oil, soybean oil, safflower oil, non organic sunflower oil. And there's different types of sunflower oil. High linolytic sunflower oil in small amounts is not bad. Organic soy oil in extreme small amounts most likely is not going to be a problem. Canola oil is one of the biggest problems with low stomach acid. If you're going to give any canola oil whatsoever, make sure it's organic and minimize the exposure. Okay? Minimize the exposure. It's an awful oil. Heavy metals. If your dog has a yeast infection, they have a heavy metal load. Heavy metals and yeast go hand in hand. Look it up. Tons of research on it. My experience is when a yeast infection dog comes to me, I look at their heavy metal load and deal with heavy metal and yeast at the same time. Pesticides, herbicides, fungicides. What are you eating? Where's it coming from? Glyphosate. Glyphosate. Ish. Glyphosate is everywhere. So make sure your dog's consuming humic and fulvic acid in small amounts. Another thing that is good for glyphosate is plantain. For those warm dogs, we will have a glyphosate episode too. That sounds like a good one. I'm going to. I'm writing these down. I'm writing this down. Kibble. It's so drying, it can cause low stomach acid. You have to break it down. Stomach acid can be overwhelmed by kibble. So add digestive enzymes to all kibble. I don't care what kind it is. Dryness, dogs being dry tissue state. Dryness, dampness, too much damp, too much dry. Either one. See my Energetics course. Stress. That's a big one right now. Our stress equals their stress and it just forms a loop. Our stress equals their stress. More and more people are starting to talk about this issue. And you know, there's lots of people that share their diseases and their physical conditions with their animals in their house. And this is why stress is a killer. It is a antagonist for everything in modern society as far as Disease, heart disease, cancer, nervous system disorders, psychiatric disorders, gut disorders, stress. It just every day, make sure you're doing something for you and your dogs to stress. To get the stress out. Go for a walk, Sit on the ground, right? Meditate. Dogs love to meditate. They love to sit by you while you're meditating. They love it when you're calm. They love it when you're not stressed. Take some time out for you. It doesn't have to be forever, right? It can be three minutes three times a day. It could be an hour, twice a day, it could be a half hour, it could be 20 minutes. And get off your phone. When you're trying to de stress. Get off your phone. If your brain is constantly busy, it is not going to de stress itself and that is your gut too. I see people walking their dogs and looking at their phone. Be present to your dog. They know you're not. Be present to your dog. Don't multitask. Be present to your dog. If you're going to go for a 25 minute walk or even an hour walk with your dog. Interact with your dog, not your phone, you'll feel a lot better. You know, I have clients I work with, I work with people sometimes and I tell them, you know, 30 minutes a day, an hour a day. Get off your phone. Don't put your phone away. Turn it off. Don't touch it, don't go near it, Go away from it. Get out of the house. Breathe fresh air, Relax. And it's amazing how a lot of people nowadays can't even begin to understand how to relax anymore. And we just need to. Stress is so important to negate as much as possible in your life. Other stomach antagonists, NSAIDs, painkillers, antihistamines, terrible causes, more histamine makes histamine worse, makes stomach acid worse. Small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. SIBO can and usually is the underlying cause of histamine intolerance. Steroids, antibiotics, vaccines. Over vaccinating. Not a good idea. The only vaccine that is required by law in this country, the usa, I can't speak for any other country, is the rabies vaccine. Yes. Get your dog their puppy shots, okay? After that do tighter tests. But I have to go to daycare, find a pet sitter, find a dog walker if you're too busy. Okay? For me it's, it's, it's a non negotiable look at risk over benefit. If your dog is at a high risk, then sure, give the vaccine. Just know that the Lyme vaccine has been Taken off the human market and is still given to dogs. Not okay and not effective. Look up the research on it. It's not effective. Flea and tick meds. Okay. Poison in the body. You know, you have an infestation, well, sometimes you have to give them. Prepare the body. We can talk about that, too. Don't give them. Unless you need to go over to Dogs Naturally magazine, whole dog journal, Dr. Judy Morgan, Dr. Katie Woodley. Lots of holistic doctors. Will Faulkner, Todd Cooney, Lori Koger, Kojer. So many great vets. D. Blanco. God, I think I could go on for a long time if I could remember everyone's names. They have really great information on the dangers of flea and tick medicine. And if you're gonna give flea and tick medicine, make sure you're giving milk thistle and something that supports the nervous system for your dog because it's really hard on their nervous system and can cause lifelong seizures. And in my opinion, avoid the flea and tick medicine that begins with a T or a B. Heartworm meds can also cause low stomach acid. Okay, if you're giving heartworm meds, make sure you're giving a digestive enzyme. If you're doing any of these things that I'm talking about that I feel you shouldn't. But you have your own choice and you gotta do what's right for you. There's no shame in anyone's game, in my opinion. You have to do what's right for you and your dog. However, give a digestive enzyme. Antacids cause a lot of low stomach acid. Acid reflux from low stomach acid, which makes low stomach acid worse. Okay. It suppresses, but causes sensitivities and allergies. Low stomach acid can cause pathogenic overgrowth in the entire gastrointestinal system and body because the stomach acid, your dog's stomach acid and your stomach acid is the first defense against pathogens. It destroys a ton of them. Low stomach acid can also bring down liver detoxification and antacids definitely do. And they also can cause an imbalanced microbiome. There's a lot more to this story and we are going to continue on our next episode of the podcast. We're going to continue on with our conversation about food sensitivities and what you can do about them. There's a lot to know. Okay. There's a lot to know, and I'll give you as much as I can. Want to take a second to thank my other sponsor, which is realmushrooms.com, real mushrooms. Mushrooms are great for food sensitivities, medicinal mushrooms that are hot water extracted and that is what real mushrooms puts out. We love their mushrooms. They're awesome. Turkey Tail, Chaga, Tremella, Reishi, Shiitake, Cordyceps. These are all mushrooms that can be beneficial depending on your dog's energetics. And one of the mushrooms that I have just fallen in love with, I've talked about it before, is Tremella. For food sensitivities and for a irritable gut. Tremella is like a super powered slippery elm. It can definitely be used in lieu of slippery elm which is endangered. So Tremella is not. You can grow and cultivate Tremella mushrooms so it's a sustainable gut remedy. So check real mushrooms out. You can find them on my website or at realmushrooms.com thanks for listening to this episode of Dogs Are Individuals. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review in your podcast app.

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