Pancreatitis Part 2

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. Hey, guys, this is Rita Hogan, your host of this Dogs are Individuals podcast. I am continuing our pancreatitis information today, going over more, more and more remedies that you can use for acute chronic pancreatitis and then both types of pancreatitis. Before we step into this, I want to go over my lovely sponsor, Adored Beast. I want to go over one of their products that I use a lot, you guessed it, Gut Soothe. So Gut Soothe is Adored Beast anti inflammatory for the gut. It soothes and replenishes the bowel lining, so it's good for leaky gut. It can help fight yeast, and it definitely can help with unhealthy bacteria levels. It's a blend of probiotics, about 30 billion. It mixes slippery elm bark, larch, DGL, which is a lick like a deglycerides, licorice, N acetyl, glucosamine, L glutamine, marshmallow root, and aloe vera. And I love this product for dogs that are more on the warm to hot side. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, check out my canine energetics course. It'll blow your mind. And, you know, you can use it according to the directions and that's like in the food once a day and it's according to weight. But when dogs are having, and these are cool or warm dogs, you can use it acutely when they're having stomach upset. This is a really great product to use and I like to use it a little differently. So I make an infusion out of Gutsu. I mix it with almost boiling water, I stir it with a spoon, I let it, it forms a little bit of a gel and then I let it cool and then I give it to my dog, either in a little bit of food or I syringe it when their stomach is really upset or when they've got diarrhea. And it works great. So I sell the Adored Beast gutsuit on my canineherbalist.com website or you can go to AdoredBeast, their website, the Adored Beast Apothecary. Check them out, tell them Rita Hogan sent you and I do not think that you will be disappointed. So the pancreas, we've talked about it before and I just wanted to round this out I think by talking to a lot of my mentors, I had got the gist that there isn't a ton of, like, solutions for acute pancreatitis. There are some for chronic pancreatitis, but acute is kind of, you know, iffy. And I wanted to share some knowledge that I've gained over the past couple decades on dealing with this type of issue. So, pancreatitis in dogs is pretty common and it can range from severe to mild. There are two types of pancreatitis, acute and chronic. Both of them cause pain and different levels of digestive upset and sometimes malnutrition. Acute cases of pancreatitis can pretty much come on really quickly and be severe and can also be mild and varying in symptoms. Severe cases of pancreatitis often require veterinary care, including fluids and pain management. Chronic pancreatitis is more common in dogs and usually seen in those types of canines with low enzymes or enzyme deficiency. And definitely they have nutritional imbalances, low absorption of nutrients and endocrine disorders, because in the body everything's connected. And all of these conditions lead to pancreatic insufficiency as well as an imbalance in the entire dog, its ecosystem. So for dogs, it's always important to bring your dog to the vet for a diagnosis and blood workup so you know what you're dealing with. Depending on the severity of the pancreatitis, you can usually treat them at home. If the pancreatitis is more severe, your vet may want to help bring down your dog's pain and inflammation. And when your dog's pain stabilizes, you can apply herbal medicine or herbal methods of balance after you bring them home. I know that I'm here to talk about herbs, but diet is everything when pancreatitis is concerned. So remember to avoid kibble, and that's dry food, and feed fresh food as much as possible. And it's important for healing the pancreas. So avoid fatty meats like duck or lamb, as well as rich meats like beef or bison or buffalo. Focus on simple proteins like pastured chicken, turkey, quail, whitefish, or simply eggs. Also add a pancreas glandular. Glandulars really help feed and nourish the pancreas during this time. And I would probably feed a pancreas glandular for three to six months afterwards. You want to feed small meals instead of one or two large meals. While you're dealing with pancreatitis, don't give added fats except in small, like small amounts of coconut oil might be Fine. But I would probably avoid fats altogether until everything calms down. Because the pancreatic diet is temporary, it's just happening while the organs are resting and healing themselves. So choose bland foods for at least a week and in the case of chronic pancreatitis, use bland flu foods for a while while healing the pancreas. So like simple defatted bone broth is an example of a bland food as well as cooked chicken breast. So let's go over three steps that I have for dealing with pancreatitis in dogs and, and people. So step one, the basically allowing your dog's pancreas to rest. I like to fast for 24 hours, sometimes 48, but you can give your dog small amounts of water and electrolytes or bone broth. You'll have to see if your dog can keep fluids down and if they don't, you might need to go to the vet for subcutaneous fluids. I usually keep trying fluids every few hours and normally they're pretty well tolerated, but by the end, like pretty much the end of the first day. But you want to just see how things are going. And then step two, you want to give small amounts of bone broth as kind of an introduction to nourishment. If you weren't able to give bone broth that first day and then kind of work your way into a small, bland, low fat meal. Cooking your dog's diet can work for some dogs, while others prefer it raw. But you wanna give pancreatic enzymes with the food and let it sit on the food for about 10 to 15 minutes to help it pre digest. I like to like cook my dog's food, but I will give raw if like the cooking results are less than optimal. Again, make sure that you're giving pancreatic enzymes with every meal, starting out real slow and then working your way up to the recommended dosage. So leave on your dog's food for at least 15 minutes after you stir and it will really help with pre digestion, as I said earlier. So trace minerals are also important to the diet and basically to the entire dog's ecosystem. So research indicates that dogs and people with acute and chronic pancreatitis are low in trace minerals like copper, chromium and zinc. And the kidneys don't work as well when you're low on trace minerals. So I would probably start with just like a pinch of Himalayan salt. And if you wanna step your game up, you could use like a liquid humic fulvic acid supplement. So step three, step three is Giving herbs and homeopathy. And this is really gonna help the healing process along. This is especially prudent for pain. As you know, pain can cause more inflammation and inflammation causes more pain. So you have this domino effect going on. And I like to give aconite 200C and arnica 200C once an hour for three doses in your dog's mouth. And all it really has to do is hit the mucosa inside the mouth cavity. And I just kind of give it a toss in and keep them away from water food for about 30 minutes. And I do this whenever I'm noticing that my dog is in pain. And then I add herbs. And I have separated the herbs I want to go over in this podcast by acute, chronic, and then for both chronic and acute. So let's talk about acute. First. I use what's called phytoembryonic therapy. They are the embryonic stem cells of plants and remedies made from those plants. They're made through maceration using alcohol, water and glycerin. So the first one is dandelion rootlets. So the little fine hairs that are coming off the main root, they're really supportive for acute pancreatitis. The embryonic rootlets are really high in antioxidants, and they support the liver and the digestive system as well as the microbiome, so they kind of tick those pancreatic boxes. Research has shown that rootlets protect against the effect of CCK octopeptides, which can be the cause of acute pancreatitis attacks. And the rootlets also help strengthen the pancreas as well as the entire digestive system. So you can combine it with mature plant medicine, dandelion or burdock root to help with the proper digestion of fats. So using the rootlets in an embryonic mixture, it's kind of like a 1 to 20 and not very much is needed. So like three individual drops for extra small dogs, that's like a teacup chihuahua. 4 to 5 drops for small dogs. Kind of think of a pug or, you know, like a regular sized Chihuahua. 5 to 8 drops for medium dogs, that's kind of like a corgi. Eight to 12 drops for a large dog, think golden retriever. And 12 to 15 drops for extra large dogs. And remember, this is acute, so we're using a little bit more of a material dose. So for those of you who don't know about phytoembryonic therapy, again, in this case, we'd be using the rootlets. But you Also use the buds, the young shoots, the germinating seeds, and the embryonic barks. And what I love about phytoembryonic therapy is it's a very sustainable form of herbalism that can allow the mature plants to go through their life cycle. And I love that about these remedies. And they're very, very, very effective, especially in this pancreatitis situation. The next one is European walnut. And again, this is another phytoembryonic at Junglins Regia. And the embryonic is very neutral in energetics. Again, it's for acute pancreatitis. It's highly effective at strengthening the pancreas and bringing down inflammation. And it supports the liver and it helps heal damaged mucous membranes, so the mucosa. It also helps regulate insulin in the pancreas and balances blood sugars during a pancreatic attack, which is awesome. So this remedy is made up of the buds. And I like embryonic walnut because it has the intestinal tie in in dogs and definitely with people as well. And because acute pancreatitis needs balance in the intestinal flora. And this remedy helps normalize that intestinal flora and normalize pancreatic enzyme production. The dosage for walnut, embryonic walnut, is 3 drops for extra small dogs, 4 to 5 drops for small dogs, 5 to 8 drops for medium dogs, 8 to 12 drops for large dogs, and 12 to 15 drops for extra large dogs. And that can be given twice to three times daily. Another embryonic I like is white birch, and that's betula alba or the pibensis. Again, acute pancreatitis, it's quite neutral and you're gonna use a 1 to 20 or 1 to 10. And you can buy these remedies already made, and you can find them at nature-provides.com and they're also available. The white birch and the walnut, not the dandelion, are available in a 1 to 200. It's more of a homeopathic preparation and you would triple those dosages for that remedy. But white birch buds are really good at stimulating the immune system. They help protect the liver and help it promote healthy detoxification. Phase one and two. Birch works for both the chronic and acute pancreatitis and it assists in bringing down inflammation. But if I had to pick, I think it works better. At acute pancreatitis, betula stimulates the regeneration of KUFR cells in the liver. Increasing detoxification and toxic load is really key for dogs with chronic pancreatitis and digestive malfunction. For sure, you really have to get that under control. It also contains salicylic acid, which helps with pain and inflammation and it supports the kidneys. So the dosage for that is 3 drops for extra small dogs, 5 drops for small dogs, 8 drops for medium dogs, 12 drops for large dogs, and 15 drops for extra large dogs. Again given twice daily or three times. For chronic pancreatitis, I have another phytoembryonic therapy that I use. You can use the 1 to 200 or the 1 to 10, 1 to 20. Black mulberry morus nigra. It's neutral in energetics. It helps strengthen and stimulate the pancreas. You want to avoid this remedy. In acute cases of pancreatitis, I like to recommend starting out with a small dosage and working your way up to the recommended dosage. Like, start out with one drop. It's a very powerful remedy and like walnut, it helps restore normal pancreatic function. So the dosage for the 1 to 20, which is the normal ratio that you're going to find when you purchase this commercially, or the 1 to 200, but the 1 to 20, it's 3 drops for extra small dogs, 4 drops for small dogs, 5 drops for medium dogs, 8 drops for large dogs, and 12 drops for extra large dogs. And of course, those are recommended dosages from my experience. So dogs are individuals, people are individuals, so you want to start out slow and work your way up to tolerance. For the 1 to 200 dosages, you can pretty much triple what I just said. So for both acute and chronic pancreatitis, I like to use another phytoembryonic therapy called black currant, Ribus nigrum. It's slightly warming, so it's better for that cool to cold constitution. But you, you know, you can use it for a warm dog, but I would avoid it in dogs that are quite hot. Ribus nigrum is an excellent anti inflammatory. It has a natural cortisol function, or, I'm sorry, cortisone function. And when given acutely as well as chronic, for cases of pancreatitis, it brings down inflammation and it helps with inflammation in the digestive system. And it's really high in antioxidants, which is going to help support liver detoxification. The dosage for the 1 to 20 is 3 drops for extra small, 4 drops for small 5, 5 drops for medium dogs, 8 drops for large dogs, and 10 drops for extra large dogs. And again given twice daily or three times depending on the severity of the pancreatitis and Then we go to our mature plant medicines. Milk thistle seed is another herb that is great for pancreatitis. You can give milk thistle seed long term if your dog has chronic pancreatitis. I'm not talking about the standardized extract, just the seed. Milk thistle helps support and protect the liver, the gallbladder, as well as support the digestive process. Most herbalists know a lot about milk thistle. So trauma caused by the pancreas causes metabolic waste and puts pressure on the liver a lot more waste than normal. And milk thistle seed can help with this. It also helps support the liver's cellular structure and, and basically the overall functioning of the entire basically systemic function. And it aids the liver in the detoxification process. The next mature plant medicine that I use is slippery elm. Alma's ruba rubra. Sorry. And it, it's. I use it as a powdered herb. I make a slurry out of it and give it to dogs. And it's really great for pancreatitis. It coats the gut, it's an anti inflammatory. It definitely soothes the gastrointestinal membranes, the mucous membranes. It's high in fiber and that helps feed beneficial bacteria. And it helps support normal gastrointestinal function, especially during a pancreatic attack. And it's really, really good for chronic pancreatitis. And it's safe for long term use in this case as well. And I try to use marshmallow root a lot of the times instead of slippery elm, but in this case, slippery elm is, I think it's better, you know, it's better indicated. It definitely can work on repairing tissue. And what I like most about slippery elm is that it lasts over 24 hours in the digestive tract, so, so that it's not needed to be dosed more than once daily. If you need to dose it twice, you can, but I really haven't seen a need for it. Burdock root helps digest fats and oils and it combines well with milk thistle and slippery elm. For chronic pancreatitis. Burdock root strengthens the liver, kidney, the pancreas. It has that liver, kidney, pancreas connection, what, which I love and it helps, it helps dogs so much. In general, a lot of dogs have a problem with digesting fats and oils because sometimes they're ingesting oils that are rancid. Also that, you know, highly inflammatory oils in poor kibble diets can be a big problem. That's one of the reasons why you want to get your dog off kibble, especially if they are suffering from chronic pancreatitis. The last herb that I love for pancreatitis is agrimony. Agrimony has an affinity towards the pancreas and the spleen especially, you know, I would say in dogs. It restores pancreatic tissue function and regulates the overall functionality of the entire pancreas and it helps cleanse the blood. I like to combine it with burdock root for that and it moves the lymph system, which is important. You can use a stronger lymphatic if you want, but I have found that agrimony really does work in this situation. During a pancreatic attack, you can use agrimony as an infusion in water with your dogs and give both the extracted herb and the liquid in the food. For those of you that have not worked with phytoembryonic therapy before, I highly recommend looking into it. I carry a lot of the remedies in my store. @k nineherbalist.com you can get the 1 to 200 remedies that are very good at overall organ drainage. You can get them from Lauren Hubley. You can get them from a company called Unda, which is U N D A. You can, you can Google gemotherapy and a lot of the remedies will come up. For the mother tinctures I go to nature-provides.com I sell their remedies on my website. But if you are a practitioner, you can get a practitioner's account at that company. You can inquire with that and they will give you an account and you can try out some of those remedies. If you have any questions about the remedies you can write into my podcast@canineherbalist.com you'll see the email link there and you can ask me any type of questions you want about phytoembryonic therapy and the one to two hundreds which I refer to as gemotherapy. Okay, so that is about it on pancreatitis and dogs and herbs. I want to thank my second sponsor of my podcast which is realmushrooms.com and I sell real mushrooms, a lot of the dog, their dog products and a few of their human products on my website. I use their human products for my human clients as well as my dog clients. And one of the remedies that I like in their line is their chaga because it is sustainable. Chaga Adored Beast also has some sustainable chaga for sale as well as you know, they are another sponsor of my podcast but real mushrooms, chaga is of chaga powder. It comes in a capsule or a bulk powder. And this species is anotonous obliquis. O B L I Q U U S. It's a different species of chaga than you would find on, you know, in the marketplace. They grow it sustainably on birch trees and it's good for gastrointestinal issues. It helps with the skin and immune system. It is not high in oxalates. They actually test their Chaga 4 oxalates. And so you can use it knowing that it's very, either no oxalate or very low oxalate. It supports the tonification of the body, so it helps with deficiency, it helps with metabolism, it helps to restore adrenal function. It's a good adaptogen. I like to use it for digestion and it's really high in antioxidants. So it's a really good antioxidant. And we can always use more of like more choices in the antioxidant department that don't have a huge influence on the systemic imbalance or systemic balance that our, our dogs have. Some antioxidant choices, in my opinion are poor because you can't just like tell an herb to go into the body and say, hey, I just really want you to be an antioxidant. I don't really want you to do anything else. I want you to help support oxidation in the body. I want you to help support the liver. And that's pretty much it. It doesn't work that way. So I like to find antioxidants that are very supportive kind of systemically and don't have a lot of like really hard line affinities where we might cause an upset by giving that herb too long. I think that this particular type of chaga is good for long term use. It's safe for long term use. You want to see how it sits with your dog. You know, as I tell everybody that works with me, don't start anything new. When you're trying something out, you know, stick with one thing, see how it works over the next seven, 10 to 15, 20 days. And then you can discontinue it after a few weeks and see if there's any decline. You know, that's one of the best ways to check something. But as you know, or as I've told you before, it really does take three to six to eight weeks, depending on the herb. There's a lot of gray area in herbalism to see if an herb is going to start working for your dog. So you May need to check it a little longer. But don't go ahead and start a whole bunch of new things. If you're trying to see if a mushroom is going to add some like vitality, going to help the microbiome. You know, lots of herbs are, lots of mushrooms are really good prebiotics and, and they really do help the microbiome and you're gonna see over vitality increase. And like this chaga is really good for digestive health. It has that skin liver connection, it helps with the immune system and overall metabolic function, which is like the function of just, you know, your dog being alive. So check it out. I will be having my next mini episode come out a week after this episode. So don't forget to check out those mini episodes. I have some exciting news coming up and I have a new sponsor for my podcast. They're going to be sponsoring the mini episodes of the podcast and I can't wait to share that company with you because they're very dear to my heart and I use their products and I love their products. So check those mini podcasts out so you can find out who my new sponsor is. Okay. Thank you for listening about the pancreas. And we have pretty much, you know, covered everything there is to cover through this podcast format about the pancreas. And again, if you have any questions, write into the podcast via Canine Herbalist. Thanks for listening to this episode of Dogs Are Individuals. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review in your podcast app. And don't forget, sharing is caring. So if you love Dogs Are Individuals podcast, share it with your friends and family who love dogs. This will help me so much. And remember, as a listener, I appreciate you much. Thanks to Resonant Media, my podcast production team. This podcast is produced by Drake Peterson and edited by Mike Fry. Any questions, email the show, go to k9herbalist.com Click podcast contact in the menu and then fill out that form and I'll answer any questions here online. Okay, so thank you so much for listening to this episode of Dogs Are Individuals Podcast and I'm going to talk to you in our next episode.