PEA - Mini Episode

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. Hi, everyone. Welcome to the Dogs Are Individuals podcast. I'm Rita Hocan, your host, and this is a short. These are lovely little segments that I'm making for every other week, and they're gonna go over a few, like, really potent items of interest. And today we are talking about pea. So what is pea? I couldn't even begin to pronounce what the real name of pea is, but I'm gonna give it a try. Palmitoylethanolamide. P A L M I T O Y L E T H A N O L A M I D E. Whoo. That is a mouthful. A lot of people have been talking about this supplement as of late, and I use it for dogs that have imbalances in their nervous system, like seizures. But it's been around for a long time, like the 1950s. And it's a natural kind of occurring molecule, and it comes from. Well, I think the three things it comes from are peanuts, like soy, lexin, and eggs, specifically the yolks. It could come from other substances as well, but those are the ones that I'm aware of. And it definitely helps with the immune system. It helps. Definitely has regulating effects on inflammation. So it brings down inflammation. It's good with anxiety and pain, and, you know, a lot of those things are related to inflammation. I think it's worthy of trying it out on your dog. I am going to start carrying some of it in my store because people have been requesting that I carry it, but right now you can get it at Dr. Judy Morgan's store. She carries a pea supplement. And what I find cool about pea is that it actually helps CBD or any cannabis products, endocannabinoids. It helps that entire system work better. And I have seen an increase in the efficacy of CBD in my practice using PEA as a combination. In herbalism, this is called synergy. In the cannabis world, it's referred to as the entourage effect. And either, you know, apples, tomato, tomato. But pea, I think, is really an effective anti inflammatory. I mean, you know, and it's good to have different types of anti inflammatories in our toolbox so that we can pull them out when they're needed. And one of the things I like about PA as an anti inflammatory is that addresses the nervous system and for me, whatever you're dealing with, you need to address the nervous system in every herbal protocol, pretty much no matter what. And when you address the nervous system and support the nervous system, healing is so much faster and so much more complete. One thing I find PEA as a really good replacement for is gabapentin. And you really don't want to get me started on the giving out of gabapentin for long term use, which in my opinion it's not meant for maybe a week. Gabapentin is a seizure drug that's been being used off market for everything from soups to nuts. So many dogs are on gabapentin and it, in my opinion, again, it works against them. So definitely what I'm talking about is works against them long term. PEA is a really good replacement for this drug because it does deal with nerve pain, it does deal with neurological deficiency and trauma in the body. So I think that it can help reverse the damage of inflammation and also help support the body's organ function through the neurological system. By doing so, you can help bring down anxiety in your dogs, you can help bring down stress throughout the whole dog as ecosystem. And what that does is it helps reduce, I would say, cognitive stress, vagus nerve activation, not reducing, but increasing vagus nerve activation and bringing down sympathetic excess. Where, you know, dogs and people are in fight or flight all the time. The cool thing is, is that PEA is produced, I mean, it's already produced in your dog's body. So your dog's body is familiar with it and it's naturally occurring. So there's not a lot of side effects. It definitely, I would say that even small amounts can increase the amount of PA that naturally occurs in your dog's body. From basically what I've researched and looked into. Another cool thing is that it doesn't need a prescription and you can buy it as a supplement. The dosages for dogs, for pea, I would say for very small dogs like a teacup Chihuahua, I probably would do like 30 to 50 milligrams twice daily. And then for, let's just go with a small dog, like a pug, we could do 75-100mg twice daily. You know, these are starting dosages, medium dog, like a corgi, 2 to 300 milligrams twice daily. Golden retriever, 4 to 500 milligrams twice daily. And then for extra dog jog, 6 to 800 milligrams twice daily. You know, those are giant breeds, like other supplements and like herbs, you're gonna need to have some patience with this supplement because it takes a while to build up and really see the differences. I would say between four and eight weeks, sometimes pushing out to 10 to 12. So if after 10 to 12 weeks on this supplement you don't see any changes in your dog, then I would stop it. I wouldn't keep giving it like any other natural substance. Everything doesn't work for every dog for sure. And for those of you in my energetics course who have taken my energetics course, the energetics of PEA are pretty neutral. So there's that. You want to check your sourcing when it comes to PEA supplements. Make sure you know where it's sourced from. As far as drug interactions with PEA in the research, there really isn't any drug interactions that you need to worry about. I might ask your veterinarian for interference with seizure drugs, but I haven't found any complications with that with the research I've been doing. So I think that it's safe and until I hear otherwise, I'm going to keep using. Definitely hasn't shown any major side effects with any of the dogs that I've recommended it to. And it's really, you know, it's a well rounded supplement. You know, again it can be used for pain, anxiety, definitely old dogs, dogs with arthritis, dogs with kidney issues, dog with liver issues, dogs with heart issues, definitely epilepsy and, and immune related issues. I think it's a very systemic supplement that you can try to utilize with your dog and see how it works. There's a lot of research on PEA that you can look at. You can, you know, look it up and study it if you would like. I do feel that it's very safe and highly effective for many dogs. I really love it for geriatric dogs because it does have that, that cognitive tie in and I know that if you need to find more information about it, it's very easy to research it online. There's like a lot of research papers that are published online, but you can't just search pea, you have to search the entire unpronounceable word. So again, it's P A L M I T O Y L E T H A N O L a M I D E And another thing, it is a standardized extract, it's not a whole plant medicine. But I think it is one of those extracts that does not have a lot of side effects that has been proven effective and it does give us another anti inflammatory tool in our toolbox. So I hope you enjoyed this short. Have a great day and I'll see you in the next episode of the Dogs Are Individuals Podcast. 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 Pop 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.