What if one course of antibiotics could take one year to undo in your pet’s body?
That’s the truth. Same for us. Only one course of antibiotics for pets can disrupt the gut microbiome to such an extent, that it will take one whole year to restore balance. You may think, ok, that’s life. If my dog or cat gets an infection, it’s more important to drive it out of their body and I can worry about their gut later.
But, when you know that 70% of your pet’s immune system resides in their gut and 80% of their serotonin, a happiness hormone, that presents a different picture. And, our seniors are even more at risk.
I’m not saying there’s no place for antibiotics in your pet’s life. When our cat, Suki, got into a fight as a street cat before we took her in, and her back paws got so infected before she was taken to a vet that it went down to the bone, I didn’t hesitate to volunteer to get her to a vet, but to also put her on antibiotics. However, at the same time, I added a series of homeopathic remedies to support her body and help heal her wounds faster and more completely.
Barring our pet going septic, most of the time, we do have natural alternatives to antibiotics that are do no harm. Let’s explore why antibiotics may not be the best choice for your pet’s health and delve into natural alternatives that can effectively address infections without compromising their immune systems. This is Senior Pet Health Month.
Antibiotics and the Weakening of the Immune System
One of the primary concerns with antibiotics is their impact on the immune system. These medications work by killing or inhibiting the growth of bacteria, but they do not discriminate between harmful and beneficial bacteria. The gut is home to a beautiful and vast garden of beneficial bacteria that play a crucial role in maintaining a healthy immune system. The microbiome is made up of microorganisms like bacteria, fungi and viruses. They live in your dog’s ears, on his skin, in his mouth, and in his respiratory tract. But, the vast majority of these microbes live in your pet’s digestive system. Antibiotics disrupt this delicate balance, leading to a compromised immune system and making pets more susceptible to future infections. In addition, because the antibiotic is fighting the infection for your pet’s body, they become more susceptible in the future to getting the same infection over and over again, because that part of the body is vulnerable by being weakened.
Development of The Superbug: Antibiotic Resistance
Overuse of antibiotics, even in pets, contributes to the growing problem of the development of superbugs and antibiotic resistance. When antibiotics are overused or used indiscriminately, bacteria can develop resistance, rendering these medications ineffective. This not only poses a threat to the individual animal but also to public health, as some resistant strains of bacteria can be transmitted to humans.
“‘The time may come when penicillin can be bought by anyone in the shops. Then there is the danger that the ignorant man may easily under dose himself and by exposing his microbes to non-lethal quantities of the drug, make them resistant’, said Alexander Fleming, speaking in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech in 1945. As predicted almost 70 years ago by the man who discovered the first antibiotic, drug resistance is upon us.” NIH/PubMed.
This is a global pandemic in the making. When disease that truly needs antibiotics can’t be cured by them, we’re and our animals are in trouble.
Potential Side Effects of Antibiotics
Antibiotics can come with a host of side effects for pets, ranging from mild to severe. These may include allergic reactions, lethargy, loss of appetite, and even damage to vital organs.
Nutrient deficiencies is another. Because the gut microbiome plays a major role in digestion and the vitamin B12, which helps to create and improve the protective tissues that coat the nerves in the brain and other functions, is produced in the gut, that can lead to a host of problems. In addition, antibiotics deplete the vitamins B1, B2, B6, B12 C, E, K, inositol and magnesium, creating issues like anemia, diarrhea, behavior changes, allergies, nerve degeneration, irritable bowel syndrome, leaky gut and more.
Long-Term Health Consequences
Prolonged use of antibiotics can have lasting effects on your pet’s health. As mentioned above, chronic antibiotic use may lead to nutrient deficiencies, but also impaired organ function, and an increased risk of chronic conditions. If you’re feeding food that is not nutritious for your pet, these risks are increased. Opting for natural remedies can address infections without the risk of long-term health consequences.
Natural Alternatives for Pet Health
Nutritional Support: Nutrition is always the foundation of the house, and serving a fresh food diet is the best way to ensure your dog or cat will have a strong immune system. Why? Because you are providing their bodies with all of the nutrients its needs to produce the energy for cells to do their jobs and the organ systems to thrive. Heat kills vitamins and minerals, so dry food, wet food and cooked food all kill nutrients. Home cooking fresh, healthy food is great; I’d recommend using a food processor to puree raw nutritious veggies and lightly searing any meats or fish to maintain as much of the live enzymes in the food as possible. T/hose live enzymes make it much more efficient for nutrients to go from the small intestine walls into the bloodstream to make energy for the cells.
Probiotics: Introducing probiotics to your pet’s diet can help restore the balance of beneficial bacteria in the gut, supporting a healthy immune system. But not all probiotics are created equal and there are plenty on the market that won’t even survive getting past your pet’s stomach. The acid level of a dog or cat’s stomach is up to 100 times more than ours. 100 times! So, you want a probiotic that has been tested to withstand this intense level of acidity.
Also, there is an important synergy between pre and probiotics. Prebiotics are a type of fiber that the body cannot digest, whereas probiotics are tiny living microorganisms, including bacteria and yeast that populate the gut and help to balance the microbiome. Prebiotics serve as food for probiotics.
So, you want to either use a product that has both pre and probiotics in it or make sure to feed prebiotic foods to your pet as well as give them a probiotic.
I like MuttGut and KittyGut because it not only has pre and probiotics, but also postbiotics, something you don’t hear much about in products for pets or humans. Postbiotics are the waste left behind after the body digests both prebiotics and probiotics. Healthy postbiotics include nutrients like vitamins B and K, amino acids, and substances called antimicrobial peptides that help to slow down the growth of harmful bacteria. Other postbiotic substances called short-chain fatty acids help healthy bacteria flourish. Consuming fermented foods, like kefir, tempeh, and kimchi, for humans, help create postbiotics. For our pets, the proprietary process used to formulate MuttGut and KittyGut mean those peptides, short chain fatty acids and metabolites are created which are the postbiotics that are so beneficial to restoring the gut balance. If your pet has been on antibiotics, have this trifecta of pre, pro and postbiotics in one product is crucial.
Homeopathy: I love the gentle power of homeopathy to handle both acute and chronic issues. If your pet has symptoms of an infection or illness in general, that complete symptoms picture will be necessary to determine the best homeopathic remedy for your individual animal. In homeopathy, it’s always about how that individual is expressing their illness, so two dogs both with diarrhea and vomiting can be expressing this condition differently. For example, one dog could vomit directly after eating while the other vomits hours after eating. One could want to be out in the cold air while the other wants to be cuddled under the covers. One could be very thirsty while the other could be thirstless. You see what I mean? Both dogs have the condition of vomiting and diarrhea but they are each expressing this condition in their own unique way. So, two different remedies would be needed for each.
Herbal Remedies: Many herbs possess natural antibacterial properties. For instance, oregano oil, raw organic garlic, and echinacea can be incorporated into your pet’s diet or a protocol to boost their immune system or handle acute infections and illness. Goldenseal is great an an antimicrobial (anti-bacterial and anti-viral), as well. There are other herbs that are good for various conditions. Consulting with an experienced herbalist is a great way to get on a natural path to heal your animal with herbs.
Frequency Scanning: The genius, Nikola Tesla, in the 1940’s discovered everything in the universe is made up of energy, which vibrates at different frequencies. The energy that we emit also vibrates at a certain frequency. Our thoughts and feelings are energy, and they vibrate at a certain frequency. When we focus our thoughts on something, we emit a signal with a specific frequency. This discovery opened up the Universe for so many others to carry this forward and the frequency scanner is one of those brilliant devices that can help heal our pets and ourselves. It actually scans the body, identifies those frequencies that are out of balance and send in balance corresponding frequencies to the body to gently coax those back into balance. Since our frequencies are constantly changing – we live in an ocean of motion – scanning regularly is a good idea. The reports this machine generates is a great preventative tool to show you what frequencies are consistently out of balance. This could mean an illness or dis-ease is brewing but is still only energetic, not get a diagnosis. So, you have the opportunity to head it off at pass with lifestyle changes. Pretty cool, right? You can learn more about the frequency scanner I use here.
Hygiene Practices: Regular grooming, maintaining a clean environment, using natural, chemical free products (including garbage bags that are unscented) and practicing good hygiene can prevent the spread of infections and reduce the need for antibiotics, too. We want to minimize exposure to toxic chemicals in our air, water, grass, food and home as much as possible. It is the toxic overload in our pets’ bodies that lead to illness and dis-ease, because when the body can no longer deflect them and process them, then chronic inflammation develops and that leads to all dis-ease. That’s why buying organic whenever you can is so important. That includes the meat your pets eat. I love farmers markets for this reason. I’m able to talk directly with the farmers and seek out those farms and ranches where the animals live their entire lives in the field (called grass fed and finished), aren’t treated with antibiotics and hormones as a matter of course and where the grass isn’t treated with herbicide and pesticide. If anyone wants links to those I’ve found that ship around the country, please leave a comment below.
In summary, it’s great we have antibiotics for serious conditions that are so far along, we need the instant power of a pharmaceutical to get it under control while we continue to support our pets’ bodies naturally. However, the overuse of antibiotics is making that more and more difficult as more strains of bacteria are now antibiotic resistant. Using antibiotics come with a wide range of side effects, including the destruction of the gut microbiome, where 70% of your pet’s immune system resides. Repairing the gut is a number one priority to ensure better health and vitality longterm in your pet. And, there are a number of natural alternatives to antibiotics you can explore to treat infections and all types of conditions in your animal.
I hope this was helpful. It is also Antibiotics Awareness Week this week and pet parents, please be aware of what these do and the fallout from them. It is my mission and passion to empower you to make the best decisions as the health advocates for your beloved animals.
Jody
