Last Updated on June 11, 2019 by Will Falconer, DVM
Stupendous news! I’ve got a patient getting over a serious disease by coincidence! It’s the darnedest thing. I had my clients give a homeopathic remedy from their emergency kit to Harley, the moose of a Mastiff who couldn’t swallow and was dropping his food and losing weight and feeling puny for over a month.
And he’s getting so much better!
But, since we all know that homeopathic medicine is mere head games, the remedies being far too diluted to have any possible medicinal effect, Harley must have finally gotten lucky and had a fortunate coincidence that got him well.
Or, according to other skeptics’ explanations of how this crazy system of medicine could possibly work, Harley is in spontaneous remission!
I’ll let you decide, dear readers. I’m just tickled that he’s getting well, finally. But listen to his tale.
Appetite from Hell
Harley had been on my patient list since about March 1 of this year. We’d tried a couple of different remedies before his latest without much success. Oh, he got less anxious with one remedy, he stopped hawking and coughing with another. Lost his excessive ear wax production and loose stools. That’s nice.
Probably coincidence, though.
But then Harley got really weird with his appetite. Megan and I were really scratching our heads trying to figure out why. Harley used to love his raw bone-in chicken leg quarters. Now, he’d leave them, and run for the kibble if there was some out. He’d eat chicken breast, or hamburger.
“Ah ha! He’s got sore teeth!” I proffered, feeling like the real Dr. Sherlock Falconer.
Megan then reported back, “He just chomped through a big beef bone without a problem!”
Didn’t sound like sore teeth, then. Something else.
Then Harley quit eating his kibble and really started losing weight. But he’d beg for and eat Megan’s food as if he were hungry, and he’d still eat his old fave, bread with peanut butter. Then plain hamburger was a hit, and he ate that for several days. And then he’d have nothing to do with that, either.
What was going on with this gentle giant?
More Serious: Vomiting. Repeatedly.
I have a saying: “Any dog can vomit once.” Meaning, a symptom that comes once in a blue moon, we’ll not worry about that. Nor treat it with a remedy. But Harley was now repeatedly vomiting. The common thread was, it was during empty tummy time. Fasting aggravated his stomach, from the sounds of it.
A new analysis, a new remedy that sounded promising, and I asked for a two week follow up report. I got one in eight days instead.
Oh oh. In the veterinary business, no news is good news. Frequent news is usually the opposite.
Megan reported some things were better: dandruff had cleared up, twitching in his sleep disappeared, and jumpiness with touch lessened significantly.
But Harley was also vomiting frequently now. It was either odorless bile or it was brownish and smelled like diarrhea. (“Eating stool?” “No, he doesn’t do that.”)
Breakthrough Observation Unlocks the Case
More bad news, Harley’s glands under his jaw were big. Ping pong ball sized. He was steadily losing weight. And he was much more lethargic.
And finally, in a mixed update that was not especially shiny, Megan relayed the following nugget:
He also seems to struggle to keep food in his mouth, or he is consciously spitting it out. I am not sure. It is hard to tell with those jowls. He used to just scarf food down. Especially meat. Now he chews, and chews, and chews and then it ends up falling out of his mouth. He has done this with small kibble, biscuit crumbs, hamburger pieces, whole muscle pieces, and bread. Basically everything he has eaten. He tries a couple times to pick things up again, but then I think he gets frustrated and walks away.”
I asked Megan and Ryan to put on their sharpest observational skills and see if they thought Harley was having trouble swallowing. Dogs with tick borne disease, of which Harley (and his partner Ida, written about in this article) had a history, can show “tick paralysis” from some of these bad boy diseases.
At first, I was misunderstood. They thought I was asking if they thought Harley had a sore throat. But, before it was clarified that I was asking about throat paralysis, another gem came forth to support my current theory:
He definitely drinks a lot of water, however his method has changed. Growing up he always would dunk his whole muzzle into the bowl and chomp at the water. Since we got Ida, he learned how to lap it up with his tongue. However since he has been sick (~the last month) he has gone back to chomping the water.
We Need a Coincidence, Stat!
I rushed back to his homeopathic analysis and added in the symptom that sure sounded like difficulty swallowing. Here he was, dropping food after a lot of attempts and chomping strangely at his water.
I had a remedy in mind for him, called lachesis, made from a highly poisonous and aggressive snake’s venom, proven in homeopathy by one of the greats, Constantine Hering, MD, who made its first dilution in 1828. Lachesis is well known for helping disorders of the throat, among other things.
In my analysis, it came up as #3, behind belladonna and mercurius. The latter had been tried earlier with some success, and belladonna didn’t strike me as fitting his case, so I telegraphed, sorry, emailed hurriedly back to Megan:
Get lachesis 30C from your kit. Stop. Dilute it in water, and give a dose twice a day for two days. Stop. Report back in four days. Stop.”
And today comes the news of The Amazing Coincidence:
The day of his first dose, he slept way more than usual, but by 6 pm, “he began to perk up. He followed Megan around, his eyes seemed brighter.”
By 6:30 pm, Harley “ran out barking to greet Ryan. He brought Ryan a bone and then chewed that bone for 25 minutes.”
Two days ago, he started his third dose, and “continued to show an increase in energy. He again ate a few small pieces of ham. He also started to lap his water at the dish, instead of chomping at it.”
Yesterday, Harley polished off two whole raw chicken breasts, “the first real thing he’s eaten since Tuesday.” (I’m writing this on Saturday). “Still not swallowing like he normally would, but an improvement.”
Yesterday evening, “Harley had a toy for Ryan when he came home. He played a small amount with Idaho, first time in weeks that he has done that.”
Aren’t coincidences wonderful?? This dog is finally getting well! Love those magic words, “First time in weeks!”
Harley lost a bit of ground while off the remedy for a couple of days, so I restarted him today. We want this coincidence to continue! If this is what it takes to get him into “spontaneous remission,” by God, we’ll continue it!
And, I sent out two doses of higher potency lachesis that will likely follow his 30C when the time comes.
Higher Potency = Even More Diluted??
Oh yes, true, the higher the potency, the more diluted the remedy and the more powerful its medicinal effect. Yeah, the skeptics really choke on that, but we homeopathic veterinarians do what we have to to keep these coincidences happening.
You know that 30C remedy, like you see in the store or most kits? It’s diluted 1:100, thirty times. So, if you gave lachesis 30C to a chemist and told him to tell you, by analysis, what was in it, he’d say, “Lactose and sucrose. Nothing else.”
“No snake venom?” you ask.
“No sir, not a whit.”
I’m sending Harley lachesis 1M. That’s a 1000C potency (a 1:100 dilution, repeated a thousand times, getting more and more dilute at each step). I’m also sending a 10M, which may follow the 1M, and it’s the same 1:100 dilution, but repeated ten thousand times!
Cured By, Erm, Coincidence
So, when we cure an animal of a serious chronic disease, with our third or fourth try at a remedy, and he didn’t respond that well to the first three, but really took off for cure with that fourth one?
That’s coincidence, according to the skeptics. Because in their minds, it’s impossible that something so diluted could cure anything. If someone is getting well after a remedy, it’s not due to the remedy. Nah. Impossible. It’s either:
Placebo response (which last time I checked, animals didn’t have), or
Spontaneous remission (they just finally gave up being sick. It happens all the time, right?), or
Coincidence (two things happen to show up together, but there’s no cause and effect relationship)
I love it when small minds try to explain things they can’t grok and try to make up reasons that keep their paradigms intact.
Homeopathy. Medicine of coincidence, spontaneous remission, and placebo effect. Sterling explanation, except for the fact that animals (and small children) just respond brilliantly to the proper remedy that fits their state of illness.
I’ll keep practicing this amazing art and science called homeopathy. Coincidences like Harley’s are too precious to give it up. Funny, though, how those coincidences only come after certain remedies are given, and not others. But don’t worry your pretty little head about that, Sweetheart. Come, let’s watch TV.
If you’d like to get a veterinary homeopath on board to help your animals have nice coincidences like this, see the AVH list on my Resources page.
Seen any homeopathic coincidences? Tell us about them in the comments. Especially the ones in your animals or small kids. Because you know they aren’t making this stuff up.
