Natural Alternatives

Homeopathic & Acupuncture Consults: Taking an In-Depth History

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Dr. Geraldine Diethelm, September 15, 2009

When clients make their first appointment for a homeopathic or acupuncture consult they are told to expect the exam to take 1 to 1.5 hours. You may wonder what could possibly take that long, especially when we aren’t doing any diagnostic testing like radiographs or blood work. But our questions are broader and the history is far longer than what would usually interest us as veterinarians. We start at the beginning of life and move forward to the present, learning everything we can along the way.

Light & Color Therapy in Pets

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Dr. Geraldine Diethelm, September 15, 2009

We have all experienced light therapy ourselves, whether we are conscious of this or not. Everytime winter turns to spring and the sun begins to peek through the clouds and fog, or after days of rain, our hearts lift and our smiles seem to be in greater supply. Many people actually experience serious depression in the fall and winter when the days get shorter and their work schedules prevent them from being outside when it is light out. Did you know that light helps us get up in the morning?

Ambience: Treating Patients & Helping Clients

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Dr. Geraldine Diethelm, September 15, 2009

Holistic medicine is all about taking the time to really get to know your patients and their owners. Therefore, having a comfortable clinic that looks and feels relaxing is very important. Sure, you can gather information from a client in a tiny exam room, standing face to face over an exam table with neon lights glaring down at you. You can ignore the shifting from one foot to the other as your client starts to surreptitiously look at his or her watch.

Homemade Diets

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Dr. Geraldine Diethelm, September 8, 2009

Homemade diets seem to be a hot topic right now. After the melamine scare, everyone was cooking for their pets and I used to get at least 5 calls a day regarding recipe recommendations. Personally, I was thrilled that people were finally considering homemade food as an option for their pets. But it is one thing explaining homemade food preparation and diet recommendations 1-on-1 in an exam room and a completely different thing trying to do so over the phone.

Cleaning the Green Way: A Holistic Home for Pets

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Dr. Geraldine Diethelm, September 8, 2009

In our practice, I have the distinction of being the veterinarian who practices alternative and holistic medicine. I include both the pets and their surroundings when I come up with solutions to problems that a pet or a pet owner might be experiencing. An important issue that I’d like to address is how to keep our homes naturally clean and safe for our pets and ourselves. Since we keep our pets indoors and they’re part of the family, this means that they often get to share the couch, the bed, and sometimes even the dinner table with us.

The History of Homeopathy

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Dr. Geraldine Diethelm, September 8, 2009

So many people dismiss homeopathy as an unproven and impossible science. They wonder how a remedy that is so diluted can have the strength to do much of anything. Or they look at the ingredients in some of these remedies (like arsenicum, mercury, and belladonna) and wonder how this can possibly be a safe way to practice medicine.

Pets with Storm Phobias: Treating Anxiety & Fear

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Dr. Geraldine Diethelm, September 8, 2009

According to my dictionary, anxiety is a mental uneasiness or distress arising from fear of what may happen, while fear is an emotion characterized by dread or expectation of harm. There are several other ancillary definitions, but those two describe best what we see in dogs and cats with thunderstorm phobias. Living in South Florida, this is the worst time of year for pets with this problem.

Treating Grief in Animals

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Dr. Geraldine Diethelm, September 8, 2009

Grief: We have all experienced it in our personal lives. But what about animals-do they feel it? I've heard some of our clients tell stories that would seem to support this theory. For instance, the tale of the dog that waited dejectedly by the bedroom door for the daughter who had gone off to college or the anecdote about the cat that howled incessantly after its owner passed away both seem to demonstrate the fact that animals grieve.

Tui Na: Chinese Massage

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Dr. Geraldine Diethelm, September 8, 2009

How lovely to have a massage! All you have to do is just lie there and enjoy a good rub. Animals get to enjoy this too, though their massage, if it is a Chinese massage (also known as tui na), tends to be a little more interactive. If pressed to describe it, I'd say that it is part chiropractic adjustment, part massage. It's often used in traditional Chinese veterinary medicine (TCVM) as an adjunct to acupuncture or as a stand-alone treatment. One of the nice things about tui na is that the client is included in their pet's care.

Acupuncture in Pets

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Dr. Geraldine Diethelm, September 8, 2009

Having grown up in Hong Kong, I was exposed to the arts of traditional Chinese medicine from an early age. A friend of my mother's practiced acupuncture. While visiting her I would see charts of the human body decorating the walls. There were lines running down the fronts and backs of these bodies, from the heads to the arms and back down to the legs, with numbers and Chinese characters along each line. They looked like maps with highways and street signs, directions to the workings of the human body.

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