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When we left Jasmine and Jana last time, Jasmine was being prepared for surgery on an abdominal abscess. Jana was unsure whether Jasmine would survive the surgery and was terribly worried about her. Today, Jasmine’s story continues.
Jasmine’s Saga Concludes
by Jana Rade
Jasmine was a trooper. Her platelets were raising fast. Surgery was successful. But she still wasn’t walking. “No surprise with her knees,” they told us. Her knees were fine before this happened! But nobody was listening to us. It took a whole week before Jasmine could walk a little bit with help. Took another week before she could get up and walk on her own. Gradually her wide stance narrowed again. Took a month before she started getting her muscle mass back. As she was collapsing in all kinds of unnatural positions we were so worried about what that might do to her knees! But the knees held up.
After she came back from the hospital Jasmine was very sick. She was throwing up all the time, didn’t want to eat and had to be force-fed, and worse, her episodes got so bad that they became constant with just short breaks! Spiking fever off and on.
Were we just torturing her? Such thoughts were going through our minds. Two weeks after she returned from the hospital we were supposed to go up to Jasmine’s ranch. Should we do that? Might cheer her up … The morning of the planned trip she was supposed to go in to get her stiches out. It was five in the morning and we still didn’t know what we should do. We were all packed up. We figured that we load everything up and go to the vet. Then we’ll either continue on the trip or go back home.
The vet took out the stitches, evaluated the situation and figured there wasn’t much else that could be done for her. Either she’ll get through this or not. He said to go on the trip and try to enjoy it. So that was what we did.
It was like a magic! While still very weak, Jasmine had turned around the day we got there. Perhaps it gave her the feeling that there was still hope and a reason to live. At the end that was the best thing we could have done for her.
She recovered. All was good, except the persistent episodes. It was time to try something else! I have first learned about Traditional Chinese Veterinary Medicine (TCVM) back when I was researching different options for her ligament injury. I found an owner who had used TCVM for his dogs for a long time with a great success. I bought and studied Four Paws, Five Directions book. It made sense to me that this different approach might help provide some answers. What we’ve done so far didn’t bring any positive results.
I got Jasmine’s new vet on board—he has earned a lot of our trust in the meantime and we wanted him to agree with the idea and remain in charge. Reluctantly, he agreed.
Out TCVM exam did offer a diagnosis the vet seemed confident about. It also offered a treatment that didn’t involve drugs. He left Jasmine’s new diet alone, but added acupuncture and herbal treatment.
Jasmine’s stools improved with the change in diet, but her appetite did not. With the addition of the TCVM treatments he stools are now perfect and her appetite is so great we cannot believe it. A dog that is not food driven? Bollocks!
Her episodes didn’t go away but improved significantly. It is a work in progress, using integration of both modern medicine and TCVM.
Today, Jasmine’s knees are as good as new and she has no issues with arthritis thanks to the stem cell treatment. She is not on any meds for pain or arthritis. She is doing great as we are still working on eliminating the episodes all together.
What I have learned from all this?
If you feel that something is wrong with your dog, it probably is and don’t let anybody tell you otherwise!
- Nothing wrong with Jasmine’s GI system? Wrong!
- Nothing wrong with Jasmine’s mouth? Wrong!
- No reason for her hot spots and flaky skin? Wrong!
- Her episodes are a behavioral problem? Wrong!
This list could go on. Every time I felt something was wrong it turned out later that it was. Much later than it was good for her health. How many of the things that happened to her wouldn’t have to have happened if her food allergies were diagnosed at the beginning? If something isn’t right with your dog, insist on an explanation!
The obvious solutions don’t have to be the best! Often alternatives can be better and safer! Looking at things through different looking glass can offer a new insight!
Jana
The End?
For us, this concludes Jasmine’s story. However, as Jana says, Jasmine’s still standing and just passed her seventh birthday. Happy birthday, Jasmine. And be well!! To Jana, my heartfelt thanks for sharing Jasmine’s story with us. My hope is that Jana’s hard-earned knowledge can spare some of you and your pets the same type of experience.
Jana Rade is a graphic designer by profession and never aspired to learning about dog health issues until she met Jasmine. Unfortunately, she received a crash course in the subject due to Jasmine’s many health issues and has since become an advocate for other pet owners and their four-legged friends. In her blog, Dawg Business, Jana shares her experiences and the lessons she has learned with others. She shares this message with all dog owners: At the end, your dog’s health is up to you!
About Lorie Huston, DVM
Lorie Huston is a veterinarian, pet health and pet care expert, professional writer, blogger, social media and blogging consultant, and SEO strategist.
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Dog health can certainly depend on the owners. Jana has done well in sharing her stories and providing great dog health information that will undoubtedly help others. Natural care and treatments are great for so many things Traditional Chinese Veterinary Medicine is quite interesting. Very glad for them,
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Thanks for stopping by. Ear problems can indeed be a big problem. I’m happy to hear you found something that works for you and was able to resolve your dog’s ear problem.
My Irish Setter,Cally was adopted in New York at the age of 2 1/2 along with her brother, Murphy. They instantly became the loves of my life. However, I saw that Cally was chewing on her feet constantly til they were literally bleeding and raw. After four different conventional veterinarian visits, I decided to visit a Chinese American Board certified veterinarian who specialized with chinese herbs and acupuncture. After five minutes, he gave me some chinese herbs for her to take. She did, she continued on them twice daily and had to stay on them for her allergies. Later, I moved to California, where she seemed to tolerate the climate much better. So,over a year, I gradually tapered her down to none. Being a travel nurse, we moved around the country frequently. I later went to the mid west where she was again..eating her paws..she had also developed a few red blotches on her body, her abdomen, that I related to the constant licking, ecchymosis. Luckily, the vet that I took her in to see, (as the Chinese herbologist would not send more of the Chinese herbs and I could not find them in china town when I went back to San Francisco) asked if she could do a cbc as she was concerned about the ecchymosis. I told her to go ahead..feeling confident all along that it was from what I had said. Well, I was totally wrong. My beautiful Irish Setter, Cally was dying before my eyes. Her platelets were down to 90…not 90,000..but, 90. She was placed on large dose of steroids while I frantically tried to figure out what had changed as I always had lab work done on her brother and her …every year just to make sure they were doing well. Not one time, not one….did the platelets ever show as being low. So,after beating my head against the wall for a week, trying desperately to figure it out, I surmised along with my fiancee that I did take her off the chinese herbs in the last year but that was the only thing that had changed other than climate. So, I researched the names of the herbs and found out, not only do they treat allergies, pollen, but they also promoted platelet growth. YIPPEE!!!..Now, I had hope that we were getting to the bottom as to why this all of a sudden appeared. Cally always ate prescription dog food, she was well, taken care. But, now I had to find a chinese herbologist and fast…one who is a veterinarian as well. So, I put the word out to every contact on my e mail list if anyone knew how I could locate one in the town or nearby Rockport Illinois. My sis responded as she sent out the e mail to her friends as well. She received notification of how to find these wonderful veterinarians from one of her friends. The drive was 1 1/2 hrs one way in the middle of Illinois winters, but…I didn’t care..this was my baby girl. We went there and she was started on the same type of herbs as before. Luckily, I had asked the chinese herbologist that I first saw, to please write down the names of the herbs in the pills. He did not want to do so, and refused to do that at first. He said if any vet needed to know to have them call him. When I pointed out to him that he was not available 24/7 he reluctantly gave me a list. Well, when I handed the list to the Illinois veterinarian, he told me that he had never heard of two of the herbs being combined with the others but felt that we were on the right track. After I compared cost of a month supply of herbs from the new herbal vet to the old…well, that was the reason for not finding them. I was paying almost 6 times the cost that I was being charged by the new veterianarian. I later moved to San Antonio where my beautiful little girl is followed by Dr Cheryl Proctor, (conventional) and Dr Maria Williams (Chinese Herbologist acupuncture veterinarian). The two of these lady’s work fantastically well together for the benefit of my Cally girl. Her platelets are holding strong at 280,000.00 with just the herbs. Apparently she has some kind of auto immune suppression and since I don’t know her whole history from the first two and a half years of her life, well, I will settle for having her safe and sound and healthy and playful, …enjoying life. She is now almost twelve years old and sadly, her brother passed away two years ago with an undetected aortic aneurysm. He was so close to being human. Anyway..we all miss him greatly, but we have the Cally Wag and we love this little Angel. So, if this story helps any of the rest of you, I am so happy. I just don’t want anyone’s little furry piece of heaven to have to go through what Cally and I went through. Denise
Thanks for sharing that, Denise.
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