One of my favourite topics to talk about is the title of this week's blog. Stimulating your pet to heal will help solve the root cause of health concerns, whereas suppressing the symptoms will only mask what is actually causing the issue.
What Do You Mean By ‘Symptom Suppression’?
Symptom suppression is when you give a higher dose or highly concentrated treatment to fully suppress the symptoms your pet is showing. This approach has both its pros and cons, but there are only particular situations where you should take this approach. It deals with providing temporary relief but isn’t beneficial long-term.
What Do You Mean By 'Stimulated Healing'?
Stimulating healing is where you give a lower dose or lower concentrated treatment, which is enough to stimulate the body into healing naturally. This approach allows you to monitor the symptoms and assess if the dosage and supplement you’re giving is suitable for your pet. But it isn’t just limited to supplements; this also expands to diet and the pet's lifestyle.
Pros and Cons of Suppression:
Pros:
- Fast Acting Relief: It can provide quick relief for uncomfortable issues.
- Manageability: It can make the condition more manageable for both the pet and the owner, allowing the pet to be more comfortable.
Cons:
- Masking The Root Cause: Suppression doesn't address the root cause of the issue, which can lead to the condition worsening over time because symptoms don’t have the chance to show through.
- Long-term consequences: Continual suppression without addressing the underlying cause can lead to chronic issues and potentially worsen the condition in the long run.
Pros and Cons of Stimulated Healing:
Pros:
- Addresses the root cause: Unlike suppression, stimulated healing aims to address the underlying cause of the ailment, promoting long-term health and wellness.
- Supports the body's natural processes: By boosting the immune system and promoting tissue repair, stimulated healing helps the body heal itself more effectively, rather than masking the issue.
- Allows symptoms to be present: Through stimulated healing, you allow the body to communicate by displaying symptoms. This enables you to monitor the issue.
Cons:
- Slower results: Stimulated healing may take longer to see noticeable improvements compared to suppression, as it works with the body's natural healing processes.
- Requires active management: Stimulated healing often involves a combination of treatments and lifestyle changes, requiring more active involvement.
- Not suitable for all conditions: While stimulated healing can be effective for many ailments, it may not always be appropriate for every condition or situation.
Why Symptoms Shouldn’t Be Viewed as a Problem:
A lot of pet owners can view symptoms as a bad thing, and that’s totally natural. When you see your dog is in discomfort, you want to eradicate those symptoms as soon as possible. Symptoms shouldn’t be viewed as something bad though; instead, view them as the body's way of communicating that something is wrong. Without symptoms showing through, you would have no idea that something is going on; they play a vital role in helping your pet heal.
Whole Plant vs. Standardisation:
I have touched on this in an Instagram post, but I will likely do a blog post for more detail in the future. I thought it was an important link for this blog though, so I'm giving it a brief mention.
All supplements will have different concentrations. You may find one particular product eradicates symptoms extremely quickly, even with a small dose, but this could be down to how highly concentrated the product is.
It’s always worth checking ingredients, as a lot of “natural” products will have extracts of the active compounds from a whole plant; it has then been unbalanced, and the compound can be extremely concentrated. This process is called Standardisation. A whole plant has all its other compounds to ensure it’s balanced and will cancel out any side effects, but if you extract one compound, it’s no longer balanced. Typically on the ingredients list, it will be a chemical name rather than the plant name. This also goes for any other natural resources, such as animal-based or animal-by products.
My Own Experience:
One of my dogs had a period of time where Lipomas were appearing, some growing quite large too. When taking him to the vets, there was no offer in looking into this root cause, but instead it was advised to just keep removing them as they appear. We had the fatty lumps removed that all appeared within the space of a year, meanwhile, we looked into the matter further to find out why these were appearing.
Lipomas will form due to toxins being trapped in the body, they will come to the surface and present as a lump. We added milk thistle into his diet for a short period of time to help detoxify the body. We started with a small dose and didn't continuously give this herb, as we wanted to simply stimulate the body to heal itself. Along with this, we reviewed other aspects such as his diet and lifestyle and made changes accordingly. We have not had a Lipoma since!
Please always ensure you see a vet though if any sort of lump appears, this was our first step to ensure we weren't dealing with something more harmful.
Conclusion:
Overall, while suppression can offer temporary relief, it's essential to consider its limitations and potential drawbacks when managing your pets health. Suppressing the symptoms may seem effective, but by not allowing the symptoms to show through, internally the root issue could be getting worse, and you’ll have no way of telling. Suppression works best for emergency situations or as a temporary measure.
Stimulated healing offers a holistic approach to promoting health, but it requires patience, dedication, and careful management. This approach in the long run will better your dog's health and ensure you are addressing the issue at the root, rather than hiding the symptoms.
They both certainly have their place when it comes to treatment, but it’s important to make sure you’re choosing the right approach depending on the health issue.