There is a gap between conventional veterinary medicine and holistic therapies.

Traditional veterinarians often claim that holistic therapies don’t work, or that any healing that does happen can be considered a coincidence or a placebo effect. 

Many of my clients feel frustrated because the doctors won’t even consider something that doesn’t fall into the bucket of “mainstream conventional care”. I have been there. I have been laughed at, I have been looked at as if I had 2 heads, and other times my suggestions to integrate conventional medicine with holistic therapies have been plainly ignored or dismissed.

Many conventional doctors don’t believe that there is any proof that holistic therapies work. Unfortunately, this is quite a common claim. When I talk about herbs or supplements or write content on this subject, I often have to include scientific studies proving that what I say is true and has indeed some scientific foundation for doctors to give me at least the benefit of the doubt.

It’s true that double-blind, placebo-controlled studies are sometimes lacking when it comes to holistic medicine and raw feeding for example, but we must keep in mind that this type of study didn’t even exist until fairly recently, and also, these kinds of studies cost a lot of money, which means that smaller companies and smaller cat food manufacturers can’t afford them. Doctors learned and shared with colleagues what worked and what didn’t work, based on clinical experience. My clients only want to know if my treatment can help their cats, and I answer that question based on my own experiences and those of my clients and colleagues. 

Proof that holistic medicine works do exist if you look for it – although this isn’t to say veterinarians will accept it. One area in which the question of proof is often discussed concerns annual vaccines, which are not necessary and should not be given. Titer blood tests are preferable to determine if and when a vaccine might be needed. Vets who are against titers often say there’s no proof they work (although actually, there is a lot of data showing their effectiveness). If you run up against a vet or anyone else who disagrees that titers are effective, simply ask him or her to show you proof that cats need annual shots. They won’t be able to give it to you because there isn’t any. Vets only give shots annually because that’s what they’ve always done, not because of any proof they’re needed!

“If holistic medicine seems to work, it’s just a placebo effect”.

A conventional doctor will often dismiss a successful clinical response to a holistic therapy as a placebo effect. There are actually two types of placebo effects, but only one can occur in pets.

• The placebo effect we’re most familiar with cannot apply to dogs and cats. Here’s why. When you feel ill, and you do everything possible to make sure you feel better as soon as possible, your mind plays a big role in telling your body to get better. Obviously, we can’t tell cats that they need to feel better: either they respond to the therapy or they don’t.
• The second type of placebo effect does occur in pets as well as people. It involves the fact that unless a disease is terminal, a percentage of patients will get better regardless of treatment. However, if a natural therapy might not have worked, yet the pet recovers even without it, the same can be said of a drug.

As a holistic practitioner, I actually love the placebo effect because it shows me that my patients can get better on their own without the need for harsh conventional medications. At times, it may be hard to know if my therapy worked, or if the cat simply improved through a placebo, but consider the following two points.

1. Isn’t it better to treat your cat with something natural and devoid of side effects, rather than a harsh chemical, if he might get better anyway? 
2. My natural therapies can reduce pain and inflammation, and support the immune system during healing, so isn’t it likely that your cat gets some benefit without side effects, even if it’s just through feeling generally better and recovering from the disease more quickly?

Having said that, many of the cases I see are chronically ill animals that should have recovered already, either by the placebo effect or with conventional treatment. By the time I see them, enough time has passed for the cat to have improved, thereby eliminating the possibility of a placebo effect or coincidence.

“It’s only a coincidence when holistic medicine seems to heal.”

Most traditional veterinarians think that there is always the chance that a holistic practitioner is just plain lucky that the pet got better, and that it had nothing to do with the therapy.

I understand the cynicism. However, when does “luck” become “reality?” How many cases must I treat before a cynic admits I’m not simply lucky, but that actual healing occurred? 

Most of the cases I and my holistic colleagues see are really tough cases that have not responded to any conventional treatments. If coincidence was the only explanation for the success of holistic therapies, then I’m the luckiest practitioner on earth! How come no other conventional doctor achieves this level of success? 

“There is no way I can change my cats’ behaviour, cats are independent and cannot be trained”.

There is some truth in the fact that “training” cats look a bit different from training dogs, for example, but cats can definitely be trained to perform certain activities or to respect the boundaries we set, even though this always needs to go together with allowing them to be “cats” in other acceptable ways. 

There is always something you need to “offer” to obtain something you want: the reason you don’t have what you want (in any field, actually) is that you have not fully committed to the process. When I assess a situation holistically, sometimes it’s apparent that the work you must do to achieve the result you want, conflicts with other areas of your life and maybe the dynamics of your family, therefore you must formulate new, different, adjusted goals aiming to reach results that can actually be achieved. Sometimes it takes a frank discussion and a strategic plan to find the direction you must take and find peace of mind with your cats.

Sometimes understanding the reasons behind a certain behavior require extensive “detective work”, sometimes these reasons are not readily accessible, but I do my best with my clients to go as deep as we need in order to understand what is really going on and what solutions can be put in place to change the status quo. 

Any open-minded person has to admit that much more than luck, coincidence, and a placebo effect is involved when so many people and pets who failed to respond to conventional medicine improve with natural therapies.

Any open-minded person has to understand that a behaviour stems from several elements and that they need to do some work in one way or another to change things so that all parties involved are happy and content.