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Warning..this is a long post. In telling my history with my cat and with traditional vets, it stirred up emotions and my typing fingers went into overdrive! AS much as I'd love to get all the insight I can here, I understand if anyone wants to skip it over and just tell me what they think of holistic medicine in general (mail hlr1129@juno.com). Thanks.

ANd for those of you who are continuing to read:

I have an 18 yr old cat who has been suffering for about 3-4 years now with respiratory issues. They all started when I brought her into a traditional vet's office (the fist time I ever had to do this since I got her spayed and neutered as a young adult) for some teeth to be removed. OF course they wouldn't do the surgery w/o vaccinating her. My gut told me that wasn't a good idea since she hadn't been exposed to those things in a very long time, but I also felt that she needed the teeth removed and that the shots were something I had to deal with in order to make that happen. I didn't even know about holistic medicine then and really, really, REALLY am wishing I knew that there were alternatives at that time. I mean, does an indoor cat really need to be loaded up all of that junk?! Especially when up to that point, she's never been sick even for a day? And at the age of 15 (which most vets consider PAST the realistic age of being alive)?!?!

In any case, within weeks she started sneezing and runny nose. Then the doc put her on antibiotics. They antibiotics work for the time she is taking them but within a week of being off, she starts to sneeze again. SO they put her on antihistamines, which worked for a bit until her body got used to them and then she started to sneeze some more. Then the vet told me there was "nothing more that they could do with a cat her age" and that I should consider putting her to sleep. SO I went to another vet's office and started the whole thing over again. When this vet told me to accept the facts of age and the putting to sleep issues, I figured "to hell with them". I'd just see where the issues progresed. After a few months she began to lose weight and was extremely lethargic so i brought her to yet another vet's office (definition of insanity... repeating the same task over and over again, hoping for different results). This vet wanted to keep her for a week, pumping her full of high doses of antibiotics and fluids. I told her NO, that I thought the cat's immune system had already been compromised enough by the antibiotics and I wanted other alternatives. The vet didn't really have any other than to give me fluids to give at home to keeo her comfortable until she died (b/c we all know that her age, there wasn't much else to expect). So then I started researching holistic meds (actually was looking for some information for myself and stumbled upon care for cats!). I found a holistic vet in the area and have an appointment for this week. It's a lot more expensive than a regular vet but my gut is telling me that it's the right move and that my cat still has some time left. Despite the traditinal vet's life expectancy of 12-15 yrs tops, I know that a lot of my mother's and grandmother's cats have lived into their 20s (and they all spend half of their time outdoors eating a natural diet with only a small ammounf of packaged food).

What really gets me going is thinking about how many people have had their pets put to sleep at the vet's urging for something relatively minor. I'm not blaming the pet owners here, but the practices themselves who are in the job to save animals lives, but seem to prescribe death as the most logical alternative. I don't know whether to get angry or to cry.

I am a little nervous about making the swich to holistic medicine. All the information I've been reading seems logical but overwhelming. Yes, I know that the vet will tell me how to go about it in the best way. But I wanted to get other people's opinions on it who've actually tried it. Thanks again for listening! Can't wait to hear back from you!

At this point, perhaps a holistic vet can help you. I have heard nothing but good things about them, although there isn't one close by enough for me to use.

Good luck!
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Smile, it will make them wonder what you are up to!

I've been using holistic care on my cats and dogs for almost 20 years now. I feed a homemade diet, I use alternative therapies, and I try to give all my animals a natural lifestyle. I've seen a lot of benefits of this approach.

My viewpoint on vaccinations is that they are usually given in a very irrational, unscientific, shotgun, one-size-fits-all approach that makes my teeth hurt. It's NOT considered good medicine to vaccinate a cat or dog at the time of surgery. There are a number of reasons for this, but they can be summed up thus: The vaccines might interfere with the animal's ability to handle the procedure and recover from it, and the stress of the procedure might interfere with the desired reaction to the vaccine. Vaccines do not provide immunity; they require an immune response to do so. This is really just common sense, but it's also a matter of veterinary medical fact, and you'll find it in the "bible" of veterinary practice, Kirk's Current Veterinary Therapy. Vets who give vaccines at the time of surgery are, in my personal opinion, bad vets, period.

There are some really topnotch conventional vets out there, who are "holistic" in the sense that they take a complete view of the animal... of his or her lifestyle, emotional health, nutritional status, overall physical condition, specific physical symptoms, EVERYTHING. These vets may use conventional tools and therapies to treat their patients, but their minds are holistic. They see the WHOLE animal.

There are also some so-called "holistic" vets out there who fail to see the whole animal, who obsess and focus on the details and use a few "one size fits all" therapies that they like (and usually, that they sell). Some of them are quite good-intentioned, but lack experience and don't understand the concept of a genuine holistic approach. They might get you some relief (just as a vet putting your cat on antibiotics or steroids might give him or her some relief), but they will have failed to fully understand the patient and the case, and are unlikely to be able to fully cure it.

I believe that a holistic vet might be able to help your cat, if they are a GOOD holistic vet. I think that a GOOD conventional vet will be able to help your cat, too. I use a number of vets for different things, and I virtually never go to any general practice vets for anything beyond heartworm tests or extremely mundane rechecks on bloodwork etc. I go to an internal medicine specialist for almost every other medical problem, a surgeon if my cat or dog needs surgery (yes, even a simple spay/neuter or a dentistry, even though it costs about five times more), an orthopedist if one of them comes up lame... you get the picture.

Although there are bad specialists out there, there are fewer of them than among general practice vets. While they can be arrogant, they often deserve to be, as some are quite brilliant at what they do. It is a specialist who might be able to help your cat (although again, a GOOD specialist). And you have to be ready to fork over the bucks, as the last time I took a cat in for a complete workup at an internal medicine specialty practice, it set me back nearly a thousand dollars. And that did NOT include $900 for a diagnostic test she recommended but I ended up not doing.

I have been blessed over the years working with some holistic vets who were also brilliant at what they did. Cheryl Schwartz, a vet who practiced Traditional Chinese Medicine, and was one of the most gifted diagnosticians I've ever known, was probably the best, but she is not in practice anymore. I've had a few other holistic vets who were really exceptional, several who were competent but lacked experience, and a few who were unethical, unskilled, and just plain bad.

So the answer here is not, can holistic medicine help your cat (because I'm sure it probably could, if she can be helped) but can you find a vet of any type who will help your cat?

Something else that can be said is that holistic medicine is best as a longterm preventative program, rather than a last-ditch, I've tried everything else, now I'll try this, approach. Most holistic vets dread the patient being brought in who has had a lot of suppressive allopathic care, who is very old, who is very sick... because these cases are hard to treat and can be draining, and often end unsuccessfully. BUT....

There are also many times when a sudden switch to holistic modalities AND DIET at the end of a long, hard battle against an illness, even a serious illness, produces what are almost miraculous results, sometimes almost overnight. Every vet has seen these cases, and they sometimes fuel a total conversion to holistic modalities in the future for the pet owner who sees the benefit to a pet they thought hopelessly ill. It can happen - I've seen it happen.

But it if doesn't happen, it doesn't mean holistic medicine doesn't work. It might mean that this vet didn't do a good job, or it might mean the cat couldn't be helped.

I strongly encourage you to keep trying. If you feel your cat wants to live, then you're right. I have a 19 year old cat here, Samson, who is running all over the place, climbing up and down his three story outdoor cat enclosure, snoozing on my lap, playing with cat toys, eating with gusto - he's fine. I got Samson when he was 14 and he's healthier now than he was then! I've had cats live to their mid-20s. So anyone who would give up on your cat JUST because she's 15 is just a crappy vet.

On the other hand, they have examined your cat and may see or know things that I have no way of seeing or knowing. You may be living in a dream world. That's impossible for me to judge over the internet. But if the facts as you give them are basically correct, I truly believe that a really good vet can help your cat, and that holistic modalities will likely be of help to you (although I believe at this point what you really need is a diagnosis - I'm not sure anyone has actually figured out what exactly is wrong here). And I wish you all the luck in the world in finding the right care for your kitty. Please come back and tell us what happens.
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Christie Keith
Caber Feidh Scottish Deerhounds
Holistic Husbandry since 1986
Meet the Felines!