Well, it's official... Tommy is now receiving way better health care than I am
.
We went to a vet who specializes in holistic/homeopathic stuff and traditional chinese medicine. According to her, Tommy suffers from problems with his spleen chi (otherwise known as the gu chi - gucci - considering the money he's cost us, I can't stop laughing at that
). While I may not believe the chi stuff and other things, the stuff that she said really does match his symptoms - everything from his vomiting and poor eating habits to his sleeping habits and many other things I just thought were just his personality. Apparently problems like this lead to a condition the Chinese call 'cold stomach', where the stomach has to work extra hard to digest things. So basically, while we have ruled out every illness known to western science, Chinese medicine recognizes that sometimes the system just isn't working properly even though nothing in particular is broken.
She has prescribed acupuncture treatments (we've had our second today, she doesn't necessarily think we'll need another), a super-strong (horse strength!) probiotic, continued use of our digestive enzymes, and an herbal supplement called Xiao Yao San or Rambling Ease Powder (anybody familiar with herbal remedies here?). The powder is supposed to strengthen him generally inside; googling it shows that it's used for calming the whole body, increasing energy, easing anxiety, strengthening the liver, tonifying the blood, and improving the spleen-liver-stomach.
Something I found interesting... when she asked what we fed him, I told her that we had tried raw but he wouldn't eat it. She was not surprised, and basically said that 'cold stomach' patient wouldn't want that at all. While she's a firm believer in feeding dogs 'real' food, she would prefer him on home cooked food instead, NOT raw.
I must admit that when she was throwing around all the mystic-sounding 'chi' stuff, I was really doubtful about her. However, the other stuff she said made real sense, and she's not trying to push her treatments for life or anything - she really thinks that 2-3 acupuncture treatments combined with the herbal remedy is really all he needs. The fact that she didn't just try to shove raw down our throats was nice, too - although she does believe in it a great deal, it seemed to give more credibility that she thought something else would be better for our situation.
I don't know if you guys believe in energies and chi's and all that jazz... but really, could it be this easy? She truly believes that while he probably won't ever be 100%, he should be a great deal better with all of this. She's totally confident. While she's never seen a case quite this chronic, she was quite surprised that I kept asking her if she truly thought he could get better. Could it actually be this easy after all? We've thrown about $15,000 at vets, specialists, and e-vets over the course of his little life, and he's only 22 months old - I have such a hard time believing that a few hundred dollars worth of pin-sticking and natural herbs could really be the solution. But here's hoping
!!
Anybody have any good sites for homecooking, by the way? I keep finding sites that give you the ingredients... but I'm at a complete loss as to how to actually fix a balanced meal, much less a balanced weekly menu - I have trouble even doing that for myself
. I mean, I have meat, it's cooked, what do I do now, LOL. I have the supplements she recommended for it, like the omega oils and the kelp, I just don't know what to do with them exactly
.