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Vaccination
9 months ago a woman rang me late on a Friday night. I didn't know her and was just about to leave the office to get home. But something made me pick up the receiver. She was sobbing. Her Rottweiler, a two year old, was dying of Parvo. She had just called the vet to come and put him down as the dog had given up the ghost.
He had been on homeopathic nosodes supplied to her, not by a homeopathically trained vet, but a pharmacy.
This was for me the straw that broke the camels back. I had been uncomfortable with the general advice that nosodes could take the place of vaccines that I had heard for the last ten years. I was taught that no animal had died from a disease for which they were taking a nosode in the last 30 or so years. This was the counter-proof I needed that this information was bogus.
Nosodes will help animals with these diseases when they get them and may offer protection, but not the 95% protection offered by the vaccines. However, vaccines do more than just heighten immunity to disease. There is a mass of other effects including atopy, irritable bowel syndrome, epilepsy and behavioural changes that are associated with post-vaccine effects.
So it seems nosodes may not fully protect and vaccines may damage your dog subtly. Not a very rosy picture I feel. What can we do?
My take on this is to try to get the best of both worlds: use the nosodes in specific ways to protect against vaccine and vaccinate minimally and rationally. Here are my current guidelines. They will evolve as new information comes to the fore in this rapidly changing field.
- Pups should be socialised with 'clean', known dogs on home territory (home and back garden) from 5-9w. This can be continued with those same dogs until pup is completely covered by vaccine. There is a minimal risk in this, just like crossing the road, but the gains to the pup are enormous
- A nosode specifically made from the vaccine type to be given should be administered twice weekly for three weeks before and after all vaccines ( I use Freeman's Homeopathic Pharmacy in Glasgow - if you ring them they are very helpful 0141 644 1165, web: www.freemans.uk.com) You do not need to get the actual vial that is to be used. The pharmacy holds remedies made from most vaccine types.
- Pups should be vaccinated late - 12 -16 weeks for the first vaccine. This allows maturation of the immune system before being hit by the vaccine insult.
- Vaccines should be spaced out as much as possible and vaccinated minimally. I would suggest giving first Lepto and Parvo and then follow up after two to three weeks with Lepto, Parvo, Hepatitis and Distemper. I do not think Parainfluenza is a particularly useful vaccine, but it is impossible to miss it, so this, unfortunately, has to be thrown in with the second puppy jab
- Continue the vaccine nosodes twice weekly for three weeks after vaccination. Dogs can go out (anywhere) a week after vaccination.
- Repeat the exercise for the single first annual booster twelve months later.
- Annual titre tests can be taken easily to assess the need for further boosters. If boosters are needed (and this is not common), then repeat the vaccine nosode procedure as above.
- Do not use 'nosodes' routinely for the whole of the dog's life
Enjoy the fact you are minimally vaccinating your dog using a rational and logical basis for the choice and are minimising the risk of post-vaccine problems using homeopathic remedies.
Next month I will talk about the situation in cats.
Nick Thompson BSc.(Hons), BVM&S, VetMFHom, MRCVS.
