What Your Vet Isn’t Telling You: How to Advocate for Your Pet

0:04 Hey, you're listening to The Accenture on W4CY Radio. Yahoo! It's Positively Monday on the Adventures of Pipe Man here on W4CY Radio. And I just have to tell you that I just drove down here from the Orlando area, three-hour drive, just so I. Can make this episode. And I did, well, it's my birthday weekend, so thanks to a hurricane, I get to spend it with one of my kids.

0:48 If it weren't for the hurricane, probably not. But anyway, here I am. And let's bring on the pet health guru who has some great information today about what your vet isn't telling you and how to. Advocate for your pet. Welcome, pet health guru. How are you? I'm great. How are you doing? I'm great, as you probably just heard. I just got down. I was driving from Orlando area. There was a hurricane. Happy belated birthday, by the way. Thank you. Yeah, and there was a hurricane that hit the panhandle, so that forced my youngest daughter to evacuate. And so she came down near Orlando, so I.

1:38 Drove up there. If it weren't for the hurricane, I would have done something else. But here I am, because this is important information. And she does have three cats, too, so... She should be tuning into this. That's right. She better be. Exactly. So, what is it with vets anyway? What is it they're not telling you? Well, it's part of the medical pharmaceutical industry. So, every message that has to go out has to be approved. And, of course, it's all slanted in one direction. You know, they don't You know, first off, they can't advocate for anything that's not in that little box.

2:31 So, you know, it's one of the interesting things as I was getting ready for this. I'm thinking like, you know, veterinarians were not allowed to talk about different feeding methods and different foods that are not, you know, go back 20 years ago, they didn't talk about food at all. And then it came down from the vet boards that, okay, you can only talk. About commercial food. And not really talk about it unless it's a prescription brand food. And the veterinarians weren't even allowed to bring up things like fresh cooked, raw, anything like that. They had to wait for a customer, a client, to ask about it before they could ever say anything about it.

3:15 And then they were very limited in what they could say. It's, you know, which is a big part of it because what are they really looking at that they can't tell you certain things? They can't tell you about health. You know, one of the, you know, the big things that they say is, you know, first off, everything's an emergency. How do you know on the phone to go to the emergency room unless they tell you? And now you're looking at another $ 1, 000 on your bill. I just had some information come across my desk over the weekend. A dog goes in for a wellness check and got hit with multivalent vaccines and other therapies. And within a week, the dog started to be lethargic, then lost the use of its rear legs.

4:14 And then its front legs. Which sounds a lot like polio, by the way, and within three weeks was gone. They contacted the manufacturer of these preventatives, if you will, that they got basically even a conversation between the pharmaceutical company and the veterinarians involved at the emergency clinic and the consumer clinic were nonexistent. They didn't ask names, they didn't ask lot numbers, they didn't ask any of the, what would be pertinent. To show an adverse event. So, you don't know, you know, basically it was denied this whole time and the dog is dead.

4:58 A perfectly healthy animal. You know, and so what aren't they telling you? Basically, they're not telling you that they really don't know what they're doing. Everything's got to be on the computer and on a script. And, And, of course, they can't go off that script. Gee, maybe you need to move to a different area of the city or the country so your animals will thrive. They can't give you that kind of information. They're not allowed to. Wow. And, you know, this is actual real-life experience. It doesn't mean it's the same experience everybody has, of course. But you're not speaking in... You know, like, what if, or hypotheticals, you're speaking into something that actually happened.

5:47 Do we know what actually happened? No. But, hey, my viewpoint is this. My idea of a wellness check is, I look in the mirror, I'm like, I look good. Okay. Let's go about our day. Get in the mirror and take a breath on it and see if it shows up, right? Yeah. If my reflection's in the mirror, then we're good. But, yeah, it's... you know, all this testing and all this diagnostic stuff that's going on, everything else for the most part, I'm sitting here thinking back in the seventies, when I started in the industry, we had, you know, pet shops back then used to sell puppies. Kittens, Kota Mondays, monkeys, everything under the sun.

6:29 And literally over my, my brief period there, which was about eight years, nine years in the retail there. Um, probably sold through the stores that I actively managed, probably a thousand puppies, maybe more. Um, and I can't remember. This is back in 1970s, having one single blood test done. Hmm. No matter how sick, no matter how well, there was never a blood test because they just weren't available. And yet we were experiencing 98, 99%. Um, Healthy animals. And now with all this testing and everything else, I mean, every time you stick them with a needle, your body goes into fight or flight.

7:16 Is that good? It's going to create a reaction inside that body. And, of course, the information that they do give you is all these procedures are perfectly safe, including the MRIs, the CAT scans, x-rays. Don't worry about the radiations. There's no danger. It's all within the realm. You know, when we first started this show, you know, I owned an animal hospital. And when we took it over, it was an existing hospital, the x-ray equipment was there. It was like 9,000 years old.

7:56 You know, and in order to take an x-ray, you had to wear that heavy lead shield. And everything else. You know, how could you say that it's perfectly safe? So what aren't they telling you? The truth. I think also everybody's body is different and so are probably pets and animals. And like, so there's people, even in extreme circumstances, there's people that can do drugs and they're fine. And there's people that can do drugs one time and they die from it. And when I say drugs, I mean illicit drugs, drugs you shouldn't do. But there's people that have died from doing cocaine once. And other people that do it their whole life and nothing ever happens.

8:47 Because everybody's body is different. You don't know if you don't have some kind of pre-existing thing going on that's in there that you didn't even know existed. So poking and prodding, to me, it's poking the bear. I can't say it any better than that. So exactly. You know, I mean, we talked on my show, a lot about so much of this stuff is intergenerational. You know, if your mom was a junkie, your grandma was a junkie and you, and your great great grandma. Was an alcoholic. Um, guess what? Those toxins are still in your body because it came down from mom's blood and you don't know how the body didn't, didn't add in your environmental, um, conditions. Um, where what are you eating today, what chemicals are you exposed to today, yesterday, that.

9:42 Sort of thing. All this is a big, almost like a big stew pot. Everything that you throw into it gets cooked up somehow inside your body. And if you're not doing cleansing, you know, regular detox, it's just going to keep accumulating until it you just fall over and your dog falls over, which was the case with this particular case that I just discussed. You know, it was the use of multiples. And, of course, as soon as the animal wasn't feeling well, they treated it. It was funny because in the records that I get to see, They were talking that, oh, maybe the thing in the back legs is an injury. Maybe they jumped off the sofa the wrong way or moved the wrong way.

10:29 So we're going to treat it as an injury. And loaded them up with antibiotics for an injury. Well, I'll give you a perfect example of what happened this weekend with a human being. My daughter, she had some infection on her leg. It definitely looked like it could have been a bug bite or cellulitis. You know, but, you know, basically, she went to the urgent care. The urgent care said something to her that I texted to her. I did not agree. The urgent said, oh, cellulitis is, any skin condition is cellulitis.

11:11 They just use it because it's a buzzword. But I don't agree with that because there's cellulitis. there's staph infection, there's folliculitis, there's dermatitis, all of which, and there's many more, but all of which that can be treated differently or may need to be treated differently. So they gave her an antibiotic. I asked her what the antibiotic is. I'm like, because only certain antibiotics would even work on cellulitis. And so it turns out she was getting worse after 48 hours on the antibiotic. So she went to the emergency room.

11:52 Turns out, she had an ingrown hair that got severely, severely affected. So the doctor at the emergency room was like, that antibiotic would never do anything. And, you know, so basically it got worse. So because of not being her own advocate and just doing what the doc said to do, she had to have we were joking with her that she had to have open leg surgery because he had to literally go in and get that hair out and it was extremely painful and there was a lot that he had to do that nobody would want done that maybe that could have.

12:34 Been avoided. Had they given a proper diagnosis or a proper treatment. And that happens quite often that You know, sometimes it's just like what it seems like, you know. Or like even when I had my heart attacks and I went into the first cardiologist who I fired with all my Dr. Jafari supplements. And I'm like, well, I wanted to show these to you because I know certain things you're going to do. I maybe shouldn't have those right now, you know. And like he wouldn't even look at them. Just said, oh, that'd be fine if you're preventing, okay, but now you've had an event.

13:24 Like, that's over. You know, and just totally didn't believe in any type of natural medicine whatsoever. I fired him. The cardiologist I use now, I had somebody that was working for me, a secretary was working for me, and I said, call every cardiologist in the whole Palm Beach County area and ask them one question. Are they open to natural medicine? Now, I didn't say, are they okay with, or do they like, or. Do they recommend? Because I knew I wasn't going to get a yes answer to that. But as long as they were open and they would listen. And so then the choreologists have now, he jumped on an hour and a half phone call with me. I didn't even go see him yet. And so that I was impressed with because that doesn't happen anymore.

14:17 In fact, I could tell you multiple times of having heart issues that they were trying to take me down for a cardiac cath without even telling me that's what they were going to do. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I want to talk to a. Doctor and get all the information. That's what you should do for your animals, too. Get all the information and make an informed decision. Don't just do it because they tell you to do it. Because they're not always right. They're not God. And even in the training that they get, it doesn't mean they're not experienced. It doesn't mean they don't, like, have knowledge. But they don't have all the knowledge or knowledge. Part of it is guesswork. That's really, you know, how you're going to know for sure unless you do certain things.

15:01 You know, but I don't want my body or my pet's body to be a guinea pig. Okay? And so, yeah, I mean, basically, you definitely have to be your own advocate. And so this cardiologist... Well, I was impressed with him, and that's why I hired him, because I went to the office. I brought all the supplements with me. He looked at them all, like read the ingredients, and there were ones that he knew. He said, yeah, this one's okay. This one you can't do because it'll mix with the other thing. And then there were ones he didn't know, and what did he do? He looked it up, and what caused it? He researched it instead of acting like I know it all. And gave me his informed opinion.

15:46 So I trusted his opinion because he wasn't just giving me an answer. And we were doing it together. He did it right in front of me. And he explained to me why you wouldn't want to take this supplement right now. Why you would be okay to take this one right now. And that's part of being your own advocate. Have the vet, have the doctor give you more information. Don't have them just say, hey, do this. Ask why. Ask what you're looking to accomplish. Ask what the risks and rewards are. That first cardiac cath, you know, I was, they were trying to wheel me down.

16:29 Like, no, no, no. And my son was like, dad, just do what they tell you. I'm like, no, I'm not going to just do what they tell me. I want to make all, I want all the information so I can make an informed decision about my own body. And so the cardiologist did come up who I never met till that point. And I said to him, I'm like, tell me the worst case scenario, the best case scenario and every possibility in between. And I think that should be true with your pets too. Like before you start any kind of treatment, Ask them what the treatment's for, why, what the risks are, what's the best possible scenario, what's the worst possible scenario, and everything in between so you can make an informed, educated decision on your pet.

17:19 Yeah, it's exactly right. I mean, you know, the examples that I use all the time, number one are the so-called heartworm and flea and tick preventatives. You know, the veterinarian standing there The techs are all standing there saying, you need to buy this $ 100 package and have all this other testing done along with it to prevent anything from happening. And you pick up the package and you flip it over, and the first statement on the back of the package, on the drug listing, this is not a prevention. This is a treatment. Well, does my animal have this? No. So why am I treating for something it doesn't have?

18:00 And then it's like, well, why would I want to put this in their body? You have to confront them, basically. And the same thing with foods. Okay, you can't give real food to your pet. Why? Does that make any sense? We have to give a synthetic, low-grade, garbage-filled kibble, you know, that doesn't have, you know, nutritionally, and this is one of the things that I'm changing a little bit too on my approach to it, It's not just about the nutrition part. That's the biochemistry. You know, that's the so-called nutrients, the vitamins, minerals, and that sort of thing. But are they in the right form? You have to know about food.

18:43 That's what it's about, is about feeding the right foods, not just, you know, a scientifically created diet. And, you know, you can't accomplish. That, even in our lives, with a single food. but yet that's what the veterinary industry pushes. And then you ask them, well, why? And they can't give. You an answer. What's in this prescription diet that makes it a prescription? Nothing. There's nothing in there. There's no medications. There's no additives that are designed for any one of these problems. And that's what they're not telling you. That's a lot of what they're not telling you. Same thing with the antibiotics.

19:26 What antibiotic is going to work? You know, Why they give antibiotics is not because it's an antibiotic. Most antibiotics have an anti-inflammatory approach that helps out with whatever that's going on. Well, gee whiz, why don't I just give my dog some turmeric capsules or some ginger capsules? There's your anti-inflammatory. And it's not stuck in your body for the next next hundred years you know it's when you give foods they're only in your body 24 48 hours you know unless you really got a serious gastric problem. And then you're trying to take everything to clean it out anyway. So you just brought up a great point, by the way, because last night it's my birthday. I had a little bit of stuff I love that shouldn't eat. And I was like, you know, I can cheat once in a while.

20:20 My daughter said something about, well, you're going to check your sugar. I'm like, what's the point? I already ate it. Like, It's going to be gone by tomorrow, the glucose I just ate. What is that going to do for me? What is testing my sugar after I already know it's probably spiking? I can't go backwards and not eat that. Yeah, it's like driving on 95 or the turnpike. And, you know, when you see the blue lights in the mirror, now I'm going to check my speed, right?

21:01 Exactly. Oh, my God. You know, I pulled into the service plaza and turnpike on the way down here because I need gas. And I don't know if they were having a Broward County Sheriff's Convention up there or something. But that service area, oh, my God. Hundreds of Miami-Dade, well, maybe they were Broward Sheriffs too. I think Broward Sheriffs and Miami-Dade cops were there. And I'm like, why are there so many here? So, you know, maybe, I didn't see a donut shop. I'm sure there's one there someplace in it.

21:47 Yeah, there probably was a dungeon. But I was like, really, it was funny because I. Was thinking, what are they doing up here? Because, you know, that's like an hour north of Palm Beach County. Forget Broward County or Miami-Dade. And when you look at all those cars and all that personnel that's there and think about your taxes, your tax dollars. What did they go for? Well, I don't know because I think donut prices are going up, so they should be going down. Just saying. You know, we're paying a lot of taxes. We have increased demand of your donuts.

22:32 Yeah. I mean, you know, some of the small towns and that sort of thing when I was growing up, you know, the whole police department might have two cars, right? and you had to share them on rotational shifts. Now each one of them has sometimes multiple vehicles that they take home, and not even to the county where they're working in. I mean, you know how many Broward County cars you see in Palm Beach County? Exactly. They all want to live here instead of there. Well, at the. Entrance to the Turnpike, in Jupiter, there's always at least a dozen Fort Lauderdale cars sitting there parked there.

23:23 Why would they all be parked there? You know? And it's not even the same county. Right? Yeah, that's a trip. Wow. But yeah, I mean, it's not only the veterinarians and the doctors that don't tell us. The government doesn't tell us either. You know that. Why should they? What the hell's been going on? You know, services are down all over the place. And, you know, you call up your cell phone company or your internet company and you get the same script all the time and nobody can fix it. You know, and then all of a sudden everything's working fine.

24:04 What happened? Yeah. Yeah. Well, the key is, too, is even if people are gurus and highly educated or know what they're talking about, it doesn't mean they're always right. So that's why it's so important to be your own advocate because everybody's different. And if you know information, then you can evaluate what's being told to you. Exactly. Yeah. You know, how can a doctor or a veterinarian get a complete picture when they've only got five to ten minutes in the office with you. And if they did send in an assistant, you know, vet tech or whatever, to take down a history, take down some information, the doctor's getting it secondhand or thirdhand as it is. And you know when you're in a conversation, sometimes you're in a direct conversation with somebody.

25:01 They have no clue what you're saying. So when you go two, three steps down the road, that's a completely different story sometimes. Yeah, and those big pharma reps are pretty hot. Like, I would definitely buy whatever drugs they're selling me to, you know, be able to hang out and talk with them. Yeah. Isn't it interesting that that's... You know, wouldn't that be a good case for discrimination? I mean, you know, if you're not the greatest looking woman in the world. Exactly. Exactly. So.... Tell everybody how they can get more information about the pet health guru, about my paleo pet, about pet health cafe and who they can come talk to or hear about to find out how they can advocate for their pet.

25:54 Well, if you want the truth and the real information is best that we can give it up to date and that sort of thing. Pet health cafe, um, podcast, um, what are we going into, the 19th season now? Something like that. Yeah. You know, it's the most listened to, by the way, it's the longest running internet animal health show, according to AI. Oh. You know, it's. Siri likes us a lot, so that's always great. So the Pet Health Cafe, you know, just ask her to tune in and help us out. But, We always have, every week we have new topics, and that's really going in-depth into the whys, which, of course, we were just talking about, and asking the right questions, hopefully, to.

26:45 Move you along. I have different guests on all the time that give different perspectives, different questions, different answers, you know, veterinarians, health coaches, things of that nature. And then, of course, when it comes to getting the products that you need, That's where My Paleo Pet and BioComplete come in. BioComplete is formulated a. Whole bunch of herbal and dietary products for your pets and for you. We do have a farm-to-table. Section to make sure that you get the cleanest proteins that you can. You know, grass finished, all of that sort of thing. I heard an interesting thing on another podcast this week. One of the advocates on the agricultural side said, you know, technically, if that cow ate one blade of grass, the government says it's grass-fed.

27:41 Wow. But, you know, for my paleo pet, we source it out so that you don't have to do all that research. The research has all been done. We've done most of it. And we're just going to bring you the latest stuff, the best products that can be. You can also find it. You don't have to come into the store, but we always invite you to. You can also shop online at mypaleopet.com. You can get information at biocompletenaturaldiets.com. That has more information than the FTC and the FDA will allow us to use on a commercial site. So you'll find things on different herbs and botanicals on that site. that we cannot give if we sell the product. And it's interesting because then we can go into the history of some of these herbs and botanicals and how they were used 4,000 years ago. So it's a good segue going into that.

28:35 Of course, that can be found on the Pet Health Guru social media platforms. We're on all of them with all the different sites. And, of course, I also do magazine articles and that sort of thing as well. So there's a number of ways you can get it. Our education center is almost complete. We're going to start having classes and that sort of thing at the store in Pompano Beach. And we look forward to having you sub in. And did you know, since we're talking about vetting, did you know, Bill, that Pet Health Cafe is in the top 10 of all the best U.S. veterinary podcasts?

29:20 No, I didn't know that. I wasn't aware of that. Number eight. You're number eight. Oh, that's fantastic. We'll have to start publicizing that. There you go. We've been pushing it. Yeah, we keep pushing it. And, you know, we're going to continue down that road. I'm not done yet. You know, it's... you know, it's been, I've been in the business for over 60 years. And people can't believe it. But you know what? It's taken that long to learn as much as I have. And I'm still learning every single day. Look, my stalkers are listening to you and wishing me happy birthday. I mean my listeners. She's actually a long-time listener of your show, too.

30:10 Okay, good. I appreciate that. That's why she's here. She probably doesn't like my other shows. She likes this one. Like everybody should. So, once again, thank you for being a wealth of information, Pet Health Guru. And yes, everybody be an advocate. Everybody reach out to Bill. Watch the podcast. Forget my show. It kind of sucks. You got to go to Pet Health Cafe. But if you really do like my show, then hey, you can see some more Pet Health Guru next Monday right here on the Positively Pipe Man segment of The Adventures of Pipe Man here on W4CY Radio. Roll it, Juan.

30:51 Thank you. Thank you for listening to The Adventures of Pikeman on W4CY Radio.