Your Horse’s Medicine Doing Harm?  #1 Way Know.

Ashley, you look worried, Is everything ok? Sara remarks as she walks in the barn.

“I am worried. My horse is not responding to his herbal formulas that I worked so hard to get my hands on. I just don’t know what to do. He’s getting worse” replies Ashley.

“Maybe you need to give it more time” Sara replies.

Weeks go by and Ashley is even more distraught. Now she is second guessing her decision to treat her horse holistically. Maybe she should just put the horse on the meds the veterinarian said despite the side effects. The herbs aren’t working. Now what does she do?

“Have you talked with the herbalist?” asks Sara. “No” says Ashley. “I just don’t have the money right now”. “Aren’t you worried you picked the wrong herbs?” says Sara. “It’s just herbs and the packaging says for his condition” Ashley states defiantly. “Well, my practitioner is coming on Wednesday, maybe you could run it by her” Sara says trying to encourage her friend.

Wednesday arrives and Sara’s practitioner, Linda, takes a few minutes to talk to Ashley about her horse. In fact, Ashley does NOT have her horse on the right formula despite the packaging. “How could I have known?” Ashley questions.

Linda then goes on to help her understand that all holistic medicine is based on a differentiation between symptoms based on the individual horse’s patterns. That is what makes it so powerful, what makes it so different from traditional medicine and why it’s so important to understand the tenets behind alternative medicine. This is what Linda tells her.

Alternative medicine in horses (also called complementary medicine), like Chinese Medicine, acupuncture, herbs, Tui Na, acupressure, bodywork, Reiki, Ayurvedic medicine, herbal medicine etc is based on identifying the syndromes not symptoms. For instance back pain is a symptom. Chinese medicine (CM) doesn’t treat symptoms. Chinese medicine treats the underlying condition that created the symptom. Why? Because many different underlying patterns can create the same symptom. The opposite is also true. The same underlying pattern can create different symptoms.

“Let me explain further.” Linda goes on.

“Take Clyde. He has chronic back pain. When I first saw him I needed to determine whether his back pain was from a retention of damp cold, a damp heat condition, a kidney deficiency or a stagnation of qi and blood. Stay with me as these are CM terms and it’s ok if you don’t know what they mean. As a practitioner, I could only tell his pattern by doing a thorough questionnaire and seeing the horse to look for indications of each syndrome. I would also be looking at whether Tui Na or myofascial work would be beneficial.  That would dictate how I treated the horse. And if I saw two horses with back pain they could get entirely different treatments. As a horse with back pain because of a kidney deficiency would be a very different treatment than a horse with qi stagnation with myofascial involvement.  In addition you want to differentiate the meridians involved too as that can make a huge difference in your treatment. So when a herbal formula says it’s good for back pain, how do you know if it’s good for back pain because of a kidney deficiency or for back pain because of qi stagnation or if it is only relieving pain and never dealing with the underlying problem? Only through education and lots of it.  And it’s your practitioner that is out there working diligently to offer the best knowledge to you.

Think about it another way. If you had a horse coughing you would need to figure out if it’s from a virus, bacteria, fungus, allergy (environmental or food), COPD etc. You wouldn’t want to treat it as a allergy if in fact it’s from a bacterial infection. You also wouldn’t want to stop coughing if the horse was still sick. The horse could get drastically worse. How would you know the difference? History, temperature, type of cough, bloodwork etc. This is why you call the professionals. And why using an herbal formula for “cough” could be the wrong formula.

However, this is super important in alternative and complementary medicine as the principles are to bring about health through the whole body not just relieving symptoms. For instance the example horse above with back pain due to kidney deficiency would have other symptoms that would not get better if you just relieved the pain of the back but didn’t treat the underlying cause. Those other symptoms would be very problematic if ignored. You have to look at the whole horse. That’s where the power is.

So the #1 Way to know if your horse’s medicine is doing harm or good is if it’s treating the whole body versus just treating a symptom.

This is called whole horse focus in treatment.  Even the typical symptom treatment style of western medicine is changing.  No longer are we injecting joints to relieve pain, now we are injecting medicines that are promoting the cartilage to heal itself.  We are looking at the health of the whole joint, not just relieving the symptom.

So back to Ashley, her over the counter formula didn’t work because it was not getting to the root cause. It was just trying to relieve a symptom. And unfortunately it was also for the wrong syndrome. Your horse is deficient and needs supplementation. This formula was actually depleting your horse more. Let me help you find the right path forward so you can bring peace of mind to yourself and comfort to your horse. Let’s get him back on track to great health.”

I use this story to help you understand what goes on behind the scenes and in my brain when I am called in to treat your horse. At the very least, I have to look and ask, is this a deficiency or an excess and what meridians and organs are involved. What structures are involved?  Does the horse need western veterinary medicine?  Is energy medicine the best route right now or does the horse need additional help.  We call this complementary medicine.  As it’s not one or the other but a combination of energy medicine, herbs, nutrition, good dental, good farrier work, support with mainstream veterinary work other body workers etc.  And more and more layers of the disease will be revealed with each treatment that helps the team better understand the full holistic picture even though the horse’s can’t talk. It is this whole picture that dictates the treatment and is also why 99% of the time just one treatment won’t do. You find this in all medicine wether eastern or western.

Keep in mind that by the time you notice a problem, most of the imbalances have been going on for quite a while before a symptom even occurs. It is not the symptoms we are going after. It is the whole bodies health! And no other modality looks at the body in this way quite like Chinese Medicine.  That’s why it’s so powerful.

If you truly want to understand why alternative medicine in horses is so misunderstood in our culture, I encourage you to watch this free series.  You will miss the true value by trying to make it fit in the western medical model like so many others do. This series helps you see health from a different perspective.  If you want to tap into the power of complementary medicine and truly understand what it is and how it can benefit you and your horse, you will want to see this series.

To understand more about the holistic nature of herbal remedies and how they play a part in your horse’s health, visit: https://thehorseherbalist.com/managing-the-health-of-the-whole-horse/