Do you know the Pet Tick-Protocol?
Due to my own extensive experience with tick-borne illness, I unfortunately have a first-hand account of the seriousness and dangers of tick-borne illnesses such as lyme disease. However, I had my own first-hand experience with potential tick-borne illness in my pets last week when I found a large tick embedded into my puppies face! Thankfully I knew exactly what to do, but do you?
If you find a tick on your pet here is the protocol you need to know:
1. Don’t remove the tick yourself, get your pet immediately to your veterinary office, where they are trained in proper removal, and have the right tools. This is very important, because improper removal can heighten chances of lyme infection, and/or lyme infection becoming chronic.
2. Your pet needs to be given a minimum of a 2 week treatment of doxycycline to treat the lyme infection. If your vet doesn’t agree, GO TO ANOTHER VET! This literally can save your pet’s life.
3. Antibiotics must be started immediately, you do not wait to “see” if they have any symptoms appear, because symptoms with Lyme disease can be very obscure, and especially in pet’s may not even be recognize-able, especially in cats who are superb at hiding illness.
4. Once “symptoms” are seen from Lyme disease it is often too late for antibiotic treatment, as this means the bacteria are no longer in the blood stream where antibiotics can successfully kill them, but they are now buried into the bodies tissues, because they are spirochetes, they are exceptional at this.
5. Once in the body’s tissues, most anti-biotics simply won’t work, and your pet can become severely ill for the rest of its life, or die as result of the disease. The only treatment effective for chronic Lyme disease is typically a combination of antibiotics and alternative therapies such as herbal antibiotics.
6. Even with acute infection (recent tick bite) and proper protocol of 2 week of doxycycline, it is recommended to follow-up with an experienced pet herbalist who can prescribe your pet a few months of herbal antibiotics and immune enhancers to help prevent the infection from causing chronic illness.
Lyme disease is a quickly spreading epidemic throughout North America and is and has the very serious potential to be utterly devastating and debilitating to your pet’s health. Be sure you know the tick-bite protocol for your pets, share with your fellow pet-lovers, and be prepared to fight for your pet to get the proper protocol if they are bit!
“Giving your pet the BEST of the Natural Life!”
April Arguin, RDH, CPN, P.M.H
Your HolisticPetCoach_April