Sheltiemom,
our vet practices acupuncture and uses Chinese herbs. We are very happy with him. Our old cat had liver and heart disease. we treated the liver with 2 different herbal remedies and the heart condition with conventional medicine. We opted not to have extensive tests done to see what the cause of the liver disease was. The herbs bought her a few more enjoyable years and she only declined after I decided not to medicate her at all. She hated the pilling so much that she became unsocial.
Our Brittany had a partially torn ACL last year and was treated with acupuncture and herbs and a brace. He is as good as new now.
I'm a firm believer in homeopathic medicine for the most part. Our vet uses it whenever he can, but knows when to switch to conventional methods.
I don't know here you are, but I'm including the link to our vet's web site for more information.
Katharina

Here is a link that might be useful: My Vet

About a year or so ago my parents dog, lab-retriever, underwent some acupuncture treatments. He was going on 16 and having major problems with his back legs. He didn't appear in pain but he could no longer do stairs without help (and god forbid he did not sleep upstairs!)and even just getting up off the floor was hard for him. The vet happen to have just brought on this acupuncturist recently and said we should give her a try & see if it helps (they had no other options left to try). Well the first couple "rounds" we noticed a bit of change. It seemed the next day he had an easier time getting off the floor and a bit more energy. But later on we noticed the treatment wasn't help at all and just called it quits with acupuncture.
But the acupuncture sure was interesting to watch and their dog really didn't seem to notice it was going on. It was worth a try and my parents don't regret it.

I had a Shepard/Lab (Tara) that had numerous issues, bad hips, a heart murmur, ear problems, pancreas problems, food allergy, fununculosis (a severe infection) and thyroid.

I did try acupuncture for her hips that seemed to work. My experience was mixed. Within a few months of bi-weekly treatments, other issues started to come to the surface (vomiting, and something else, sorry can't remember).

Anyway, I also tried the homeopathic route with the infection problems. This was a disaster. I almost lost the dog.

My holistic experience again was mixed. Some minor things happened, but because the dog had so many issues, it just didn't work. Also, from what I gather, it does not always work for all pets. This plus it can take up to a full month or more to kick in. If you have a serious situation you are dealing with like I did, you simply don't have a month. I my case, I only had a couple of days if the dog was to survive. At least with traditional medications, I had a time frame to expect results. Not something that you can get with holistic treatments.

Then, there is the cost. It isn't cheap.

I also considered what I was willing to put Tara through. She hated to go to the vet and for acupuncture. It got to the point that I decided to just do the best I could to give her a good quality of life. She lived to be 14. Well past her expectancy for a healthy dog of this size, let alone one with all of her health issues.

Good luck!

SG

From reading the posts on this thread there seems to be a lot of confusion on the difference between Holistic and Homeopathy.
Holistic Combines natural therapies with conventional medicine, whereas Homeopathic is totally separate from conventional medicine.
It's best to have a DVM with knowledge of holistic approaches verses not incorporating any conventional medicine.

Cindyxeus,
You are absolutely right. I should have made it clear in my post. My vet is a holistic vet, not a true homeopath. I don't think I would completely rely on homeopathic meds only.
Katharina

Homeopathy is using tinctures of extremely diluted ingredients that would cause the symptoms your dog has. It does not try address the cause. You can think of it as "hair of the dog." Homeopathy can be very helpful in treating allergies. In fact immunotherapy shots used to treat allergies are the same concept- the shot contains a tiny dose of whatever you are allergic to, in the hopes that your immune system will stop overreacting to it so the symptoms go away. My Aleksander had immunotherapy shots for his allergies and they worked extremely well. The last I checked, immunotherapy works for about 50% of patients (both human and animal).

Homeopathy is not the same as Holistic medicine as cindyxeus mentioned, although homeopathy can be part of a holistic approach. Holistic just refers to taking into consideration the entire animal- lifestyle, diet, disease, exercise, environment, medications, preventatives, grooming, interactions with other animals and people, etc. and prescribing therapy that addresses each area of life. Holistic medicine can incorporate any alternative modality such as homeopathy, chiropractic, herbal medicine, acupuncture, physical therapy, and also may incorporate traditional medicine.

When my B'Elanna had chronic active hepatitis, I used both traditional medicine- prednisolone, metronidazole, antibiotics, and eventually surgical biopsy PLUS holistic medicine in the form of a special diet, supplemental vitamin E and zinc, added herbal medicine- milk thistle and Sam-E. Between everything, she got better in 9 months. Most dogs with chronic active hepatitis are never able to come off prednisolone because their hepatitis comes right back. In fact, I had that trouble with B'Elanna when we first tried to taper her off the pred. She was already on the special diet and zinc and had finished her course of antibiotics at that point. That's when I gave the milk thistle and Sam-E a try. I attribute her recovery to everything we used, not just the milk thistle and Sam-E. My vet likes to say that B'Elanna just needed to release her evil and that it happened when she had surgery to get a liver biopsy and was spayed. Who knows, maybe she just needed a good airing out LOL! I did not use acupuncture for purely financial reasons, but that can also help support liver function.

As far as pain control, acupuncture can be extremely helpful. A proper diet for your dog with heart and liver disease can be hugely beneficial, as can the proper medications. Glucosamine/chondroitin, duralactin, vitamins E and C can be helpful for joint pain and arthritis. Even if your dogs can't come completely off whatever medications they are currently taking, they may be able to reduce the dose and therefore the side effects of those drugs.

As far as knee trouble, I do know quite a bit about that because of my Ana, who was born with defective rear legs. I got her at 6 months of age, and she had grade IV (the worst) luxated patellas (her kneecaps are in the wrong place). At 6 months, she already had arthritis in both knees. She had surgery to correct one knee, but it didn't do that much good and the vets felt that it would not be worth trying to correct the other knee. I started her on glucosamine/chondroitin as soon as I got her. She is also on duralactin, vitamins E and C, and fish oil to help control the arthritis. When I got Ana, she would not jump or rear up on her back legs at all because of the pain. Although I've never given her NSAIDs, she now jumps and rears up every day at least at feeding time, and oftentimes more. She can walk with my healthy husky without pain 1 hour twice a day- fast! Ana is almost 5 years old, and none of the orthopedic vets can believe how well she gets around. They thought she'd be crippled by age 3 if not sooner. I won't hesitate to use NSAIDs and other pain control should Ana ever need it, but I'd like to hold off on starting her on them because she'll need them for the rest of her life once she starts. I'll add acupuncture and water physical therapy before NSAIDs (she LOVES to swim already!).

Good luck with your search for a good holistic vet. They are a priceless find!

Here is a link that might be useful: Info on homeopathy