I don’t write about animals. But you may have a pet you absolutely adore. So I thought you might enjoy a story about my sister’s dog.
But this story isn’t just about a dog. It’s the story of a medical miracle.
And, in the end, I’ll show you how her dog can lead the way to curing type-2 diabetes.
My sister from Dallas called me about her dog Peanuts. He is 14 years old. And for several weeks prior to the call, Peanuts had become increasingly lethargic. So she took him to the vet. He did some quick testing, and then told her that Peanuts had a bad case of diabetes.
His blood sugar was at the maximum that the laboratory could read. His ketone levels were also at maximum. This combination means that he was about to go into a diabetic coma and die any moment unless they did something immediately.
I have to admit, I have never treated a dog for much of anything. So why did she call me?
The vet said that in order for him to stabilize Peanuts, she would have to admit the dog to the hospital for several days. During that time, the vet would give intravenous fluids, as well as determine the correct dose of insulin.
The cost was going to be around $3,000-$4,000. This would save the dog for now, but because of his age, Sis did not figure that he was likely to live much longer anyway. That’s a lot of money for my sister to pay for an old dog.
My sister then asked him what other options Peanuts had. The vet told her that she could just let things be as they are, and Peanuts would die in the next 24-48 hours. Or she could have him put to sleep for $150. That’s when she called me.
Since I’m not a vet, the call surprised me. But given the overall context of what was going on, it seemed like a reasonable decision to employ another option.
Why not simply send Peanuts home and put him on a zero carbohydrate diet along with some insulin? Sure, it’s risky. But if he dies, at least he died with a fighting chance. I told Sis to present this option to her vet.
I Was Shocked by What the Vet Said
“I won’t do that. It’s unethical.” What? It’s somehow ethical to charge someone $3,000-$4,000 dollars to treat a dog that is old and doesn’t have that much longer to live anyway. And it’s equally ethical to kill the dog for $150.
But it’s not ethical to split the difference and attempt to treat the dog at home? I guess this vet never learned how to be a little creative in difficult situations.
I have been in these kinds of positions many times in my medical career. Situations like this require a little creative thinking. And so I went to work.
I told Sis to put the dog on a diet that I had learned about several years ago from a holistic veterinarian. She mixed equal amounts of cooked vegetables (no starches), raw ground steak, and cottage cheese. This was all she was to feed Peanuts.
Additionally, since he was rapidly getting dehydrated from the elevated blood sugar, she needed to add potassium to his water. And then there was the matter of insulin.
It took me about 20 minutes to find the dosing information I needed. I called her pharmacy and had the pharmacist dispense some insulin. And then I called Sis to tell her how much to give, and how often. We decided to start Peanuts on a lower dose, just to be extra safe.
I also had her pickup some indicator strips that she could dip into Peanuts’ urine to measure what his sugar and ketone levels were. There were no guarantees that it would work. But it was certainly better than just giving up and immediately sentencing him to death.
Here’s What Happened
It took her 48 hours to get the insulin going. But in those 48 hours, Peanuts already started to get better just from the diet and potassium. He became more active and was definitely not going into any coma. Then when Sis began to give him the insulin, he really started to improve. His ketone and sugar levels immediately began to drop.
Slowly we increased the insulin dose until the urine was free of both sugar and ketones. And once that occurred, we knew that we had him pretty well dialed in.
The funny thing is that Sis told me that Peanuts was now acting more like he did as a young dog. He was continuously running around and had more energy than her other dog who was years younger. When her kids and friends came to the house, they all started asking why Peanuts had so much energy.
This is something I have seen many times in my patients. When the body gets the right diet, its ability to recover and heal is often remarkable.
That was three weeks ago. Peanuts is now fully stabilized on the correct diet and insulin dose, and it appears that he is likely to live a lot longer than the vet had predicted. So why am I telling you this case?
The Power of a Healthy Diet
There are several learning lessons here. First, is the power of diet. Peanuts was already getting better on the diet even before he started the insulin. A diet without carbohydrates can literally cure many cases of diabetes even without medications. It is truly amazing.
Not only that, but I am quite sure that if Peanuts had been on a healthy diet before all this happened, he would never have developed diabetes in the first place.
A few years ago, one of the attendees at my seminars on ozone therapy was a professor of veterinarian medicine at Cornell. Cornell’s College of Veterinarian Medicine is one of the best vet schools in the world. She was the one that told me about the diet I put Peanuts on.
In no uncertain terms, she told me that most of the cases of cancer and degenerative diseases she sees today are directly attributable to processed dog food. That’s why I feed my dog only real food. You should do the same.
Ethics Should Be About People, Not Tradition
Some docs, fortunately not all, avoid thinking outside of the box because they are like this vet. They are so vested in doing what is traditional that they won’t allow themselves to try different treatments. And sometimes, the things they do border on the insane.
For example, for this vet it was ethical to put the dog to sleep, a 100% risk of death, but it was unethical to try dosing him at home because that was not the accepted form of treatment. I think this form of “ethics” is wrong.
Here’s what I have learned about medical ethics. God has given all of us in the healing professions the ability and the charge to keep His people healthy, to help them cure their diseases when they can, and to help them be more comfortable when a cure is not possible. Our traditional methods of medicine have always evolved out of this charge. That is until now.
Over the past 75 years, traditional medicine has been hijacked. Corporations run our medicine. Medicine is no longer controlled by doctors and nurses doing what they need to do to help patients. It is controlled by Big Pharma, Big Government, and Big Insurance.
These entities have institutionalized and over-regulated a practice that thrives on relationships and knowing the person you’re treating. Traditional medicine has turned from being patient centered to being money centered.
Don't let this happen to you or your pets. Find good doctors, including vets, who are more interested in you and your animals than they are in tradition. It could save your life — or the life of your pets.