Comments on Ticks: Fear and Loathing and Lyme

Thank you, Limitless Herbs Center ( www. limitless healthcenter. co m), for your help with my untreated Lyme. I do think Covid made my untreated Lyme symptoms exponentially worse. I’m so thankful for your guidance with herbal treatment and diet changes; I’m now mostly symptom-free and living a healthy life!

I am shocked and disgusted at the photo of the dog with one of the worst tick infestations in his /her ear. This is such a clear cut case of animal abuse and neglect, worse is the lack of empathy on this page especially from this so called DVM.

Lyme can be a deceptive invader for the host canine. My 2 yr old, fresh- raw fed since 4 months, minimally Vax ed, no heartworm prevention, no pesticides administered,not neutered Am Staff.... tested positive for Lyme two months ago. I doubled his dose of canine transfer factor, monitored him closely for any Lyme symptoms. He exhibited no outward symptoms whatsoever. Very energetic, young, healthy looking dog. I retested for Lyme two months later. Still positive, this time the positive result was a thick dark line on the test, the first time barely visible, and still no symptoms. I have not sent blood work out for a Lyme titer yet, but I decided to run a complete blood count on him. His platelet count is very low, along with a low white cell count. I guess it is possible he could be dealing with more than one tick borne disease? Be careful, canine owners with self diagnosis of this disease. Lyme spirochete will not always present in a textbook fashion, of lameness or lethargy, sore joints etc. I am with my dog for many hours every day, and he has not shown the slightest bit of any behavior change, meanwhile, his blood work is telling me a very different story about his health.

Lyme in people and dogs have been treated homeopathicaly (veterinarians can even help via phone consults), herbally Bhuneer is a great author, info applies to dogs too). Don't give up, if the dog can hold on all this while, the love and pursuit of good options you are seeking, well I see lots of good aheads. Look up alternative vets and homeopathic vet society. It's real healing, just not mainstream, yet.

I am looking for a natural vet in Denver, Colorado to help me in healing my dog adopted from Puerto Rico 8 months ago. He has just been diagnosed with chronic erhlchiosis from ticks and I have been told his prognosis is very poor. The only options offered by my vet are doxycycline and possibly steriods. I have read about homeopathy for tick borne diseases but am needing some professional guidance. I will be grateful for any recommendations/guidance. Thank you.

Our neighbors know we're little dog folks so we often contacted when someone finds a little one. This week, we got a tiny Terrier who was loaded with fleas and ticks. She was thin, dirty, and in generally poor shape. She also was showing some symptoms of Lyme disease - pain when touched, painful joints, lethargy, and hardly moving. We bathed her in natural shampoo that had 7 drops of Palo Santo essential oil and 1 tsp of neem oil added to it. Left the suds on for 20 minutes and it killed every flea and tick on her. Started her on the raw diet we feed our dogs and added colloidal silver. In 2 days, she had no symptoms of Lyme - no pain, joint problems, or anything else. No toxic products or antibiotics that would only do harm. Don't ya just love the natural route instead?

To the doctor, my dog is on a prescription food Hills z/d canine ultra. This food has hydrolyzed protein. I'm not exactly sure what her problem is but she has been symptom free for a year. Any suggestions about what this could be and is there a way to treat naturally?

I feed a fresh raw diet, do not vaccinate anymore (and recieved homeopathic help to rid systematic dysfunction). I feed a daily supplement called Bug Off by Springtimeinc.com They come in chews (for small/medium dogs) and powder (larger dogs - more cost effective).
I have yet to find a flea or tick. It also repels mosquitoes (heartworm), and we have dogs coming in and out of our home regularly as I am a pet sitter.
I tried fresh garlic, but worried about the dosage and the quality of it, and heard human made garlic pills were not effective. SpringTimeINC has been in business for 20 years+ and I couldn't find anything bad written about them anywhere online, and know a great deal of people who use it. Thought I would let you know and perhaps you can look into them. :) (They have lots of other natural supplements too)

Question for you Doc. I must be misunderstanding how these 'preventatives' are suppose to work. How do they stop the tick or flea from actually biting? And isn't the bite what transmits the disease? I get that the chemicals are in the blood stream and contain neurotoxins thereby killing the flea/tick. But hasn't the damage already been done with the bite?
Personally I still use and love Wondercide for stopping the bites in the first place. One bottle for pets, humans and the house. Gotta love it.

As I hike with my dog in the Northeast he has tested positive for Lyme and even chronic Lyme. Not symptomatic in any form. He is raw fed and hasn't had a vaccine since the shelter gave him them as a puppy but ticks are endemic in the woods up here. I do need to give him a C6 test or Cornell Multiplex test to see what his level is now. I will first treat him with Ledum 1M 1 pellet 3 times a day for 3 days as that is reportedly a cure as used by a vet in CT. Do need to get the Lyme Nosode, as that is good for prevention.

Annie M and Min Pin Mama, you say to never remove ticks with your fingers and maybe that is so for some people, but you are both off-base in making such a broad generalization. We have pulled thousands of ticks off our dogs over the years with our fingers....to be more specific, our fingernails. If you grow your thumb and index fingernails to a certain length, it is quite easy to lodge those nails underneath the body of the tick and easily pull them off one's dogs without "plunging infectious diseases" into your dog.
Our dogs are mega healthy and yet experience those nasty bloodsuckers on their bodies from early March until late summer every single day. We keep closed bottles of soapy water on a table outside, on a bench in our mudroom, on a table in the living room and in our bedrooms--wherever we find them crawling on us, stuck on us or our dogs. Dropping the tick's body into the soapy water kills it.

HI Doc
I live in Upstate N.Y. Our area is endemic with ticks. I have had Lyme disease since 1997. It has ruined my life.
I feed my dogs raw & treat mostly with homeopathic meds but i differ with you on this matter. Ticks don't discriminate. The diseases they carry WEAR down even the BEST immune systems. I recently lost my best buddy to neurological lyme ( which is rare in dogs)
I use tick collars on my dogs now. Its the lesser of two evils. I put them on in April & take them off in Nov. Not fond of the pesticide but at least my dogs are alive!
I have tried organic sprays & feeding garlic, Brewers yeast etc.
It doesn't work. The tick born disease contracted from these ticks ARE life treating. Good immune systems or not!!! A lot of dogs die here if they are not treated promptly. Tick prevention is a must anywhere ----I regret to have say. Counting on a good immune system is like playing Russian roulette.
o

Dr. Falconer, glad you made it safely back to this continen (you're itinerary made me wince), Just in time for our first tropical storm and lots more rain headed your way!
Just want to say that my dogs regularly get ticks, our season seams to be more in the fall when it's drier. My 3 dogs and I have daily walks in the woods or country fields and usually I find several ticks on them. Lately, I've noticed that I often find the ticks in their furr, but not latched on (I do check after each walk, but sometimes I've found them a day or two later). Wondering if this is because my dogs are quite healthy these days thanks to your guidance in rearing them? I have pulled many a tick off of my pack, but Instead of panicking, I just make sure that their immune system is primed with transfer factor and feed the best diet I can give them and trust that they will ward off any infection. I do the same for myself!
A prime example of following your approach just happened this past weekend...my big dog Angus, was bitten by another even bigger dog in a show off of dominance. The bite was in the upper thigh of his right leg. He came home limping and wouldn't eat and as the evening wore on he got worse, moaning in pain. I keep all of our past correspondence regarding the dogs, so I just looked up one with a similar occurrence in another of my dogs. I followed your advice in that case, first I gave a split dose of Arnica, 1ml of diluted Arnica every hour 3 times. This helped him sleep, but in the morning the leg was swollen & he had fever and would still not eat, so I changed to Ledum, (same dosage) even though it wasn't an exact fit, it is used particularly for puncture wounds, this helped almost immediately. I gave one more dose later in the day and he was ready for his evening walk as usual and has progressed beautifully, no infection, swelling all gone. Amazing! This could have gotten ugly! I, for one am very grateful to have found you 7 years ago, when I got my first dog as a small pup and decided to raise him holistically. You've taught me to push the fearful thoughts out of my head and focus on what is actually going on with my animals in the moment and over time & treat or let be according to that. I'm a firm believer in your methods and I love all of the free advice you so graciously share in this blog!!!

No one could be more health conscience than me, for myself and my animals. I feed raw, I don't vaccinate (other than required by law), feed only fresh spring water, and I "tried" to do the natural way of fending off ticks. And both of my babies got Ehrlichiosis. Sometimes you have to pick your poison. I now use tick preventative. You have to do what is ultimately best for your furbabies, even if it goes against what you'd rather do.

Growing up in rural New York State many moons ago, my animals and I ran and played in tall grass fields, woods, marshes and rock outcroppings. We all were vaccine free. Cats hunted squirrel, rodents, and birds. Dogs kept the woodchuck population trim. And us humans tended to an organic garden. Pure well water. Pure air. Yeah, we were the weird ones in the valley. Only on rare occasions did I find a tick settling in on the skin. In which case I picked it off, straight up. At that point, a drop of iodine went on the puncture hole. No further issues.
Recently, I began taking Nascent Iodine which was has made a huge difference in my health. During my research, I had read that animals and humans that have proper levels of iodine will not have ticks adhere to their skin. I made a mental note to research further (remembering that drop on the puncture wound), though want to ask in this discussion if anyone has heard that or uses iodine to eliminate ticks from settling and locking on. ????
And Dr. Falconer, I thank you for being on my spiritual journey as you teach and affirm much of what I already do to give my beloved animals a good life. A vital life.

Lyme disease is a man-made disease, like Morgellons and Scleroderma. The mad scientists have been busy for the last century designing these bio weapons! There are documents proving that these ailments resulted from genetically splicing bacterium and viruses; The mycoplasm is the result of a genetic splice of Brucilosis bacteria and a Visna virus. The really disgusting thing is that they released these in and over unsuspecting populations to test their efficacy! A Red Dye Stain test is needed to detect the mycoplasm infection...whitecoats can't find it with routine tests. Chronic illness should be grounds for RDST in my humble opinion.
So I myself had Lyme, but I beat it. Then I had Morgellons, but I beat it. Then I had Systemic Scleroderma...I almost didn't beat that, and came very close to death in Dec 2010, but obviously since I'm talking to you I beat that too! Apparently I'm indestructible, ha ha!
What I have observed is that man cannot create anything like that from natural building blocks, without the cure also being found in nature. Most of these diseases particularly target people or animals with poor nutrition. Feed the body what our Creator put here for us, and voila! Good as new in no time. There's a little more to it than that, energy and attitude are involved, and ancient medicine of course, but the result of all this is that I fear nothing...no, not even ticks.
I haven't tried a tick puller yet, my digits seem to work fine for buggers that do get a bite of me, but it looks like a good way not to touch them if that bothers you. My cats get a check over after they go out, but I've only seen a few ticks walking on fur, not dug in.
If you want to read about how the mycoplasm came to be, you can do a web search for [Mycoplasm, The Linking Pathogen] and you'll find lots of information on it. Mercola and Rense did articles, too. It's a bit depressing and angering to find the madmen have no respect for the innocent people who have suffered from their manipulations of the genome, but I would rather know the truth, personally.
Is there an "after" shot of that dog's ear, doc? I'm going to be seeing that when I try to fall asleep tonight. Yeesh!

Thanks for your daily blogs Dr. Falconer, I apprecaite each and everyone of them...
I practice natural rearing (15 years now) with my dogs and in doing so I have learned so much about how to look after myself and family in a more natural way. No more vaccines, no processed foods, lots of fresh air and cuddle time. Since starting on this NR road I have very healthy dogs and it's very interesting to watch how mosquitoes will land on my dogs (including my litters) and quicky fly off of them. With ticks, and I do live in an area where ticks are really bad, I may get one tick on one dog out of 5 dogs. Some years my dogs get none. But, I also avoid tall grass and woodsy areas during tick season. As far as the picture above, it doesn't instill more fear in me of ticks, but it does make me feel the owner is negligent. How can so many ticks, be in that dog's ear, and obviously, the ticks have been there for some time seeing how big they are.
Also, like you mentioned, we use our fingers to pull ticks out, have for over 50 years, no need to go and buy special tools, just another money maker.
Lastly, I know that "if" one of my dogs ended up with Lyme disease, I know the symptoms it presents, would be treated homeopathically.

Is there a homeopathic remedy for these tick-borne diseases?

I love your blog, but that photo of the dog with hundreds of ticks causes more fear, not less (like the veterinarian photos of the heart infested with heartworms - an exaggerated / worst case scenario and not the norm).

Dr. Falconer,
I truly appreciate your sharing this valuable info each week. In this blog, however, I do need to make one suggestion. In order to sound credible re: tick borne diseases, you might want to use the correct name for the disease on which you are focusing here---ie. Lyme. The disease is named after Lyme, Connecticut. I have been battling Lyme, Babesia, & others for the past 8 years, and have learned more than I ever really wanted to about these diseases. One thing I do know is that your credibility in talking about these diseases starts with using the correct name for them. So Lyme . . . not Lymes.