Holistic Health
Holistic Pet Health
At Legacy Animal Medical Center we are proud to be able to offer holistic veterinary medicine services in addition to — and often in tandem with — conventional veterinary treatments.
At our medical center, we take each aspect of your pet's health into account at once — rather than as a series of separate and individual puzzles — when diagnosing and treating their medical conditions. This is the core of holistic veterinary medicine.
To this end, our Liberty Lake vets believe in using the treatment (or multiple treatments) that works, and our holistic veterinary practice will usually include a number of different components when treating your pet.
What to Expect From Holistic Vet Care
The holistic veterinary medicine treatment process entirely depends on the pet being treated. When assessing your pet for holistic treatment, our Liberty Lake vets take the animal's overall health, preexisting conditions, age, breed and other factors into account.
Complementary and Alternative Veterinary Medicine (CAVM)
The term holistic veterinary medicine is an open term that encompasses many different therapies but can also include some terms that are sometimes used interchangeably.
Complementary and Alternative Veterinary Medicine (CAVM) are terms that refer to the group of diverse medical and health care systems, practices, and products that are not generally considered to be part of conventional medicine.
At Legacy Animal Medical Center, our vets are able to perform a wide range of holistic and CAVM treatments and therapies in order to address diseases, conditions, and physical traumas in your pet:
- Herbal Medicine
Just like many plants and herbs offer medicinal benefits to people (such as the anti-inflammatory properties of garlic or ginger), there is also a wide variety of plants with medicinal benefits for animals. Our vets can use these herbs for their medicinal benefits when treating your companion.
- Holistic Diets
What you feed your pet is critical to their overall health and well-being. Their food is the foundation of their health!
At Legacy Animal Medical Center, we can work with you to design a diet — whether that be food that is processed and prescribed or a diet of partially or even entirely unprocessed and home-cooked diet.
- Chronic Illness and Arthritis Control
There is a wide array of holistic treatments for arthritis and other painful chronic illnesses in pets, ranging from prescribed exercises and acupuncture to natural supplements.
Our Liberty Lake vets have a special interest in combatting your pet's chronic illness with holistic medicine to ease their healing process.
- Alternative Cancer Therapies
While traditional oncological treatments are successful in treating cancer, we offer alternative options to traditional treatments that may be suited to older or immunocompromised pets.
- Nutraceutical Treatments
Veterinary nutraceuticals, otherwise known as dietary supplements, are often recommended by our Liberty Lake vets as a means to encourage your pet's health or well-being. The vets do this by addressing specific nutritional deficiencies in their diet, such as probiotics, vitamins, or minerals.
- Complementary Medicine
At Legacy Animal Medical Center, complementary medicine is used together with conventional medicine to treat conditions and improve your pet's overall health. An example of complementary therapy is using acupuncture to help lessen a patient’s discomfort following surgery.
- Whole Medical Systems
Whole medical systems are built upon complete systems of theory and practice. Often, these systems have evolved apart from and earlier than the conventional medical approach used in the United States.
Examples of whole medical systems that have developed in Western cultures include…
- Homeopathic Medicine
- Naturopathic Medicine
Examples of whole medical systems that have developed in non-Western cultures include:
- Traditional Chinese Medicine
- Ayurveda (Not Used In Veterinary Medicine)
- Biologically Based Practices
Biologically based practices in CAVM use substances found in nature, such as herbs, foods, and vitamins. Some examples include dietary supplements, herbal products, and the use of “natural” remedies such as shark cartilage for cancer treatment or raw beets for liver disease.
- Acupuncture
Veterinary acupuncture involves inserting tiny needles into a pet's body, where the blood vessels converge with the nerves. The needles help guide vital energy, supporting the nervous system and promoting circulation.
The Holistic Vet Treatment Process
The goal with holistic treatment is always to identify the root of the issue and treat it in the most effective and least invasive way possible.
Holistic medicine also attempts to prevent illness by placing an emphasis on optimizing health.
The body’s systems are seen as interdependent parts of the whole being. Since the natural state is one of health, an illness or disease is the result of an imbalance in the body’s systems. Holistic therapies are intended to help the body maintain balance and tend to emphasize proper nutrition.
Our Holistic Commitment
As is common in veterinary treatments of all kinds, our veterinary team is committed to using whatever treatment works best for your pet.
This can sometimes mean using holistic veterinary treatments and therapies — but, just as often, it means relying on conventional veterinary practices.
Not all conventional treatments work for all pets, and neither do all holistic treatments.
Part of our commitment to providing the treatment that works is to spend time monitoring, analyzing, and properly diagnosing your pet so that we are able to correctly identify the right treatment for them — regardless of what that may be.