01/09/2024
Does your dog have ear troubles?
THE RUB ON EAR CONDITIONS IN DOGS...
As most of us know, an ear infection, be it bacteria or yeast-driven, can be a real nightmare - itchy, irritating and the inflammation in that narrow area is really sore.
Ear issues in dogs comprise around 10% of patients seeing the vet today (O'neill et al. 2014).
It happens that 70% of those cases may be associated with yeast, specifically Malassezia (Forster et al. 2018).
But it’s important to remember that Malassezia, in his normal state, isn’t a bad guy. He’s an essential part of the normal ear flora - keeping bad bacteria down, reducing ear wax by eating spare oil and consuming dead skin cells and it's likely involved with immune system modulation - a process whereby the immune system must learn who is friend and foe in there.
Until its numbers got out of control, he was going about his day, happily working alongside everyone, chatting with the immune system. But then something in the terrain changed.
This is a crucial point so often missed by today's conventional, pharma-or-bust health sector - something changed. Dis-ease occurred in the environment.
Healthy ears have healthy bacterial biomes consisting of a range of bacterial and fungal species all living together, relatively happily and contributing to a nice, clean, ordered, non-inflamed, sweet-smelling lug hole.
However, when that biome is disturbed all hell can break loose.
At all times, the various groups in there are jostling for space. If a gap is created, for whatever reason, one group is going to try fill it, like an empty plot of land suddenly appearing in a busy city.
Who wins? Well, the group that a) finds the new environment most inviting, b) are being fuelled correctly and c) aren't being repressed at the time.
To break these down:
A) The environment has to be right: has the pH change? The acidity? Or is there a new chemical addition in there upsetting things (new food preservative / increased stress metabolites / hormonal change / chemical wormer, on and on).
B) Are they being fuelled correctly? Eg bacteria and fungal group need food. Think about it, if you're standing in an empty field and you leave out carrots, you get bunnies. If you leave out meat, you get foxes. If you leave out cereal, you get mice. Some bacteria like meat. Some veg. Yeast LOVES carbs / sugar. It happens that if you eat high carb diets you have higher glucose coursing through your veins...and body exudates.
C) Aren't being repressed: bacteria keep yeast in check but yeast keep many bacterial groups in check. In this way, antibiotics clear a path for yeast and antifungals clear a way for bacterial groups. What you use in that sore ear WILL have repercussions.
In the case of a ye**ty ear, Malassezia has bloomed and now it moves from being a commensal or "friend" to a baddie. In fact, once in charge, it can even change form as well as the chemicals it produces (this is the subject of my forthcoming talk for Helsinki University!). It’s in "pathogenic" form when your problems start.
I really want people to understand this though - the word "pathogen" instantly shifts the mind to the need to KILL. To use powerful, broadspectrum, napalm-like ANTIbiotics or ANTIfungals.
And yet, we know today, with the rise of antibacterial and antifungal resistance, this approach is not working out for us.
Take E.coli, for an example. The whole world thinks he's a baddie, including your doctor and vet. But it's not, for the most part. The E.coli in your guts for example, consume oxygen. If they didn't, none of the anaerobes in there could exist. The vast majority of E.coli (there are more than 700 servocars detected so far) are either useful or benign to us. Only 6 are bad. And then, where did they come from? Those bad Ecoli largely come from our meat sector. But normally fed animals, it blooms when cows and chicken are fed grain, crap they don't normally eat. Their dysbiosis eventually ends up fuelling our dysbiosis but as ever, that has a cause and simple solution too - stop feeding farm animals crap!
Moreover here, E.coli also keeps yeast numbers down. Take an antibiotic that kills yeast, you get thrush. In the same way, take an antifungal to kill yeast, you get a growth in pathogenic bacterial colonies.
Those guys were always there. They usually help. They have just grown too much, gotten too much power and now are losing the run of themselves. Like politicians, they have forgotten who's in charge.
So the real issue, after you have cleared the current yeast overgrowth naturally with ProPythium, the very best product for the job, in my opinion, is working out the WHY. Why is this happening? You have 3 dogs. They all have hangy-down ear flaps, they all walk in the rain, why is that one fella getting them repeatedly?
That is the core of holistic medicine, the path to healing. Sadly, it seems modern health practitioners are pathologically unaware of this simple practice.
