"We first went to see Dr. Haghighat last year when
my puppy Newton, who is a mini dachshund, was suffering from
gastroenteritis. After a visit to the
emergency vet hospital in Toronto his symptoms seemed to improve after a round
of antibiotics and IV hydration. However
his symptoms would not go away entirely, every week we would have at least one
bout of bloody vomit and stool. My vet in Toronto put him on a special medical
gastro food and said that he may have to be on antibiotics for the rest of his
life. None of this sat well with me
especially since Newton was a puppy and not even a year old! This is when we went to see Dr. Haghighat on
the referral of a friend. With his help
and through the use of natural remedies and a home cooked diet Newton got
stronger and stronger. It was a long
road but definitely worth it and I knew we were building up my dog’s immune
system instead of destroying it with antibiotics.
We just recently had another scare with Newton last month
where he had a very high fever. It was
late in the evening and so our only choice was to take him to the emergency vet
hospital again. I just wanted to know how to handle the high fever until I
could contact Dr. Haghighat in the morning.
At the hospital they wanted to keep him overnight but we did not want to
leave him. Instead they gave him some
fluids, did some blood work and told us to keep him in front of a fan
throughout the evening. In the morning
the vet from the hospital called and said that Newton had no white blood cell
counts and that he may have bone marrow cancer.
She immediately referred us to the Internal Medicine specialist at the
hospital. When we saw the specialist the
following day, he retested Newton’s blood and his white blood cell count had
not improved. He gave us 5 possible diagnoses; one of which was bone marrow
cancer. He suggested doing a bone marrow
biopsy that day to rule out cancer. This would require putting Newton under
while they removed a piece of his shoulder bone. It made no sense to me to put a sick dog
under anesthetic for an invasive procedure and I certainly was not going to do
this without Dr. Haghighat assessing him beforehand. The doctor and I agreed to
wait a couple of days to redo his blood work and reassess at that point. He
sent us away with 2 very strong antibiotics for Newton to take.
In the meantime, I went up to see Dr. Haghighat who was
wonderful as usual. He told me not to
panic and said that he did not believe that Newton had bone marrow cancer. He
felt that Newton had caught a really bad virus and we needed to support his
body to fight it. He did a homeopathic
blood transfusion where he took some of Newton's blood mixed it with a
homeopathic remedy and then injected back it into Newton. All of this was easy and not at all
bothersome to my dog. Newton immediately
perked up! He sent us home with some
remedies and had us rub Castor oil on Newton's paws and cook some bone broth
for him, all of which helps restore white blood cell counts. He also said that
we could discontinue the antibiotics. I
was a little nervous about this because the other doctor had scared me so much
so Dr. Haghighat gave me a homeopathic equivalent to give him while we got
through this intense phase.
When we did Newton's
blood work at the hospital a couple of days later, his white blood cell count
still had not gone up. The specialist at
the VEC was a bit concerned and recommended we do a biopsy. When I called Dr. Haghighat to tell him the
news he again reassured me and since Newton is otherwise doing great, eating
and drinking normally and has good energy, told me not to panic and to give
Newton's body time to heal. He said to
continue with the remedies and to wait a couple of weeks before we tested his
blood again. During that time he was
completely available to me for any questions or concerns I had. He supported me every step of the way. When we did test Newton's blood a couple of
weeks later it was perfect! I know that
if it were not for Dr. Haghighat I would have simply agreed to everything the
emergency vet had suggested out of fear and panic and I think my dog would have
died in the hospital during or after the bone marrow biopsy. I am eternally grateful to Dr. Haghighat and
his wonderful team (Jennifer and Nicole are wonderful as well!) at The Holistic Vet. I cannot recommend him
enough!"
