Newton

"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!"