Ten days ago my dog Toffee was very ill. Her stomach was so sick that she did not keep any food in her. Toffee hadn’t been doing well for a while. My wife took her to the vet and got her blood tested. The day after she returned from the vet, Toffee ate out of the garbage and got really sick. Then the vet called and told us he thinks Toffee has an aggressive cancer. Her stomach did not get better for a week. The vet put Toffee on diphenoxylate with atropine. It did not cure her and made her appear even sicker. She no longer wanted to eat.

I wrote about Toffee in April of 2008. So – almost three years ago Toffee was in crisis and treated with the vitamins I described in that blog. The results then were awesome. I treated Toffee for less than a year and then just left her on her new diet – mostly eggs, rice, and peanut butter. She had been quite healthy and the use of vitamins for dogs is much less well established.

This time Toffee’s response to vitamins was as close to miraculous as it gets. She was obviously better in 10 minutes and back to a normal stomach in less than two days. Then I put her on tetracycline (an antibiotic active against mycobacteria). The antibiotic also made her obviously better. Now – 10 days later – the antibiotic and vitamins working together have got her back chasing deer despite being thirteen. Here’s the doses I used:

125 mg/day of niacin for 4 days – then 60 mg a couple of days then none (I was worried the niacin was making her sick)
2000 mg/day of vitamin C for 4 days – then a switch to 500 mg Ester C tablets
400 IU of vitamin D for 4 days then none
2500 IU of vitamin A twice per week
50 mg TTFD (special thiamine) 4 times per week
125 mg twice per day of tetracycline for two weeks (none the first five days)

This treatment was the cause of agonizing discussions. The vet suggested that the dog might need the chemotherapy to get her stomach straightened out. I told the vet I thought chemotherapy was aggressive and not in Toffee’s best interest. After some heated discussions we faxed Toffee’s bloodwork to our prior vet for a second opinion. Meanwhile Toffee was getting steadily worse. Both vets recommended more testing – neither prescribed any immediate treatment.

Toffee is the most beloved member of our family. What does it mean to act in Toffee’s best interest when everyone has a different opinion? How many times have I written about having much to gain and nothing to lose? It’s easily written but not so easily accomplished. Time was ticking by and there was a choice – go with the vet or treat Toffee ourselves. The vet’s option didn’t look too good for Toffee – blood drawings, x-rays, waiting, and then probably chemotherapy. But the vet’s advise is backed up by the system. What were we going to tell the kids when we followed our own path and the dog deteriorated further?

Well – you know the end of the story. Toffee’s response was as miraculous as it gets.

Our strategy seems like just incredible common sense – attack microbes (tetracycline), boost the immune system (the 5 vitamins that prevent deficiency disease), and accelerate wound healing (extra vitamin C and niacin).

I can’t keep this column impersonal. I’m tired of achieving better health outcomes by following my own common sense than I get by following the advice of physicians. Through painstaking research I’ve ended up with such and obvious strategy. Master the best pills (and sunshine) before adding complexity. Vitamin A, vitamin D, vitamin C, niacin, and thiamine are all proven miracle drugs for the treating a pandemic vitamin deficiency disease. Antibiotics are proven miracle drugs. My experience suggests that our society stands to see a step-change improvement in health using just these pills and sunshine.

My advice is incredibly practical. My theory ends with these simple facts. Vitamins A, D, B1, B3 and vitamin C are special because they are miracle cures for the pandemic deficiency diseases that have long inflicted humanity. There are no other miracle cures for pandemic deficiency diseases. Antibiotics are miracle cures for hundreds of microbial infections that plague humanity. Vitamins and antibiotics are safe, inexpensive and readily available. If you’re sick, why not work with this short list of cures? It’s not as easy as it sounds. Nothing is perfect. There are close to a dozen classes of proven antibiotics. 12 antibiotics and 5 vitamins is 17 pills to optimize. Too much of any one, although safe, will cause discomfort. Too little may cause you to miss finding your cure.

A last word. I feel strongly that most chemotherapy approaches will do dogs more harm than good. Dogs are not humans. There simply isn’t any good data proving the effectiveness of chemotherapy for dogs. Everyone knows about the side effects of chemotherapy. Dogs live in the present. You can’t persuade a dog that chemotherapy is their best hope for a longer life. Diagnostic testing, blood drawing, poking, and prodding are all frightening for dogs. They can’t understand that we’re helping them. I don’t think it’s right to treat dogs this way unless the outcome provides a major benefit with near certainty. If you think like I do, following our strategy of vitamins and antibiotics is almost a no-brainer. If you want help or courage, don’t hesitate to write and ask.