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Homeopathy is the process of taking an unproven substance that is wholly unrelated to the disease in question, and diluting this substance by 1:100 with water up to thirty times. Any high schooler with any chemistry knowledge of avagadros number will know that by the twelfth such dilution there are no more molecules left of the original unproven unrelated substance used as the "treatment." After continuing to dilute the water with more water another eighteen times, the homeopathist takes a drop or two of this water and put it onto sugar pills. This is what homeopathy is. There is no plausible mechanism outside of placebo, confirmation bias, regression to the mean of chronic illness symptoms (after a couple bad days you are likely to have a couple of good days, taking the sugar water pills were incidental), and the natural history of the disease (this means that dogs and humans eventually do get better from diseases regardless of sugar pill consumption) in which homeopathy could work. Homeopathy might be more palatable and hygienic than blood-letting and leech-application, but as far as efficacy of medicine they are all from the same category in medical history. Prior to the discovery of germ theory helping us understand disease there were a ton of zany silly methodologies that were developed to try heal people, luckily most of them were abandoned in modern times. Homeopathy for some reason has recently re-emerged and carved out a small niche in which it still manages to survive and separate unknowing patients from their money in exchange for magic sugar pills, which makes education on the topic that much more important. They feast on the fact that people will tend to seek help for symptoms of an illness at the peak of their symptoms, the point with the highest probability chance that the symptoms will decrease following the sugar pill administration. Please make sure you go to Wikipedia to read up on homeopathy prior to spending any more money and/or foregoing actual medical treatment for you or your dog.
The bottle of proin I have came with a foldout sheet of a double-blind controlled trial of the drug. They of course have a wing that's given the actual drug and a wing that's given an identical pill with no actual ingredient. This is because, as happened in this study, the wing given the placebo pill reported a decrease in urinary incontinence accidents from 7 accidents a week to 4!! Placebos work on animals because it's humans reporting the animals response. Proin reduced it from 9 to 2.1.
And to the lady asserting that 30% of all dogs taking proin die, could you provide a reference to where that number comes from? Because on pubmed.com I've found nothing of the sort in studies on adverse effects for phenylpropanolamine.
P.s. the whole concept of dilutions is called "the law of infinitesimals" which asserts that contrary to common sense, the more you dilute something the more potent it becomes. Since the original substance being diluted is chosen because it causes similar symptoms (when not diluted) to the illness, you can see where the error in logic comes from.
Take insomnia for example. Homeopathy would suggest that a good cure for insomnia would be a substance that also causes lack of sleep. Caffeine might be a good candidate, so if one takes caffeine and creates ten dilutions ranging from 1:10 to 1:10000000000, and tests out each on a patient with insomnia, it the 1:10000000000 that will likely give the best results. This is because the caffeine is actually exacerbating the insomnia, so the dilution with the smallest amount will worsen the patient least.
I have just been given this drug for my 15.5 yr. old lab. male. Vet said that it works best in females but because of his incontinence is giving it a try. As with myself, I check out all meds online and am not liking much what I read. In 5 days, he will be going into a crate and flying with me to Mexico for about 6hrs. Hopefully, if there are any side effects, will notice by then and withhold. My concern is rapid heart rate and possible heart attack as he will be nervous enough with the flight. He has been to Mexico for the winter every year of his 13 but this is the 3rd plane ride. Any comments would be gratefully accepted, gracias.
I have just been given this drug for my 15.5 yr. old lab. male. Vet said that it works best in females but because of his incontinence is giving it a try. As with myself, I check out all meds online and am not liking much what I read. In 5 days, he will be going into a crate and flying with me to Mexico for about 6hrs. Hopefully, if there are any side effects, will notice by then and withhold. My concern is rapid heart rate and possible heart attack as he will be nervous enough with the flight. He has been to Mexico for the winter every year of his 13 but this is the 3rd plane ride. Any comments would be gratefully accepted, gracias.
We have given it to one of our female dogs for a long time and it definitely worked. She would just involuntarily go when sleeping and could barely hold it to get out the door and it definitely helped her.
We had used the liquid on her food but they stopped making it so now we are back to the flavored pills which she totally hates.
You didn't say how much dose was reccomended, but we did notice she was kind of strung out and fast breathing when we first gave it to her and the vet cut her dose. So, is it possible for him to either start out on a lower than typical dose by weight or wait until the flight? Although I will say, the side effects were noticeable within hours of giving it to her, so If you have 6 days it should be OK.
I had my 100 lb rottweiler on proin and she suffered horrible anxiety side effects. Extremely nervous, white foam around her mouth, totally out of character for her. I tried lowering the daily dose, givingnit to her ar night, nothing helped. I didn't like what I read about this drug, so have switched to DES. Totally different dog. I especially like the fact that after the loading dose, she only has to take it once a week. Dogs are like humans in that not evety drug works the same in every animal, so its our job to dothe research. I'm thankful for blogs like this that share information.
Does anyone have an opinion on phenylpropanolamine foa 14 year old mixed lab. The vet prescribed the meds 25mg 2x a day of her incontinence problem. I have read some reviews but am not sure if they are unbiased.
Also one side effect is an aggravation to the central nervous system and labs are predisposed to seizures which she has through out the day when she sleeps.
Thank you,
Mike
DES is much safer than Proin. My holistic vet is fine with my dog being on DES but cautioned against using Proin. BTW, DES totally resolved my dog's spay incontinence.
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