The Importance of the Physical Exam

The most important part of any visit to the veterinary hospital is the complete physical examination. This is a hands-on touch-and-feel external observation and evaluation of your pet’s physical, mental, and emotional state.

Much information in veterinary medicine has been misconstrued about the importance of the physical exam vs. the importance of the annual vaccinations. That’s why “shot clinics” exist, why at some practices if your appointment is “just” for vaccines your pet won’t be seen by a doctor, and why you can buy the vaccines from a catalog or over the internet.

A comprehensive physical exam is so worthwhile that it completely overshadows the financial advantage of just vaccinating the pet without an exam. But then it has to be a good physical exam. A friend of mine recently took her puppies to be spayed and neutered. I asked her, was the vet nice? Oh, yes, very nice. Was he professional? Yes, absolutely. Was he thorough? Not so much. His physical exam consisted of petting the puppies and saying that they seemed healthy.

In veterinary medicine we have a constant dilemma between the benefit of getting our hands on an animal and feeling for abnormalities, and the plethora of diagnostic testing available at a moment’s notice. Of course not everything can be diagnosed based on a physical exam, but it should give you a good guideline, along with a thorough history, to the diagnostic tests which might be most beneficial.

In the hands of an experienced practitioner, a good physical exam does not take long. If you are busy chatting with the vet or on the phone, you may not even notice that the physical exam has come and gone. Even so, you are better off paying for two physical exams every year than going to the shot clinic because it’s cheap, but not getting a physical exam performed on your pet at all. It is the best way to detect subtle symptoms of ill-health, and is the cornerstone of true preventive medicine.

Vaccinations and Reactions

On January 24th I gave a talk to the employees and clients of Dogue Spot, a dog training and day care facility in Otsego, MN. I'm sure that the information I conveyed was priceless, and will be remembered verbatim by all who attended. From my perspective, the most interesting part was the discussions about the animals that had their health damaged by vaccines. Just about everyone in the room had a story to share.
The veterinary journals (i.e. propaganda) tell us that vaccine reactions are rare.
It all depends on what you're looking for. If we were better as a profession at identifying the signs of ill health, and at allowing for the possibility of cause and effect, we might be more aware of the relationship between the vaccine event and the onset of health problems in the pets that we vaccinate. The issues do not always arise immediately after vaccinating.
Like many other holistic veterinarians, I am conscious of the fact that the vast majority of the animals that I treat are suffering from vaccinosis in one form or another. Vaccinosis denotes the variety of chronic conditions that are brought on by an aberrant response to vaccines. This is not rare or unusual, according to us, because of the harsh nature of vaccines, the toxic brew of the contents, and the likelihood that the immune system will sustain damage from the vaccine.
The main thing that I find lacking in general veterinary practice is the admission that once an animal has had a vaccine reaction, any kind, at any time, STOP. Stop vaccinating that pet. The risk of causing a chronic disease that will be incurable is too great.
In the clip from FOX news that I posted on my facebook page, a woman reports that now her dog has to get shots in order to prevent a reaction to its shots. During the interview, the dog, a Beagle, is lying on the couch facing the camera, unmoving, completely lacking in vitality. Yes, all Beagles look sort of sad, but this dog looks really sad. It looks like it has a chronic headache. But the show must go on, just in case little overvaccinated Buffy is accidentally exposed to some horrible disease she's already been vaccinated against ten times. The entire concept is ridiculous, this idea that we must continue vaccinating even in the face of hives, angioedema, thrombocytopenia, cancer, and any one of the other million bad things that can happen after vaccination.
It's time to stop. Once is enough.