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Since I have opinions on many things among
which is medication in our industry, I have decided to voice my opinions on
my website. Medication for horses is an ongoing and important issue in
the thoroughbred business. I feel that it is important for me to
stimulate those who offer commentary on this vital issue to learn as much as
possible about the issue. I feel that the
more informed that those vital people and those interested trainers and owners
are in the various aspects of performance enhancement, the better off the well
being of the thoroughbred will be. A higher the intellectual level in
addressing this issue is very important.
As I have gotten older, I have become dependant to some extent on
medication. I have high blood pressure and with that comes a formula
of various medicines in various dosages. The result is that my blood
pressure is under control and close to normal.
In these times of scientific approaches to sports medicine and
non-invasive treatment of patients through drug therapy, I find that my
position of three decades ago has changed. A book entitled "Performance
Drugs in Sport" by Dr. Philip Swann published in 1990 which is over a decade
ago, discusses the use of drugs to treat sickness and injury and those drugs
used to establish and maintain fitness. Dr. Swann indicates at that
time that there are 60,000 drugs in common use and 400,000 drugs which have
been tested on animals in laboratory and research situations. It is a
reasonable presumption that in today's world a few hundred thousand drugs
are now in common use and a few million drugs have been tested on laboratory
animals. Hence, drugs are a big part of our world.
Tremendous advances of drug
sciences are having a massive impact on performance drugs. We
are all aware that there is a strong link between human and equine
performance drugs, since the same drugs are used on both athletes and
racehorses in order to alter performance in many cases. There are of
course both similarities and differences regarding humaestic and wild animals, veterinarians are now using the
same alternative therapy used in humans, such as acupuncture, homeopathy,
nutrition, vitamin and mineral supplementation, herbs, electroacupuncture biofeedback
testing, and chiropractic, to directly stimulate an animal's immune system,
strengthen its vital life force, and alleviate any disequilibrium in the
body.
Christopher Day, M.A., Vet. M.B., M.R.C.V.S., Vet.
F.F.Hom., who runs an alternative animal clinic in England says, "Medical
alternatives such as homeopathy, acupuncture, herbs, aromatherapy, Bach
flower remedies, and chiropractic provide a vast therapeutic armory that not
only outweighs modern conventional medicine in scope, but also in
capability. At our clinic we very rarely need to resort to modern drugs, and
then only to provide symptom relief. Alternative medicine provides the key
to cure, whereas conventional drugs tend only to suppress."
Our veterinarians are hard at work on dealing with the
world of alternative medicine as is evidenced by the website of
http://www.alternativevet.org/ which deals
directly with this area of veterinary medicine.
Let us continue with with Acupuncture which is already being used by many
trainers for their horses. Using the excellent slogan, "You've got
options. All I really want to do is remind you that suffering need not
be one of them," I offer the website of
http://www.acupuncture.com as an
interesting reading source that discusses not only acupuncture but also,
Chinese herbal medicine, dietetics, and even Tui Na Message and much more.
I want to encourage all of my
readers here at my website, to use the Internet to examine and learn more
about medication. The topic is timely with all the baseball scandals
presently in the spotlight and our own Milkshake scandals. Do some
reading about various performance enhancing drugs to include the areas of Blood Doping
and
Anabolic Steroids.
Drug terminology such as endogenous drugs, designer drugs, optioids,
stimulants, depressants, anti-inflammatory drugs, pain killers, anesthetics,
narcotics, hormones and on and on are now somewhat familiar terms to
trainers and owners in this new era of sports drug enlightenment.
There has always been it seems, an on going discussion on drugs in the
thoroughbred business. It is time to accept that the drug era has
arrived and is here to stay. However, it is important that drug
information be made available to the betting public. It seems that the
underlying principle of horse racing is for the best equine athlete to win a
race and not the horse who is a drug addict. Fan confidence is
essential to our business. Of course, any drug that is found or
thought to be harmful to well horses must be eliminated from the equation.
There is the tremendously important subject of alternative medicine and its related topics.
Of course, the Internet is a great provider of information on these topics.
So I am
going to discuss and provide, which means provide some of my comments as
well as the comments of others, and provide links to enable you to easily go
around the Internet to find out more.
One of the most comprehensive Internet websites you can find is
http://www.alternativemedicine.com, which will tell you more than you
ever wanted to know about Alternative Medicine, even if you are a doctor or
a veterinarian. Consider that the principles of alternative medicine are as
applicable to animals as they are to human beings. Alternative veterinary
medicine is directed toward maintaining natural good health. Animal
treatment and healing are achieved using gentle yet effective methods, to
treat not only symptoms, but to cure their underlying conditions. On
this interesting website you will find informative comments including some
by veterinarians.
"There is nothing in conventional medicine today
that treats degenerative conditions as successfully as holistic therapies."
-Joanne Stefanatos, D.V.M., President, American Holistic Veterinary
Association
Veterinary
medicine has been revolutionized in the past decade. Research is ongoing and
is having a very strong effect on our horses, some of which are very
positive and some of which are very negative.
A listing of various food for thought sites around the Internet might
prove interesting and enjoyable. I do have one client that like
to run his horse in accordance with Astrological compliance. So here
are some other ideas to consider. Many are human medicine sites but
have correlation to equine medicine.
Lots of interesting medicine including Homeopathy which has been around
since the Biblical times :
http://www.healthy.net
Gemstones, Feng Shui, Aromatheraphy/Esential Oils and much more might
interest you:
http://www.gems4friends.com
Bee Venom Therapy (Apitherapy has everything you need to know, even has a
veterinary section) :
http://www.beevenom.com
Bach Flowers (Flower Essence can certainly apply to horses) :
http://www.bachflower.com
Telepathic Communication (Your trainer says horse is not mentally
ready...works for cats and dogs) :
http://www.petinsight.com
It seems that there is a veritable
plethora of approaches when it comes to treatment for horses. We just
neeed horsemen to select from those that are legal and non injurious to the
horses. |
