Preface

My Story

Most of my childhood memories center around being eight?years old. During this time my dad said "Lisa, you seem to like animals a lot: you should be a veterinarian." As your classic goal-oriented type-A personality when presented with a challenge, I saddled up, buckled down and committed until the job was done. You often hear veterinarians describe a calling to help those who cannot help themselves, to care for the innocent, or an innate preference for non-human company. While I agree with these sentiments and love animals, at its core I became a veterinarian because the proposition seemed like an exciting and difficult pursuit.

I then spent the better part of my adolescence and young adult life with one mission: Get into vet school. I studied like crazy in high school. I attended a liberal arts college for my undergraduate studies, in large part to appear cultured on my application. I worked summers as a kennel and veterinary assistant at multiple animal hospitals trying to sponge up as much information and experience as possible.

Thankfully I was accepted on my first attempt. I was technically wait-listed, and in a non-dramatic fashion decided I would give up vet med and move to a remote island and open a craft store. That was until I was accepted and suddenly my island lifestyle seemed impractical.

With all the effort to get into vet school, I never gave much thought to what I would do afterward. While in high school I volunteered at a local animal shelter for two?years. As this was my first veterinary "job" there was a huge learning curve. It was here I learned how to properly restrain animals, to interpret animal behavior, to clean lots and lots of poop, to cherish the moment when a cat or dog found their forever home, and the sadness associated with mass euthanasia due to overcrowding. During this time, I became the lead euthanasia assistant. One of my primary jobs was to inventory the shelter at least once a month, noting which cats and dogs had been there the longest, were ill, or had behavioral issues. This "kill list" was given to the shelter veterinarian. The doctor would euthanize the pet while I held. Some days we would have to cull over 15 animals. As you can imagine this is a lot for anyone to handle, especially someone whose frontal cortex had not yet fully formed. I only worked in this position for a couple of months. Eventually the stress and grief became too taxing, and I took reprieve in a summer job working at a greenhouse. The thought of being the doctor performing those mass euthansias was too much, and I decided shelter work was not for me.

Academia had and has always interested me. I love that light bulb moment when a student, intern, or team member understands a new concept or solves a puzzle. There is nothing more rewarding than contributing to another human being's "aha" moment. While I find the time in the lecture hall and clinics thrilling, I have trepidations regarding research. I have never considered myself a talented science writer, mostly because the necessity for brevity eludes me. To top it all off the dog-eat-dog nature of research funding seems too exhausting, so academia was out.

I have always loved neurology; there is something about the logicality of the field that soothes my need for structure and order. I am not, however, a fan of surgery in any form, especially surgeries which require drills and dissecting microscopes. I am also impatient and find the waiting period from first cut to the appearance of the spinal cord or brain excruciating. As an aside when I was an intern, during my first neurosurgery I tried too hard to impress the clinician. I attempted to set up the surgical suite myself. I, of course, threw the wrong end of the drill cord off the surgery table which, as you can imagine, did not a happy neurologist make. I spent the remainder of that neurology rotation on pins and needles trying not to screw up any more procedures. I did master the ability to make the most perfectly tiny bone wax balls and the smallest slices of gel foam.

Like many vet students, without a clue as to what to do once I graduated, I decided to delay my adulting decisions and pursue an internship. My then boyfriend, now husband, and I packed up our two cats, brand new puppy, and two 5-gal buckets of saltwater fish and drove 14?hours from Blacksburg, Virginia to Northbrook, Illinois for my one?year rotating surgical-medical internship. While my internship year was most comparable to a year-long poorly paid hazing event, I did learn an incredible amount about being a veterinarian, trusting myself, and developing a tougher exterior shell.

Unfortunately, I still had not figured out what I wanted to do when I grew up. Over the next seven?years I worked as a general practitioner, relief emergency veterinarian, and eventually created my own relief business. During this time, I still felt lost, and slightly disenfranchised by veterinary medicine. I was not prepared for the financial reality of how veterinarians are paid and the gravity of paying back my student loans. I also began to find the routine of general practice mundane. Before I created my relief business, I decided to study veterinary acupuncture as a way to carve out my own niche within a veterinary practice and hopefully increase my production numbers.

When choosing an acupuncture school, I decided to go big or go home. I wanted to immerse myself in this new field of study and who better to learn from then Dr. Xie at Chi University. During my studies my dog fell ill with a fungal infection, Blastomycosis, and the treatment nearly fried his liver. I used all my Western tools, but his liver values worsened. I decided to incorporate acupuncture, and with the help of my instructors added in Chinese herbal medicine and Chinese food therapy. Amazingly, his liver values improved, he got better and even thrived. He had more energy, his coat was softer, and he seemed happier. I also started using my acupuncture training when working emergency and general practice. I noticed a pattern. My patients improved faster with the incorporation of acupuncture. One of the beauties of working with animals is the general absence of placebo effect.

At that point I was hooked. Learning various aspects of integrative medicine was like eating potato chips: I could not have just one. After completing my acupuncture training over the next four?years I studied Chinese food therapy (Chi University), Chinese herbal medicine (College of Integrative Veterinary Therapies), and veterinary spinal manipulation therapy (Healing Oasis). And most recently I completed my veterinary massage and rehabilitation therapy training (Healing Oasis). I would joke that while some people collected shoes, I was collecting initials. This alphabet soup of initials resulted in one client dubbing me Dr. LOL (Lots of Letters).

My diagnostic and treatment abilities improved greatly because of my integrative training. Figure 1 depicts me hard at work with one of my favorite bulldogs. My physical examinations seemed more thorough. My patients seemed healthier and happier. My clients seemed more engaged and satisfied. Don't get me wrong, it has not been all puppies and daisies. I still have setbacks, frustrations, stubborn never-resolving cases. But I love that I have more options for treating my patients. I am grateful for the knowledge I have gained about veterinary medicine, my patients, and myself. I will never stop learning and trying to improve. Besides there are still a few initials I would like to add to my collection.

Figure 1 Myself working tirelessly with one of my integrative patients, Seamus.

Source: Lisa P. McFaddin.

My Pet Tales

Scientific evidence, highlighting the benefits of each modality, is referenced throughout the book. Before we delve into the nitty-gritty, I thought an old-fashioned Top 10 list describing the ways in which my own pets have benefited from integrative medicine would be appropriate. And yes, I know testimonials are not a form of evidence-based medicine. I would, however, argue there is still benefit in hearing the owner's stories and experiences.

Figure 2 This was my tuxedo domestic shorthair "Ringo Rooney-Face." I adopted him my first year of vet school from an undergrad who could not handle an eight-week-old kitten. His favorite pastimes include hiding toys and trinkets in my shoes and listening to his own echo when he screams at the top of his lungs in the shower at 3?a.m. Sadly, Ringo passed two?months shy of his 18th birthday.

Source: Lisa P. McFaddin.

Top 10 Personal Pet Tales

• Lysine?+?ocular herpes: Since adoption my first-born, a tuxedo kitty named Ringo (Figure 2) would have periodic ocular herpes outbreaks. I would come home to find him squinty- and puffy-eyed with thick goopy discharge. Within a month of starting daily lysine therapy, the outbreaks lessened in severity and duration, and eventually stopped. And yes, I am aware a systematic review of lysine supplementation by Bol and Bunnik (2015) found no evidence the amino acid has antiviral properties and could increase the frequency and severity of infection. Additionally, correlation does not equal causation and it is possible the outbreak would have self-resolved. But as this was my...