Beach Time With Mallery & Our Supplement Regiment

                                                                    December 2014

On another sunny but cool day we decided to take Mallery to the beach.

We have to drive about 10 minutes west of the beach city center of Gulf Shores where we feel comfortable walking Mallery. Gulf Shores is not dog friendly, but we have seen a few dogs on the beach. We have been told by others that if you get away from the state park beach, condo's, and away from town, you are okay, and especially because we are in the winter season with few people on the beach.

Just remember, all you dog owners, to be sure to pick up after your dogs. If all dog owner picked up after their dogs, I am sure more beaches would allow them. It is those who fail to do their job, that ruin it for the rest of us.

We were very surprised with Mallery's energy. She took off like she did in her younger years.

The last time she had this much energy on a beach was when we were on the west coast of Northern California, Oregon and Washington. We worried she would have a rough night because she was really over doing, which causes trachea inflammation. When she over does, she pays for it during the night with troubles breathing. I kept picking her up, telling her to take a break, carrying her for a while, but she kept struggling to get down to run. She is such a beach girl! To our surprise she had a great nights sleep that night, and no signs of over doing it for over a week.

These are the supplements and medicine she was taking before her run that day.

The Theophylline is a medicine she has taken daily, since age 6 when she was diagnosed with collapsing trachea. I also started giving her a supplement from the Melaleuca product line called Provex Plus which is suppose to help with inflammation.

In mid October when she was diagnosed with a tumor in her trachea, I started her on NuVet Plus, which is a multi-vitamin plus sharks cartilage which is suppose to help fight cancer. This supplement is a wafer the size of a quarter. The internet said dogs loved the taste of the wafer. I was unsure of this because Mallery is a very picky eater. Luckily she loves them. It is her favorite treat every day.
At this time I also tried to change her diet to grain free.

Unfortunately when I changed her diet to grain free, it caused her preexisting pancreatitis to flare. Grain free tends to be higher in fat which causes pancreatits patients to become symptomatic. I found a veterinarian on the internet that suggests Standard Process Pancreatrophin PMG for dogs with pancreatitis. This company  makes this supplement for humans but it works for dogs too.

After a month on the two new supplements with no side effects, I added Dr. Dobias GutSense which is an advance Probiotic & Digestive Supplement for dogs. After Mallery's good beach run and no side effects I was encouraged that all these supplements were helping. (Unfortunately after the first of the year Mallery had a real set back that really gave us a scare which I briefly mentioned earlier in a January post).

Mallery takes a lot of supplements and one medicine, but she does not even come close to what I take daily. Theses are all my supplements.

After I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia some 9 years ago, I took medicine the Dr's recommended for about 5 years. They helped some, but I still had some major issues, so I decided to stop the prescription medicine and use supplements. I have found I can get about the same results without the side effects you get from prescription medicine. Unfortunately it is more expensive and very time consuming, with the managing of keeping all these supplements ordered, and the weekly dispensing of the AM, breakfast, between meals, dinner, and night time doses, not to mention just taking this many pills a day. I have been reading how if you truly eat a healthy diet, which I pretty much do, I could reduce at least half of these pills. This is my goal, but with that in mind, a truly healthy diet, excludes all process foods, which forces you into making everything from scratch. This in itself will take much more time than ordering and packaging supplements. All I can say is, it is good thing I don't work, because I would never have time to maintain a schedule of cooking and eating and supplementing to regain health or be healthy. No wonder we are a nation with so many sick people!