Latest / The Bridges and Beacons Podcast / Feline Infectious Peritonitis with Dr. Lisa Fiorenza

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Feline Infectious Peritonitis with Dr. Lisa Fiorenza · The Bridges and Beacons Podcast

• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to the Mystic Nerd Squad Podcast.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Kelly Meyerson, and I'm so excited.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: This is the final episode of season four of the Mystic Nerd Squad Podcast.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: And this has been an incredible season.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: I've had some amazing guests, and the common theme around all of them is just this desire to serve the planet, serve humanity.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: My guests today serve animals and their families.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: So before we get started, I just want to thank you, listener, for being here with us, to listening to my guests' stories and to following their amazing journeys.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Today I'm going to be speaking with Dr.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: Lisa Fiorenza.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: And before I give her the chance to say hello to you, let me tell you a little bit about her.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: Dr.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: Lisa Fiorenza received her Bachelor of Science from Rutgers University, Cook College, and her Doctorate of Veterinary Medicine from Cornell University in 2014.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: She went on to complete a rotating internship in small animal medicine and surgery at Veterinary Emergency and Referral Group in Brooklyn and has worked as a general practitioner in New York City, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania for the past 10 years.
• 1:59
  unknown: Dr.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: Fiorenza is certified in veterinary acupuncture, Western Veterinary Herbal Medicine, and Chinese Veterinary Food Therapy, as well as fear-free pet handling.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: She has a special interest in caring for patients with feline infectious peritonitis FIP.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: She is on the board of directors for the cat rescue organization Brooklyn Animal Action.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: In her free time, she enjoys spending time in nature, gardening, weightlifting, crafting, and spending time with her family and their crew of fur kids.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: Dr.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: Lisa, thank you so much for joining me.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: I am really excited about this conversation.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have a cat, but as we were talking when we first met one another, and you were telling me the history and the journey that you've had with FIP, I felt like I was listening to like the storyline of an epic movie because it's such a wild story.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: But first of all, let me just say thank you for joining us and being here today.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for having me, Kelly.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: I I love that you take a holistic approach with pets and animals.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: And really the coolest thing I find about uh holistic practitioners is that ability to provide support for families, for individuals, to really embrace their own power in being a great pet parent and to think the whole picture and not just symptomology.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: So um I just want to say that at the outset that I have such uh a high respect and admiration for the work that you do.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's huge.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: And um as a pet parent, having those holistic options makes such a big difference.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I love them.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: They're they're so much more fun to add in to be able to have additional things that we can do for our patients.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to start with talking about FIP.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: Can you tell the listener what is FIP and how did you become so interested in learning more about it and eventually to providing support for um cats that are um suffering FIP, diagnosed with FIP?
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so it really is an incredible story.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, just having watched everything unfold over the past about five years has been just like you said, it is like the storyline of a movie.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um so feline infectious peritonitis or FIP for short is a coronavirus.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's distantly related to the coronavirus that causes COVID, uh, but it's not the same.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's not contagious to people.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but what's interesting is that similar to COVID, there are some cats who, or I would actually say the vast majority of cats, will be completely fine after exposure to the virus.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: They'll have a little bit of stomach upset or they'll have some upper respiratory symptoms, but they're generally going to clear it in a week or two and be back to normal.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: In a small subset of cats, and it really is a fraction of the cat population, it will transform in the body into something much more dangerous.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and, you know, I liken it too when we were seeing the cytokine storms in people.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's not quite the same, but it's that same kind of idea of it's, you know, it's often mild, but it can be extremely debilitating and deadly.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, in cats, we have always been taught that there's no cure for it.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: And when I was in vet school, there was no cure for it.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: And every cat that was diagnosed with it was told that they were going to die.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: So it was okay, here, let's try steroids and supportive care.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: You have a few weeks or days, or you should just put your cat to sleep now.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's, you know, it's suffering.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it causes a wide variety of symptoms, which is part of the reason it's so hard to diagnose, because it can be, I call it the great pretender, it can masquerade as a ton of different things.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: It can look like GI symptoms, it can look like a big fluid-filled belly, it can cause trouble breathing.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but so it's it can be difficult to find.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: There's no one single test that will give you an answer as to whether or not you have, you know, your cat has FIP.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: So you really have to figure out the nuances of how to try and diagnose it and keep a good eye on what to look for.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's all about pattern recognition.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: I was actually thinking about this last night, but um it really is just pattern recognition.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: The more you see of it, the more you can kind of pick up on the subtler ways that it can present.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but what's been phenomenal is that in 2019, Dr.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: Niels Peterson, a veterinary researcher out of UC Davis vet school in California, um, he came up or he found the cure for FIP.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: It is a molecule called, for short, we call it GS.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: That's just the chemical compound name.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's a lot easier than saying GS-4-4 and all the numbers, so we just call it GS.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, it is very closely related to REMdesivir that is used for COVID and people, um, which is not really too surprising that it can help with both, but it's incredibly effective in FIP.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, unfortunately, it really, uh despite the fact that we figured out that it worked to cure these cats and we had no other treatments, the company who owned the compound did not want to get it approved by the FDA for use in cats.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: So from 2019 until June of this year, um, there was a huge black market that developed and an underground railroad essentially, that um there were people who were creating the drug, chemists that were making the drug, and then getting it into the hands of a network of people who were getting it down to the cat parents.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: So um unfortunately, a lot of these cats were going to the vet and being told that their cat, well, sorry, a lot of these parents were going to the vet and being told that their cat was going to die.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: So some of them were, you know, were euthanized at that time, or the parents just accepted that and let the cat live for however long they had them.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but a lot of them started to look up other options online.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: And many found their way into this network of people.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, unfortunately, it really is just, I can't imagine the position they were in, what they were feeling, you know, to think I am being told by my vet that there's no way to treat this.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'm comp I'm absolutely desperate.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want my, you know, my baby to die.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: These are often kittens.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: Adult cats can be affected as well, but a large portion of them are kittens under two years old and even babies.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I can only imagine what the pet owners were going through.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: Just, you know, the the feelings that they had.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so they would find this railroad and they would get the drugs and they would inject their cat with the drug every day for 84 days.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: And the vast majority of these cats survived and were cured of the disease.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there's an incredible network of veterinarians that was working for free behind the scenes with this as well.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: And they were helping to treat the or helping to teach um the moderators how to, you know, how to treat the patients, how to diagnose the patients, how to follow up on the patients.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_01: So in um March of 2020, I had a patient named Muka, and he was this adorable little kitten.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: He was, you know, this spunky little guy.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: He started to get sick.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: And um eventually it took some time.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: He actually went to an internal medicine specialist.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: She diagnosed him with FIP.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: And then mom came back to um my colleague and I at the time and said, there's this black market drug from China for FIP, because otherwise, you know, I'm being told that he's going to die, and I don't know what to do.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, the the internist had said um she was very wary and she didn't like the idea of using a drug that was being made on the black market from China, which I can understand, you know.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um but uh Muca um unfortunately did pass away from his disease.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: But he was the reason that I started looking into this treatment and seeing the network of veterinarians that was working behind the scenes to teach other veterinarians what to do and to teach these administrators what to do and saving all of these cats.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: So um I started to give support to pet owners that were that were using the treatment.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: I had my name on a website for people that were Googling it that could, you know, that were looking for veterinarians who were willing to help them through the process.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I learned through the group what I was looking for as far as how to how to diagnose, how to treat, and how to follow up.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_01: And um I was in Brooklyn at the time, so I think I also had just a, you know, it's an incredibly high population load.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_01: So I had many come through to me.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I think in the past four years, I've had 50 or more cats that I've helped through the treatment process.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and it's incredibly rewarding because it's so, you know, they're so I think, you know, I have to think these cats must be so grateful.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's anthropomorphizing, but still the because they feel so terrible and they're literally dying.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: And then all of a sudden they're they're amazing, you know, they respond so quickly.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um I actually now have just recently adopted my own little FIP kitten.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: He uh came home with us about a week ago.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: He had been diagnosed a few weeks prior to that with um with his breeder, and we decided to adopt him and was like, well, I might as well do this, you know, I know what I'm doing.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: So so now um he was feeling pretty sick the first day we took him home.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: And within a couple of doses of a higher dose, he was getting a little too low of a dose there.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um he was phenomenal.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, he turned the corner.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: I couldn't imagine how quickly his energy improved, his appetite improved, and now he's like this crazy little boy running around my house.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: So he's adorable and we love him.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I'm also getting all the mom, you know, like, okay, it's like two sides of my brain fighting with each other.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: Like, you know what you're doing, but also, oh my god, this is my baby now.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: So um, it's been really interesting being on the other side too.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but then in in June of this year, as I alluded to, um, it was Stokes Pharmacy that finally was um able to start compounding the drug, even though it's still not technically FDA approved.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there are laws in place that allow compounding pharmacies to make life-saving drugs when there are no other alternatives.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: So that's basically how that's come about.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and then a few other compounding pharmacies have made the drug as well since then.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: And um, Wedgewood Pharmacy has also turned monopyravir or EIDD, which is a backup drug essentially for FIP treatment, is also being um made.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: I think that was September, might have been October.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um but but now we have all of these much more legal avenues to treat these cats.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, however, there are still a lot of veterinarians that don't know what to look for, don't know how to treat, don't know the treatments available.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a big push for education that we're trying to get that information out there and into the hands of vets so that they can really save these cats.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's so incredible.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, on one hand, like just the the heart-wrenching issue of most of these um cats being kittens.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, uh, you know, as well as I do, being a pet parent alone, like how quickly you just are so attached to these little beings.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, they are your family members.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: They they aren't, you know, just an animal for you.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: If you're if you're an animal lover, they're not just an animal, they're they're your family.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but fascinating that this is all occurring um at the same time that the whole world is going into shutdown and we're just starting to find out more about COVID in March of 2020.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: So that's pretty wild that at the same time you have this whole situation happening.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I've never heard of something like that happening.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, I'm sure that it's happened in the the human realm of medicine, but in the pet realm of medicine, is this something that you've ever heard of occurring before?
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, not to my knowledge.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: I've never really heard of anything along this line before.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_01: So, and the intricacies of how I mean, it was it was crazy.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: I would have clients that would, you know, hop on a train and meet somebody halfway.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: And it was just the wildest thing.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: And then for me to not be able to prescribe or even touch the drug because it could have um impacted my license was, you know, and and it you just feel terrible for not being able to do your job, really, you know, like that is my job.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so now I can, but uh, I was so happy that I could at least support the pet owners because they were terrified doing not completely doing it on their own, because honestly, the admins and the moderators working with the groups were incredibly knowledgeable and offered so much support to these to these parents.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_01: But to just have somebody, I think, like in the, I guess I would say in the real world, you know, um, not through the computer screen that was able to offer that support, I think was helpful and also just hands-on because the um the groups were not seeing the the pets in person.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_01: They were just going through all of the records and everything that the pet owners had.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: The other thing I was thinking too is it wasn't like you were trying to find like a magic pill, they take the pill and they're all better.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's 84 days of an injectable treatment.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: So, like there that to me feels like there's so many other layers.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: You have to have enough of the medication, you have a to have to have enough uh needles to inject it.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how does that even get supplied?
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I uh, you know, when I was working with these patients, I would probably provide prescriptions of the needles and syringes for them this way they had it.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because we do that for other treatments like insulin for diabetic patients.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_01: We're scripting out syringes for those patients.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_01: So that was kind of the same.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but for some that you know didn't have the veterinary support, I'm not honestly even sure how they were getting some of those things because you can't just walk into a store and buy a bunch of syringes.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and um now, thankfully, a lot of the treatments, the the treatments that were made by the compounding pharmacies are all oral, which is really nice because the injectable did have its drawbacks.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the injections were very painful because the drug is very acidic, I know.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so cats didn't really like it and they'd have to endure it for you know almost three months.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and the owners didn't like it because it was not pleasant to deal with, and they could get a lot of skin sores from it because um the reason that it hurt is because it was acidic and that could damage the tissues.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so it's been really nice to be able to also change over to that oral form, which I've found is for the majority of cases is very effective.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, occasionally I've had to, I think only on one case really, I've had to switch back to injection.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um but the hope is that we'll also be able to shorten the treatment duration in the future, but we just don't have the research for that yet.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but there's so much research now about GS and malnopirovir treatment for FIP.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: We know that it's approximately a 90% cure rate or potentially even a little higher.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh after about the first week or two of treatment, these cats have an incredibly high rate of survival and cure, which is amazing.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it it's really life-changing, I'm sure, for a lot of pet owners who did yeah, I don't have a cat, so I don't not in the cat world, but is this something that people were aware of as a cat owner doing something in prevention of exposure?
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: How how pervasive was it through the cat pet owner community?
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: If you can even measure something like that, I'm not even sure how you would know.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I I would guess probably not very.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there's, I mean, I think overall, you probably, as a as a general pet owner, don't really have a high um knowledge necessarily of all of the infectious diseases that are out here, there for your pets.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: You might have a little bit of an idea of a few, um, probably more so the ones that are vaccine preventable.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I think FIP, because it is, you know, it was fairly, it's it's funny.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: I have to call it fairly rare, but nowadays it feels like because I see so many of them, it doesn't feel so rare to me.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I think it is fairly rare.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the feline coronavirus that causes it is very common.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's frequently, you know, out in the environment, you can kind of think of it like a cold in humans.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's it's not uncommon, but it's just very uncommon that we see the um change to FIP.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_01: We think there's a combination of genetic predisposition to that changing.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: There's usually a perfect storm of stressors and other things that lead to it.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: So um re-homing like adoption, shelter situation, stress, vaccine stress, spay or neuter surgery stress are all big triggers, um, as well as anything else.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, cats are pretty sensitive creatures.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: So honestly, stress is stress is not uncommon for them.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_01: So there are a lot of things that can trigger it.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but we do think there's that genetic predisposition.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: And then um, you know, there may be other things that we just don't know at this point.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: So when it was becoming more pervasive or people were more aware um around that March 2020 time, did you find that there were recommendations that vets were making in terms of, you know, seclusion, like keeping your your cat away from other cats?
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: Or or is it something that was kind of hard to even communicate and and navigate at that time?
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I honestly I wouldn't even say that it was getting becoming more prevalent than it was just that we finally had a cure for it.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I think um I think it's It's still kind of in small circles.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: I think you know about it if you are affected by it.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_01: And then I think as a veterinarian, I think you kind of know about the cure if you've come across it either through a patient or through there have been a lot, you know, many more news articles and things like that in the general veterinary atmosphere.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: But, you know, I think the jump the general consensus in human medicine is it takes about 10 years for something to go from research into practice.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_01: So, I mean, hopefully we're at least five years in, and that means that it should be much more commonly um treated by veterinarians in the next five.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but even now I still have veterinarians who don't want to treat it, don't want to prescribe, just don't feel comfortable, which is is you know, it's hard because it's unfortunate for those patients.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: But I can I can empathize because we all have our strengths and weaknesses, and it is hard learning new things.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so until you have somebody that can kind of walk you through it and give you an idea of what to understand what to look for, um, it can be hard.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: So but there's a a great group that has a lot of education for veterinarians.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_01: So um anyone who's interested, who's a vet, can definitely reach out to me and I can point them in that direction.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I do also have a great resource up on my um my link tree that is a very, I think a pretty in-depth document on FIP that's geared both for pet owners and for veterinarians to help with the diagnosis and treatment.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think that's so, so important.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so is there like a a strategic plan for how to continue to get this to be more known in the mainstream vet practices?
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, is there I'm not sure what the guiding like medical body is for for veterinarians, but do they recognize this and see the importance of building the education?
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I haven't.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: So it's the American Vet Med Association, the ABMA.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: I haven't specifically looked to see if they've put anything out on it.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: I know some of the um big conventional veterinary news websites have had information on it, um, like VIN, like uh gosh, I can't I can't think of the name of the other one that I'm remember seeing in the article.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_01: But um so I'm not sure if there's a concrete plan in place.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: However, that same group of people who have done so much of the research and have done so much of the um have done so much work with getting the treatment to the pets is also doing a lot of education right now for veterinarians, a lot of CE credit webinars through all of the big pharmacies that are making it, because those pharmacies are pharmacies that vets are using for lots of other medications too.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that is going to really help to get it out there.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: So it is a big push right now.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um they had a whole series of webinars through Stokes Pharmacy.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: They just had another webinar through um Wedgewood Pharmacy.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_01: So they're really trying to push that education piece right now.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's great.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: And then um I'm hoping, especially having this conversation and sharing this, it might be new information to pet owners and people who who regularly have cats in their family.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: So um how can they, you know, get the message out or make sure that their their vet is, you know, aware and more knowledgeable?
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: Is it a regular practice?
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: Would you find that your your patients come to you and say, hey, I heard about this.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, how does that happen for you?
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: Do you find that that's the case that you have pet owners coming with new information?
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_01: So most of the time I'm getting people who found that I specifically work with FYP and are coming to me because they are already suspicious or have a diagnosis.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so my myself, it's kind of a different population of people.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I also have just been, you know, through my practice, seeing my regular patients have caught it on a few of them.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_01: So um it is a mixture, but I get a lot of people who are specifically coming for me to me for FIP because of the work that I do with it.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I have, you know, for anyone who's interested, I had a client in Alabama who I was supporting through treatment, and her vet was phenomenal.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_01: He it was his first time ever treating it, but he and I were on the phone.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_01: We chatted a little bit.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: I sent him my article that I wrote that's up on my sites.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I would encourage you to, you know, as a pet owner, you're welcome to print out my my document and hand it to your vet.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um you can put, you know, my links on there so they can check out my credentials if they want to.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I'm happy to chat with other vets on the phone, uh, you know, to try just try and try and give them some support, um, and then inviting them into that group that I am working with to uh get all of that education little by little too.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's amazing.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's that's what makes the real difference, right?
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: That we we make more connections with other people so that the information that we've gained gets to benefit more than just our population of clients.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: So I love that so much.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I I'm wondering, you know, you were you were sharing that the the injections and the treatment, um, being 84 days could be somewhat traumatic for cats and that um they're so prevalent to stress and and just kind of exist at that higher state.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we even say things like she's a scaredy cat, you know, um, she's afraid of her shadow.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: We make these references to the things that cats do.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes we make light of it.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, I think I've seen like videos where people put a cucumber next to a cat to get it to your.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: I've always made light of that pickle.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like things that that create like a very high stress reaction and people find that funny.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: I personally don't find it funny.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: I don't I don't like to see animals in a state of suffering, whether it's just a funny for somebody else or um real stress.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: But um, what are some ways that pet owners can um reduce the amount of stress that their pet is experiencing and kind of set up, you know, taking that holistic perspective, making sure that their lives are at a much more calm and nervous system regulated state.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I'll just go a lot of it is also your own stress.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: They're they're very sensitive creatures.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I've said this before on other podcasts.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: I do see a lot of um patients where the pet has the same exact disease as the human, whether it's seizures or a specific tumor in a specific organ or just more general things like anxiety or GI issues.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_01: So they are like our little mirrors.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_01: And if we're constantly in a high stress environment or in a high stress state, it's going to feed onto them.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, making sure that the dynamics within the home between pets and between pets and people is, you know, fairly calm.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, things happen, you know, life is life, but that for the most part things are are pretty calm.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then on the holistic side of things, um just trying to minimize.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a very big proponent of vaccines, but I'm a big proponent of very smart vaccination.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um in certain situations, especially like some breeders, some not necessarily so great breeders, especially, will often give many, many vaccines in puppy and kittenhood.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and there's some really targeted times that uh give puppies and kittens the best protection with the with a lower risk of um overdoing it and really kind of uh harming the immune system by overdoing it because it can keep there there it's at a time when their immune system is forming.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_01: And while the vaccines are great at preventing really serious disease, if you're giving more than your body really needs, it's just going to cause inflammation and actually really potentially weaken the immune system later on down the line.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then in adulthood, smart vaccination, then too, when able, you can do vaccine titers on most of the big um core vaccines.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_01: And if those are still positive, I'll check those.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_01: I recommend checking them about every three years after adulthood.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_01: And if those are still positive, you don't really need that vaccine.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_01: You still have immunity from the last vaccine and you can check again in a few years.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_01: We have studies that have shown that the rabies vaccine, um, when it's given is good for seven years, possibly more, but we are giving it at, you know, at um the recommended interval right now is every three years.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_01: So you're potentially giving it far more times than you really need it, and you're not really giving the body any extra benefit because you already had that immunity.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_01: So, and then for um the dystemporo vaccines in dogs, we know that those are good for five or more years.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_01: And it depends a bit on individual, you know, history vaccination, how good their immune system is, but um they could potentially be good for much longer than that.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_01: So that can really help to keep the body in a healthy state.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_01: We know vaccines can be a trigger for FIP.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and you're in a situation where you do want to protect the cat and the, you know, the babies from serious illness.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but for instance, right now, my own, I think, has had one kitten vaccine.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: It might have been two, I forget, but they were when he was fairly young.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and he's at an age where he really needs that next booster, but we're not quite ready for it.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_01: So we're waiting until his second month of treatment to make sure everything's okay and just minimizing his risk of exposure until then, because everyone else in the house is vaccinated and their titers are good.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so you know, there are ways to personalize those things for your pet and for especially the non-core vaccines, like what do they actually need, what do they not really need, um, that can help to minimize chronic illnesses.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and then fresh food.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_01: I love fresh food.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_01: Again, with babies, it's a little harder.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you you know, you have to be careful with kittens and puppies because they are growing.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_01: So you have to really do it right or use something that's really for kittens and puppies.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I try to get people to add fresh foods in from you know, from babyhood, and then try to change them over to completely fresh foods if they're not already on them when they hit adulthood and that crazy, crazy growth rate slows down where it's a little bit more, you know, forgiving.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so you know, with good support, there are great ways to put better food into your pet's body.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I do feel like the the canned and kibble foods that are the classic pet foods, um, at least I think it has changed in the last five years.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, five years ago, I feel like everyone was on kibble or canned food.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that really has promoted chronic illness and a lot of inflammatory diseases and other issues.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's such a a strong parallel with uh human food.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we're we're getting a lot better, I think, at least acknowledging that processed food is less nutritious and um, you know, going down inflammatory.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_00: It absolutely.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_00: And especially if you're someone, I'm someone who just happens to have a little extra inflammation at the get-go, that going to an anti-inflammatory diet just means I feel so much better.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we want like a quality of life for our pets too.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I was thinking as you were talking about really having more of an individualized prescribed approach to vaccines.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we just took our our Kavaku, who's she's only a year old, um, and we had to get her heartworm pills.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_00: And uh our vet said, well, before we give her um the re-up of her monthly medications, we want her to come in and do blood work and just make sure that there's no presence of any illnesses, that everything is looking good before we give her another vaccine.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I I love that because now I feel like I'm with someone, um, I already felt great about my vet, but that they're really tailoring the treatment to the specific animal and considering how they're doing in their health and wellness journey.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I was also thinking um one of the things that we love about our vet is the first time that we brought our dog as a puppy, um, he came into the examination room.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_00: And before he even addressed the people, he sat down on the floor and just cuddled with our dog.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, oh, this is gonna work great.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'm happy.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_00: He's our one of the town vets, and everybody adores him.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um and uh he's also very uh giving in terms of uh cat populations that are feral in the area and people bring them in um very happily gives them treatments and um anything that they need to have a better quality of life and prevent like the rampant population of feral cats in the area.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I think when you find somebody like that, like it's just it's good to know that they're not only here for your pet, obviously they want a sustainable business, but they're really about the larger body of of animals in the world and um conserving and caring for as the basis of practice.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_00: So um yeah, I think that that I I see as a pet owner something that's really important to me.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_00: So I love that.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um thank you for all those tips.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_00: Those are really great tips, and some of them are so simple to implement and don't require a whole lot of um extra effort, um, especially the piece about diet.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_01: And there's so many more commercially available fresh foods now.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_01: So it's really, I mean, when I started to really dive into holistic medicine um about five years ago, uh the there there wasn't much available.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_01: There were a few pre-made diets.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think there were any for cats at that point.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_01: So now, I mean, they're on your regular commercials and everything.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it's really nice.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot more options out there.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the food industry for pets is probably going to keep going in that direction.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, like you said, you know, I think it's mirroring the human food industry and that push for healthier, less processed foods.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I always compare it to, you know, how do you think you would feel if you were eating cereal two or three times a day with no, you know, no liquid in it, like you're not even adding milk.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_01: So you're just eating this dry bowl of cereal and that's it.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_01: And then you have your water bowl.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not really, you know, even though the science was put into trying to find these really well formulated diets, I think you lose so much in the processing.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_01: And then they're, you know, I mean, we know we do, they have to coat the food with vitamins and minerals because they all are destroyed in the high heat processing of the food.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_01: So um it's you know, it's never as good as eating the real foods that we're actually getting from the earth.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_01: We know that through our own um health journey, and I think that's finally becoming more apparent for our pets too.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm really glad to see it go that things go in that direction now.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_00: I love that too.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_00: I hope it continues in that direction for both uh pets and people.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and just to go back to what you were talking about in terms of um nervous system management, I I love that you made the comparison of human experience and pet experience and the potential for there to be the similar diseases existing in both the pet owner and the pet.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because that to me is how do we manage our own nervous systems and and maintain a lower level of stress.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_00: So um I think that's so great because that's also something that most people um can do.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um sometimes it's just a matter of taking some extra deep breaths and slowing down.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_01: Not always easy.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, always available, not always easy.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's true.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 41:45
  unknown: Yes.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_00: It takes a little intention, I think, to know that sometimes we're feeding into our own stress level and that that has an implication for our pets.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um but to me, that also means if we manage our stress level, if we're feeling better, we're eating better, and so are they, um, just our overall life experience is going to be more positive and healthy, and we'll all be in a better state of well-being overall.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_01: I agree.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_01: I think that mental peace is so important.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I've said before, I think the psychosomatic illness, I think that term and the negative connotation with it is so unfortunate because I really do think that on the human side of things, there's so much that the brain does with chronic illness.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_01: And it's it seems to be changing and you know, going in that direction too.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_01: So I've been happy to see that on the human side.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it has, you know, benefits for our pets because the more we are regulated, the better they're going to be, too.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I'm sure any veterinarian can tell you there are some appointments where the client is so incredibly anxious and the dog feeds off of it big time to the point where we're like, okay, you need to step out so we can do something because it's it's not working.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_01: We need to take away that that you know human anxiety piece.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so that's I mean, that's something that I see all the time.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I have to kind of I joke, I'm like half therapist because I have to manage the the client too.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_01: And it's so hard sometimes because you love your pet so much and you're nervous, but at the same time, you do have to be mindful that it may not be helping and you kind of have to control it for a little bit so that we can do what we need to do.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I completely get that.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I I think about too, you know, um, even just sometimes struggling with behaviors in pets.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_00: I know we started working with a trainer to, you know, just to kind of extinguish some of the behaviors that were less than desirable, the jumping up and going for stuff on the counters and begging and, you know, all the typical things.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_00: And then working with a trainer, what you realize is they're not doing anything wrong.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's really you.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_00: You're the one who's being trained.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_00: To approach the right way and to have the right energy level for your pet.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, something as simple as not you're like, well, my dog is so excited when I come in the door.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_00: And then you realize, oh my gosh, it's because I'm coming in the door excited.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm the one who's like jumping up and down, like so excited to see them.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_00: They're responding to me.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's not that they match it.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's really hard to be a really good pet owner.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_01: There's so much, you know, it's it's not, I don't think it's that different from raising kids because there's so many other aspects that I think we just sometimes take for granted because they're pets.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_01: So um, the behavioral piece is is very that's a huge topic.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_01: Huge.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it really is.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I I also think it definitely is a very strong parallel to parenting, you know, trying to be a more conscious parent, trying to be a more conscious pet parent.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_00: You have to really be self-aware and take the time to acknowledge what you're doing that's working and what's not working, and um willing to put the energy and effort into making those changes.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_00: But it's definitely so worth it to have that really strong bond and relationship, whether it's with a child or or with your pet.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_00: So, oh my gosh, I have loved this conversation so much.
• 45:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really excited to hear where your journey goes next.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I just want to give you a minute to reiterate for people where they can find you, where they can follow you.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and um certainly you're you're treating in the area where you practice now, but you're also available for virtual treatment.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_00: So if people are in a situation, they've come across this podcast episode and they may be suspecting that their cat has FIP, how can they get in contact with you?
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, sure.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_01: So um I do a lot of uh, you know, virtual consults to help pet owners that um are both dealing with FIP and their cats, but I also do a lot of holistic ones too for diet support, herbal support, um, supplements, and other things.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_01: I'm also an acupuncturist.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, can't really do that virtually, unfortunately, but I do I do that locally um in Eastern PA.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I am on Instagram at Dr.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_01: Lisa Holisticvet.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's D-R, not spelled out doctor.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_01: And then on Facebook, I am um, I think it's also Dr.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_01: Lisa Holisticvet or uh Facebook.com slash dog turisa D-O-G-T-O-R.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then both of those should have links to my LinkTree, which have some free resources on both holistic medicine and on FIP.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, please feel free to share the FIP document with your vets and anyone who needs it.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_01: You're more than welcome to.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um the sorry, so you can find all my contact info in those places.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_01: And then Kelly, uh, will you put them in show notes or something?
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we'll put everything in the show notes.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I just want to make sure that um the people who really are are in need of someone who has your services can find you.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you so much for being here, listener.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for joining us.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_00: I have thoroughly enjoyed season four of the Mystic Nerd Squad podcast.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and this was such a beautiful episode to cap season four.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I look forward to season five coming in January of 2025.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_00: The fives together is just a very exciting.
• 47:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm nerding out on the numerology.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I want to thank everyone again.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Dr.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_00: Lisa.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for the work you're doing.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I just applaud you on your journey and everything you're doing to serve um pet owners and their very treasured animals.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for having me.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's been a great time.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_00: All right, everyone.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_00: Take care and we'll see you soon.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_00: Bye for now.