Rabies Miasm: Reality and The Cure
The first time I ever encountered the words “rabies miasm” was in a holistic vet’s office in Houston. I presented a 5-year-old boxer bitch named Ginger. She had a myriad of issues that no veterinarian to date had been able to diagnose. The words “rabies miasm” were not what I expected, but there they were. Well, she did seem to have a mild form of rabies, so maybe this vet was onto something. However, she also had many other symptoms, and I couldn’t see how it could all stem from this mystery illness caused a “miasm”.
What does “miasm” mean, exactly?
I want to take you on a little trip that may sound familiar. Since then, I have learned about many faces of vaccinosis that I want to share.
This is Ginger as a young dog and this is her story.
In 2010, Ginger was a happy, well-tempered, healthy three-year-old female boxer in the prime of life. She was an AKC Conformation Champion and a credentialed service dog. She was already working well in her service area and was traveling nicely in public transportation amidst other animals and people with a calm, focused attitude. She was starting in agility, and immensely enjoyed the work. I am a veteran boxer breeder with a mature breeding program, so my dogs are health screened often and completely. We run routine screens for hips, heart health, eye health, organ function, genome abnormalities, and comprehensive evaluations of thyroid function with a respected endocrinology lab run by Dr. Jean Dodds. Ginger’s health screens were normal when she was young. Her thyroid screens began to look abnormal after her second rabies vaccine, but we had not yet connected the dots. At age three, Ginger received her third (and last) rabies vaccine. Then our worlds changed forever.
The moment she was vaccinated, it was clear something was amiss. She developed a nodule at the injection site the size of a large marble. It was hard, but not attached to underlying tissue. Upon examination, my traditional vet suggested removing it. I declined, wanting to know what it was. I later learned that this was her body’s attempt to contain heavy metals and foreign animal proteins in the rabies vaccine. Her immune system was trying to keep them from leaching out through her entire body, across the blood-brain barrier, into her brain. I learned later that removing it would have not been a good idea. It needed to be there to protect her.
Ginger began to drool excessively, her beautiful face marred by constant salivary drainage. Her eyes became dull, her head lowered, and she began to launch herself at the neighborhood children and pets who were passing by our home. We had to install opaque blinds on the front of our home to keep her from seeing the nightly parade of baby carriages that routinely had passed our door for three years without incident. We thought we had a “training issue”, so started working with an animal behaviorist to counter-condition her to the triggers. Nothing we did had any long-term effect.
I ran another thyroid screen. She was diagnosed with positive compensative autoimmune thyroiditis. Her body was attacking her own endocrine system. Her thyroglobulin autoantibodies were at 145%. (Anything above 10% is considered out of range.) She was prescribed synthetic thyroid support; Dr. Dodds said she would need to remain on that medicine for the remainder of her life because her thyroid could not produce thyroid hormone anymore. Her reproductive cycles became abnormal, and her ability to conceive reduced. Also, significantly, she seemed able only to conceive male puppies, which I learned may have been caused by abnormal pH levels.
Ginger was also diagnosed with a disintegration of her anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), another autoimmune response indication. Her body was attacking both connective tissues and organs. She developed arthritis, and getting out of bed in the morning was difficult. Our beautiful, vital girl was growing old before our eyes. She became dangerous to non-family-members, and we started walking her with a nose muzzle to control her head.
What had happened to our sweet, joyful girl? It was obvious that she was miserable, and we were determined to help her.
Now, we return to the two words, “rabies miasm,” that eventually explained everything. At first, none of this made any sense to me. I looked up the word “miasm” and found meanings ranging from “unholy atmosphere” to “genetic predisposition to disease”. It seemed to be mostly a term used in homeopathic circles. The homeopathically-trained veterinarian with whom I worked tried to explain it to me. As a trained scientist, I wanted to know exactly what this was, absent discussion of weird vapours. This journey eventually took me to the works of Dr. Ron Schultz, among others. I had the opportunity to meet with Dr. Schultz at a Young Living Animal Conference in Utah, where he confirmed this as a common side-effect of vaccines. Miasms occur with many vaccines, not just rabies. Ginger just happened to be vaccine-sensitive, as are many dogs. Dr. Schultz prefers the term “vaccinosis”, and said that it runs in breeds, and within lines within breeds. He recommended that a dog with vaccinosis symptoms never receive another vaccine.
Ginger’s body had been reacting to the various constituents in vaccines since she was a baby, but her body’s final scream for help came in the form of a series of symptoms that you may see described as “vaccinosis” or “miasm”. We were lucky that they all occurred within a short time of each other, but I have learned that many are not so fortunate. Vaccine sensitivities are often insidious, because symptoms present later as the body’s attempts to deal with some components of the vaccine fail. As the body processes the heavy metal adjuvants and foreign animal proteins on which they are cultured, it is overloaded and cannot cope. According to Dr. Schultz’s studies, vaccine side effects are very common and considered to be a cry for help by those who work in natural medicine.
What Are Symptoms of Vaccinosis?
The symptoms vary widely from minor to critical, from temporary or isolated events, to chronic anxiety and behavioral problems.
Mild reactions include fever, tenderness or swelling around the inoculation site, "flu-like" symptoms, loss of appetite, lethargy, depression, limping, vomiting, diarrhea, and anxiety.
Severe reactions may include seizures, anaphylactic shock and even death.
Chronic problems may be difficult to trace back to vaccinations, because symptoms or health problems can begin weeks, months and even years later. However, when we understand what happens in the body when vaccines are administered, we can begin to connect the dots. Many holistic and naturopathic practitioners believe that all modern diseases in pets are traceable to either direct administration of vaccines, or indirect genetic transfer. (Epigenetics are involved with the latter and will be discussed in another article. The subject is also being taught at the American Boxer Club Nationals on Monday, May 7 after Parade of Champions in the Golden Ballroom.)
The Cure:
I can’t really say that there is a cure since vaccine side effects are so varied. If caught early, opportunities for symptom-reversal improve. We switched Ginger from a commercial dry food kibble diet to a high-quality raw carnivore diet while we were working with her. We had started the long process of eliminating toxic chemicals in our home, replacing them with essential oil-based products, which provided her with health benefits. We stopped using systemic insecticides for heartworm and parasite control, finding she remained pathogen-free without them. These choices made a visible difference. We saw exciting physical changes. Her teeth were healthier, gingival hyperplasia (gum overgrowth) receded, and overall physical appearance improved. However, she continued to be unpredictable with people and animals until we discovered one final miracle in a little glass bottle.
In Ginger’s case, a single dose of the appropriate homeopathic remedy proved to be her miracle. A tiny capful of a homeopathic remedy called Lyssin was given orally. It tastes like sugar but contains the energy of the rabies pathogen. The vet told me that if we give the wrong remedy, nothing happens. If it is the right remedy, a miracle might occur. We got our miracle when we watched Ginger’s bright eyes return within three days. Her head lifted, her drooling ceased, and her friendly attitude towards kids and other animals returned. Our sweet Ginger had come back to us. She had been locked in a miasmic jail cell for nearly three years. With the help of naturopathic medicine, we found the key to her freedom.
Ginger’s own body slowly repaired the damage to her ACL, and her “old dog” countenance disappeared. She gets up in the mornings with energy, and runs like the wind. She’s returned to agility, and earned titles in lure coursing as a Veteran Dog. Lure coursing is a high-speed, athletic event, in which dogs bank and turn over a running course. She ran competition courses in driving freezing rain in December, sliding on her side and righting herself to run, joyfully, covered in cold mud. She was ecstatic to be back in a body that performed as designed!
Ginger attended the 2018 American Boxer Club Nationals, in the Veteran class, in which she was oldest boxer bitch in competition. She walked the throngs of people and dogs without fear or anxiety. She wore her service vest proudly, and performed her job perfectly. She gave blood to save lives of other canines, and worked from dawn until midnight some days. Never once did she growl, raise hair, lunge, or greet inappropriately. She was on a loose lead all week, greeting everyone with tail wagging and bright eyes sparkling. She shows no signs of slowing down, nor of the joint issues she previously displayed. Recent x-rays show a bit of spinal spondylosis, but we have her on Chinese herbs to prevent progression. She has no symptoms left. The downside is that her thyroid is destroyed, because we did not support it properly early on, so she will be on thyroid supports for life. However, she has been our teacher and friend through it all. She continues to be a poster child for rabies miasm, and provide us with living proof that it can be supported.
Dr. Schultz advises that one evaluate the potential for disease exposure before making the vaccination decision. Read about the potential side effects; do not dismiss them. They are prevalent in all species who receive vaccines. Where pathogen exposure risk is low, vaccine side-effects risk may be much greater. The vaccine may be worse than the disease.
The Cost:
It’s been hard to wrap our heads around the costs involved. It’s not only the monetary expense, which has been staggering. The cost in misery and heartache to us and our beloved Ginger has been enormous. That $30 Rabies Vaccine has cost us many thousands of dollars in veterinary bills, diagnostic procedures, medicines, treatments that didn’t work, and behavior training. Ginger’s tolerance for pain has become very high, but it’s clear that she wants support in that area. When I get out the essential oils designed to support pain and joints, she parks herself in front of me and indicates the areas where she wants me to apply them. She self-medicates from our garden of herbs and often chooses plants and consumes clays that help with detoxing.
I don’t think she will ever be completely cured from the damage caused by her rabies miasm, but at least her quality of life has improved and her prospects for longevity and vitality are much better.
The Lesson:
We consider Ginger to be one of our greatest teachers in life. At the age of eleven, she has a wisdom in her eyes that grabs and holds you. She radiates her pleasure with our choices in caring for her, and she shows us her gratitude by giving her all to every task put before her. We take every day with her as a blessing. Ginger has taught us that we must be discerning when making choices on behalf of our pets. Her situation is neither unique nor rare. Living with her motivated me to learn about naturopathy, to teach what I have learned to help others.
