Mugs and the Dr. Dan followup...

Ilya Romanovich Prigozhin

Over the last few months I have finally succeeded in helping my dog Mugs and his itching and misery.

I wrote about Mugs here with "Dog Pix and Yeasties" and "Dr. Dan Nelson and Mugs."

Long story short when I acquired Mugs about five years ago he suffered horrendous health issues: rotten bowels, constant itching and scratching, horrific ear issues (itching, burning, crud, oozing, scratching until bloody), constant misery in that he was never very "happy, he had to get up 2-3 times each night to go out, he was restless and a poor sleeper, reddening of eyes and lips, and he never played much."

Modern veterinary science's best was to say: "put him on low-dose steroids for the rest of his shortened life," i.e., put him on steroids that would hasten his death.  There was no interest in fixing or solving his health issues save modulating the symptoms.

I found this unprofessional and distasteful.  Mugs was my responsibility - certainly I would not treat him this way if he were my child.  It also seemed interesting to me that there was so little interest in finding the root cause (but I have written about modern medical science often here - veterinary science I suspect is hardly different in terms of its flaws...)

Mugs's worst symptom was the bloody ear scratching: we'd go out and seemingly randomly return home to find that he had ripped up one or the other ear with scratching - it would take weeks to fully heal.

We resolved the bowel problems with probiotics and "reboot" of his digestive system.

However, the itching seem to be related to some form of allergies - which the vet was happy to try and discover but could offer no solution for any finding, i.e., suppose he was allergic to grass, then we would know this but still only be able to treat him with low dose steroids.  This was sort of a quaint medical idea - find the source of the problem and then have no solution for that source.  Of course the vet would happily collect a fee for finding the source.

In any case I wrote a while back about Dr. Dan's Water (Wayback Water) - post above.

By chance a "holistic vet" gave me this to give to Mugs.  At the time I had no idea what it was - just a small plastic bottle hand-marked "Mix 1/2 oz per gallon spring water."  I gave some of this to Mugs in a bowl each morning seeded with shredded cheese to compel him to drink.

Within about two week the majority of symptoms disappeared - not fully but there was probably an 60% to 70% improvement.  The itching was vastly reduced and his scaby skin healed.  He still had routine ear bouts which we used Momentamax to address (a combination steroid ointment, antibiotic and numbing agent).

While promising this didn't "close the deal."

A few months back I took Mugs in again and we did a "hair test."  The idea was to discover if the hair samples the vet took might reveal nutritional issues.  We received a package of vitamins with some notes indicating various yeast issues.

While working this out the vet had also suggested increasing Mugs intake of Dr. Dan's water.

So the vitamins didn't seem to offer much change.

However, at the end of the 40 day supply I decided to probably triple the amount of Dr. Dan's water Mugs consumed each day.

Low and behold we moved from a 60-70% symptom improvement to probably a 95% improvement.

Because the other dogs need water I cannot completely prevent Mugs from accessing the tap water they drink - but Mugs probably consumes 70% or more of his water intake as Dr. Dan's water.

Today Mugs sleeps comfortably all night, he plays vigorously, he no longer itches, we've only had to treat one bout of ear itching in the last three or so months - probably using about a total of 12 drops of the Monentamax; all the main symptoms I listed above have gone.  He runs and plays and now seems genuinely happy.

Before we used about one Monentamax bottle every six months - at the new rate we would probably use a bottle every several years.

So I'd like to summarize this for the benefit of others:

First off I do not know if the Dr. Dan's water is actually doing anything - we mix it with $0.88/gallon Walmart spring water - so Walmart may be doing the real work.

Secondly, Mugs could easily be allergic to something in tap water (though no many other dogs we've owned in the last 15 years have ever had similar symptoms - which is why I rule out some environmental issue).

Third, we had Mugs on vitamins - perhaps he had some deficiency that these addressed.  (We still give him some GHT Oxygen Elements Max each day).

Dr. Dan's is debunked as pure nonsense here and perhaps it is.  Perhaps its just the Walmart spring water.

I plan to collect enough Walmart spring water bottles and use them to collect some actual local spring water at some point and use that for a week for all the dogs and see what happens.  My guess is that Mugs will be fine on that.

So what's the bottom line here?

1) It seems likely that the tap water were I live has a significant negative role in Mugs health.

2) Modern vets would simply have treated his symptoms.  They didn't appear to care if that treatment ultimately kills him.

3) Though its taken five years I have solved the problem to the point where I feel Mugs is now as healthy as the other dogs.

This likely means that I nor my family should not be drinking the tap water either.  Currently we drink filtered tap water - but my guess is that we should probably eliminate it entirely.

My last steps in this journey will be to eliminate the GHT product and, if he stays healthy, switch over to local spring water.

I hope this will completely resolve the problems.

Of course its possible that the Dr. Dan's is having an effect - if it is these steps would reveal it.

(Beyond this Mugs continues a now normal life - he eats the same as the other dogs, gets treats, chews, etc. - all of which seem to have no real effect on him - though he might be slightly sensitive to tomatoes.)

As for Dr. Dan.  There is an extensive interview here.  You can see his videos and other info in the links to my previous posts.

While much of what he says seems like hogwash some does not.  One of the interesting things he describes is Ilya Romanovich Prigozhin, a Belgian Nobel (1977) prize-winning physicist who developed something called dissipative structures.  He talks about this in relation to biology.

I plan to read Prigozhin's book "The End of Certainty."

There is more to read in what Dr. Dan says and I plan to write about some related things sometime soon.  Prigozhin's work will likely contribute to this.

Had Mugs not gotten better initially on the Dr. Dan's water I would have completely dismissed it as nonsense.  But whether Dr. Dan or Walmart (and its Arkansas spring water - at least that's what the label says) cured him.

In any case Mugs is now healthy.

The question is why...?

And what, if anything, does this mean for those of us drinking tap water?