While I’m still a practicing veterinarian near Lafayette, Indiana and operate a holistic veterinary clinic in Pine Village, I also offer “tele-medicine” options to my virtual patients. These are patients that I may never see, but still diagnose, prescribe for, and treat. Some of these pets live halfway across the globe… others just a few states away. So, let’s talk about the issue of virtual veterinary care.
How does it work?
I do everything I can to almost “see” the patient — virtually. I get all the copies of records and pictures. That helps me almost see the patient. I spend a lot of time before the actual telephone “appointment” reviewing the records and looking at everything so when the owner then gives me their run down I can put that together and get my own mental picture of what’s going on.
This isn’t so different than traditional veterinary fact finding. I have to look at your pet’s health history (records) and often rely on the pet parent to tell me what they have been seeing at home.
The pet parent and I spend about 45 minutes talking on the phone talking about everything — so that I can get an idea of what’s going on.
Sometimes I have to recommend that they go back to their veterinarian for more testing. Sometimes I have my virtual clients try a course of action and then we check back in at two weeks to see how things have changed. Are they better or worse or the same?
Often with virtual clients we are still referring back to the primary veterinarian, and their veterinarian is still the primary veterinarian but we are asking, “Hey do you mind doing this extra test, this one extra thing?”
Sometimes we recommend herbal medication and that sort of thing that we can mail to our patients. It just depends on what’s the issue that we are treating.
Getting your veterinarian to fax over records to another veterinarian for a second opinion or virtual consult is usually as simple as asking. Some people feel uncomfortable asking their veterinarian for this, but I encourage them to ask anyway. Instead they send their own records… but a receipt showing the temperature of 104 degrees on a certain day does not give me enough information. The records are better
my dog has a wart on his forehead between his eyes,how do i get rid of it
Sometimes homeopathic medications can take care of the wart. You could try thuja 30C or Nit Ac 30C. Give orally once daily for 30 days. Pick one medication and do that for a month. If it doesn’t work try the next medication.
Sometimes that isn’t enough and you could try applying a dab of vitamin E with a drop of frankincense essential oil once a day for 30 days.
Regardless you should make sure that your dogs diet is the best it can be-real food or a raw diet would be most ideal.
Hi Dr. Cathy! I was looking online for at-home treatments for a smooth, bald, black-ish bump my chihuahua recently developed and I ended up finding you. I hope you’ll be able to offer me some tips. The bump was accidentally “popped” during a grooming session about 2 months ago, but I quickly treated it and bandaged it up. It went away and left a small scar, but now it’s back in the same spot; and bigger than last time. It was small and oval shaped then, but now it’s about a 1/2″ inch at its widest edge and it’s like an upside down isosceles triangle. It’s a few millimeters away from the bottom of her left eye, so I’m trying to be really careful in treating it. If you know what this could be and have any tips on what I should do, I would very much appreciate your help. Thanks in advance!
Could be a skin tag, a plugged up gland, or a more aggressive tumor. When they change shape or size or bleed then they need to come off.
Hope that helps.
I was wondering if you could give me somewhat of an idea what might be wrong with my cat, and if I should be concerned, I’m already worried about her. For almost a week now I have noticed she can barely get in to out recliner and get out of it, she was fine doing everything until a little earlier this week. She eats and drinks but not as Much as usual, when she tries to jump on the table she falls and seems weak. She is fixed so ik she isn’t pregnant, but I’m really worried because she isn’t feeling well. Thanks in advance.
You are right to worry. Any time there is a behavior change like that, something is going on. Could be pain, could be arthritis, could be infection, could be kidney disease or a bunch of other things. I’d get her to your veterinarian ASAP.