And then go eat breakfast??
Cause you’d think if he was truly nauseous and didn’t feel good, he wouldn’t eat breakfast. Right?
Well- this is often is a sporadic thing. People will try different things to address this. They might feed food before bed. That’s probably the most common home remedy that doesn’t really work all that well.
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Because some mornings that dog will still puke bile- you know the yellow stuff.
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What other symptoms typically go along with this?
- Eating grass
- Puking in the back of her/his mouth
- Not really wanting to eat all the time
Some of these symptoms or even all of these symptoms can be part of the same problem.
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When we look at vomiting of bile, we assume that it’s overproduction of stomach acid. That’s what Western medicine thinks. It seems backwards, but what we find in functional medicine is that it’s the opposite. So it’s lack of enough acid in the stomach that causes morning puking.
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The stomach must have acid. That is the job of the stomach. To produce acid in order to digest food. Specifically protein. If there isn’t enough acid, food lays in the stomach and starts to rot. This is when dogs eat grass or pukes in the back of their mouth.
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What about adding apple cider vinegar (ACV) you ask? Well, there’s nothing wrong with ACV. It just isn’t strong enough. Stomach acid is basically hydrochloric acid. Muriatic acid when it comes to your pool. The pH is extremely low- around one or two. ACV is around five. It just isn’t strong enough.
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So working with a functional medicine specialist (often a holistic vet, but there are some other good coaches) can help you help your dog slowly increase the correct amount of acid in the stomach. Cause you don’t want to give too much too fast- that’ll make things go the other direction and create more vomiting. Not good.
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But, by slowly increasing acid in the stomach, you often get to a point where your dog no longer pukes in the morning- and stops eating grass!
Side note: some people try adding digestive enzymes to take care of this. But digestive enzymes don’t work if there isn’t enough acid. Digestive enzymes aren’t wrong. They just need acid to activate them.
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Still seeing patients in Tampa, Clearwater, and virtually.