A Whole-Body Approach to Treating and Preventing Malignancy
Observing that medical advances haven't resulted in healthier pets, Dr. Judy decided to forge her own path. Today this Game Changer treats and prevents tumors and other malignancies with remarkable success by supporting the body's natural healing ability.
Analysis by Dr. Karen Shaw Becker
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STORY AT-A-GLANCE
- Today’s Pet Game Changer is veterinarian Dr. Judy Jasek, owner of Animal Healing Arts, an integrative telemedicine practice in Littleton, CO
- Dr. Judy learned early in her 35-years-and-counting career that she needed to go far beyond her conventional medicine training to provide more options, and most importantly, hope, to her patients and their humans
- Dr. Judy’s veterinary toolbox has grown quite large over her years in practice; at least half her patients these days are pets with cancer whose owners are looking for alternative therapies
We call them "Game Changers" — the exemplary, hardworking individuals who have gone the extra mile to promote animal welfare all around the world. Every week, we feature a special Game Changer, so if you know someone in your community who deserves this award, nominate them and help us get the word out about the magnificent work they do! Click Here to Nominate a Game Changer Today!
My guest today is integrative and holistic veterinarian Dr. Judy Jasek, who was nominated for a Game Changer award by Sean H, who says Dr. Judy has had a dramatic impact on not only his cat’s life, but his life as well.
Dr. Judy’s veterinary practice, Animal Healing Arts, is a private membership association located in Littleton, CO. Dr. Judy takes a unique whole-body approach to both treating and preventing cancer in pets by supporting the natural healing ability of the body with proper nutrition, detoxification, and eliminating the underlying causes of disease.
Medical Advances Haven’t Resulted in Healthier Pets
Like all of us who recognized early in our practice the limitations of our conventional veterinary school training, Dr. Judy has forged her own path by adding many alternative healing tools to her toolbox.
“I've been a practicing veterinarian for 35 years,” she says. “I graduated from Colorado State University in 1988. I was trained, as all vets are, in traditional medicine. After a few years out in practice, I started to feel there had to be more we could do to help pets. For all the advances I was seeing in medicine, I didn't really see pets getting healthier.
We could diagnose things better. We had more tools like ultrasound and echocardiograms, some of which weren't widely available to practicing veterinarians when I started. But with all that, I looked at the pet population and my patients and thought, ‘But they're not getting healthier. They're not getting better. There has to be more.’
When we start asking questions, the universe opens doors for us. And so, I started seeing resources come into my life. I started learning about fresh food. Do we really need to be vaccinating as much, and what other things can we be doing to help pets? I started down a more holistic route in treating the whole patient rather than just treating a diagnosis or controlling symptoms.
That became my focus. How can I treat the whole pet, preserve quality of life, and control symptoms in the process, but do it in a much healthier way?”
Ozone Therapy Opened the Door to Treating Pets With Cancer
Dr. Judy shares a story about a client who inquired about ozone therapy. At the time, Dr. Judy didn’t know much about it, but the client offered to buy the equipment so her dog could receive treatments. The dog had a sarcoma removed from one leg, had been given six months to live, and the owner didn’t want to put her pet through chemotherapy.
“The client asked, ‘Will you do ozone therapy? I'll buy the equipment if you’ll do the treatments’,” Dr. Judy explains.
“So, the universe just sort of dropped this in my lap. Not only that, but the client had a human practitioner she was seeing who was doing ozone therapy, and she said, ‘Oh, by the way, I've already asked her if you could come shadow and learn their protocol.’ And I’m thinking, ‘Okay, I guess I’m meant to do this.’ So, I did.
I’ve been doing ozone therapy for 10 or so years now, and it has been phenomenal. It offered me a doorway into working with more pets with cancer because a lot of people were then coming to me that didn't want to do conventional therapies or were doing conventional therapies but wanted other treatment options.
Most people get this devastating diagnosis, and their pets are given one to three months, or three to six months to live. If they don't want the chemo, radiation, surgery thing, then the conventional oncologists or conventional veterinarians have nothing else to offer. They basically just send them home to watch their pets die. I’ve heard that heartbreaking story so many times.”
It was this type of experience that pointed Dr. Judy in the direction of specializing in alternative therapies for pets with cancer. She with any patient whose owner is interested in a more holistic approach, but over half her patients these days have cancer, and their families are looking for alternatives to traditional treatments.
Alternative Cancer Therapies Can Achieve Amazing Results
When it comes to alternative approaches to treating cancer, according to Dr. Judy, “Once you see the results, there's just no going back.”
“If we just focus on the tumor or that one lesion, we're missing the point,” she explains. “We're missing what's really going on in the body. That's just the tip of the iceberg. That's just the signal that something is very out of balance in the body, whether it's poor nutrition or toxicity from vaccines and pharmaceuticals and environmental toxins.
If we don't dig in and figure out what's going on that allowed this tumor to show up, what does it mean for the body? If we just target the tumor or lesion, we won’t have good results.”
Sean’s cat, which we mentioned earlier, is just one example of the amazing results Dr. Judy has seen. The kitty had lymphoma of the throat, and a very poor prognosis. Part of the throat was removed surgically, and then Dr. Judy followed up with ozone and mistletoe.
“This cat has done phenomenally well,” she says. “Sean ended up buying his own ozone equipment, which was great, because I really like to empower pet parents to do more at home. We can help them purchase their own ozone equipment, and we can train them to do mistletoe injections and other treatments at home.”
In Dr. Judy’s experience, learning how to help their pets at home gives people hope during a time of emotional devastation. Of course, while there are often amazing successes, that’s not always the case.
“Sometimes we're just too far behind the curve, but we can always give it a shot,” says Dr. Judy. “My perspective is that I want to try to improve the pet's quality of life as much as possible for as long as possible. I don't know how long that'll be. Sometimes it's a week, sometimes it's a month, sometimes it's years.”
Forging a Path to Prevent Career Burnout
Dr. Judy clearly has a very fulfilling veterinary practice, which means that unlike so many of our colleagues who are struggling these days, she’ll likely never suffer from burnout. Her practice is about hope and providing viable options to pets and their humans who’ve reached the limits of what conventional medicine can offer.
“One of my goals has been to transition to a telemedicine-only practice, which I’ve recently accomplished,” says Dr. Judy. “I no longer have an onsite clinic. What I'd like to do is to show other veterinarians that this is possible and it’s a much more fulfilling way of practicing because I'm just one person. I can do just so much.
As veterinarians, we do wear out at some point. It can be very emotionally exhausting doing this work. I’m aware of that reality, but it limits the number of patients I can help. I just keep thinking there's got to be a lot of veterinarians out there that would love to practice this way. It's so much more fulfilling because we're healing patients.
I can't imagine working in a place where I had to give a certain number of vaccines and hustle through a certain number of clients every day because I had quotas to make. That'd feel like selling my soul. I can't help but believe there are other veterinarians in that situation.
One of my reasons for stepping back a bit from my practice and going to telemedicine is because I hope to develop some educational programs to reach veterinarians. The suicide rates in veterinary medicine are extremely high. They go to school and want to help pets but end up stuck in a corporate job because they have student loans to pay off. It's not rewarding work, and it must feel like a dead end.”
Offering Healing and Hope in Difficult Times
I asked Dr. Judy what she loves most about her journey as a lifelong healer of animals.
“I think what really inspires me is seeing the light bulb go on when people are like, ‘Oh, I never thought about it that way,’ or, ‘I never knew that was possible’,” she replies. “I love seeing people have that shift, start to think about things differently, and have hope. And giving them things to do for their pet makes them part of the process.”
Dr. Judy points out that during the pandemic, most veterinary practices cut pet parents out of the equation until it was time to pay the bill.
“I understand clinics had to do what they had to do,” she says, “but people had to sit in the parking lot and talk to the vet on the phone. They couldn't go in, couldn't interact. I think the profession lost a lot of its empathy during that period.
I hear stories that just hurt my heart of people walking out of vet clinics so discouraged and without hope. They just spent thousands of dollars and they don't even know what for.
It's embarrassing to me as a veterinarian. People are just so discouraged. When I can, I try to help turn that around and give them hope. People just want to feel heard. They want to know that I hear their concerns. That’s why my consults are an hour.
We dig in on what exactly is going on. They know I'm listening to their concerns. They know there are things they can do. Ultimately, it's going to be helping the pets. But I think getting through to the people is really the first step.”
If you’d like to learn more about Dr. Judy and her practice, you can find her at the Animal Healing Arts site, and also on Facebook. Finally, I asked Dr. Judy what one thing she would share with the world, given the opportunity.
“I would say that health and healing come naturally,” she replies. “Probably the most important thing we need to do as practitioners, and even as pet parents, is get out of the way of that and not be creating roadblocks to natural healing because healing will happen on its own.
I think one of the fallacies is that we must keep intervening and doing more and more and more. I think sometimes we need to step back, provide support, and allow healing to take place naturally, because it will.”
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