Dr. Judy Morgan 0:00
Welcome to the Naturally Healthy Pets podcast. Let's get to it. Hello, and welcome to Naturally Healthy Pets podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Judy Morgan. And my guest today is from Down Under. Dr. Edward Bassingthwaighte. He is the Healing Vet as an intuitive, integrative veterinarian from Melbourne, Australia. He's a world leading expert in silent pain in pets, and I'm really interested to hear what he has to say on this. And he's the founder of the Whole Energy Body Balance Method. We'll learn about that, a profoundly healing neuro fascial bodywork and energy work modality for pets, people and horses. So very, very, very cool. Thank you so much for agreeing to be on the podcast.
Dr. Edward Bassingthwaighte 0:48
Oh, are you welcome. It's all sorts of fun to be here with you. It's such an honor, really.
Dr. Judy Morgan 0:56
So the title of this says, The problem that 53% of pet parents miss. And I find that interesting. And we'll get into that. But first of all, what is silent pain?
Dr. Edward Bassingthwaighte 1:13
So silent pain is usually chronic, but sometimes acute, but pain that is in your pet's body, nearly always in the soft tissues of the body that is making their life miserable. But they will show no outward signs of that humans can see. And the only way that I have found to consistently actually discover this kind of pain is by palpation by feeling into the body and then watching the animal's nonverbal responses. So you have to actually press into where the pain is. And then they'll show you in their body, their eyes will open a little bit they'll kind of you will see a physical reaction like oh, yeah, that's sore there when you touch that. So I really didn't realize this until some seven years ago, when Mitzi who's just here on the table beside me as always. I took him to be my, my demonstration dog, and he was a little bit more reactive than usual to other dogs coming near to him. So when I got home, I felt into his neck and found that he had an incredibly painful neck. And then it came to light that my wife said Mitzi fell on the stairs about three weeks ago, but the little guy got up, shook himself off and seemed okay. So I didn't think to tell you. So at that moment, I realized, you know, I've been a vet for 23 years or whatever, at that point. And my whole special focus in my vetwork was finding and relieving pain in dogs and I did this with my dog so I've got right. If I can miss out on pain, how many other people are missing this kind of pain in their in their animals? And that's when I did a little kind of informal clinical study had 63 New dogs come through the door, said to the people do you think your dog has pain? 53% of those people said no. But when I got my hands on them and assessed, they had significant soft tissue pain.
Dr. Judy Morgan 3:04
Interesting. Yeah, I and I can say that I saw that in practice as well. And it wasn't that I was asking people if the animals were in pain, but because I do a lot of acupuncture and chiropractic. When you start running your hands over those animals applying pressure. A lot of times you get that flinch or the eyes wide open or the pull away. And so I think that we do and I personally have Cavalier King Charles Spaniels and English Toy Spaniels. And so they all suffer with well not suffered, they all live with pain associated with syringomyelia and autoflex, typical malformation syndrome. So neck pain is a big deal for these guys. But sometimes it can be in other areas of the body as well. So from having them over the years, it's taught me a lot about the signals that they will show when you're touching areas that they're not showing just on a day to day basis. So it would be so easy to miss if you weren't kind of looking for it. So what are so your dog fell, what other causes are there for silent pain?
Dr. Edward Bassingthwaighte 4:16
Well, soft tissue pain or what I would call neuro fascial pain, I really think that the fascia and the high degree of neurological innovation that is in the fascia is where where it's sensed and stored in the body. So it can happen from a whole range of things, any kind of accident, any kind of trauma can leave a legacy of silent pain, soft tissue pain in the pet's body, and then just wear and tear. You know, the ongoing, I know that you know I'm 52 now. My body's not quite as comfortable as it was when I was 22. So we all have this kind of soft tissue. Not only does pain build up from wear and tear and impact, you know, one of the big things is ball play, high impact, high arousal type of activities is where a lot of dogs can build up a lot of silent pain a lot more quickly because they get super aroused, and their pain tolerance shoots up every time they're aroused, and then they don't feel that the harm that they're doing to themselves. So it's kind of inevitable. And, in my experience, the only way to really treat it at the root cause is the same way that you find it, which is to get your hands on and use physical therapy. And that's the most effective way to both prevent and, and treat soft tissue pain. My experiences with my dogs, Mitzi now is about 12, or 13. And he needs maintenance, right, I need to get my hands on him regularly. And he has a lot more need for regular touch work now than he had when he was two or three. So it's kind of like, my whole thing is that I just want to empower people to learn how to get their hands on their animal to feel for where pain is, and then use touch to relieve that pain and prevent that pain. That's, that's my whole kind of professional and sole purpose, I suppose that's what I do.
Dr. Judy Morgan 6:09
So when you have an animal that comes into your practice, and you run your hands over them, and you discover that they have pain that the pet parent may or may not have been aware of, are you then I would assume that in the office, you're working on the animal, but are you also teaching the pet parents how they can work on their own animals?
Dr. Edward Bassingthwaighte 6:33
Um, I do to some extent, yeah, certainly, the other kind of silent pain that is out there is anxiety and trauma. So you have physical silent pain, then you have mental emotional, silent pain, which is anxiety and trauma. And through working hands on with animals for a long time, I've also discovered some particular qualities of therapeutic touch that cause a really strong somatic or body level relaxation response. And I found that if you use touch in this way, regularly with anxious animals, you can get a really beautiful behavior modification, and you essentially teach these animals learn how to regulate themselves in a relaxation, because use touch to move into relaxation, the whole body mind system learns how to do that. I mean, one of the things I believe anxiety is, is purely and simply, animals have lost their capacity to regulate from arousal in relaxation. And if you retrain that, for instance, I had a Staffy client come to see me some years ago, and it's eating the house when he's left alone. So had one, I had two appointments, I taught the people how to do this relaxing touch, and they went home, and there's a mother and two daughters that then just, you know, probably get this dog hours of touch every day, I suspect because in two weeks, his separation anxiety was gone. Completely gone. So you know, there's this other thing that when you use touch, you're not just affecting the physical, you're affecting the whole physiology, the nervous system, and over time, then the brain catches up and can learn, oh, I don't need to be anxious, I can relax, while this thing that I thought was going to kill me is it's not killed me. And I'm relaxed. So it's, it's a really interesting thing that that, and the other problem that I find is that vets just aren't trained how to palpate for this kind of pain. I wasn't. I've worked with two or three final year vet students in the last three years, who've all gone wow, soft tissue pain, never heard a thing about it. So you've got this big, blind spot in the whole industry, and in the community of people who who care for and love their animals is that there's just a massive lack of awareness about the problem, because the thing with animals is that they don't make noise when they're in pain. They don't vocalize. And if you've got chronic soft tissue pain that's throughout the whole body, you're not going to get a limp, because everywhere hurts all the same amount, right. And my other experience with working with animals like this is that they seem fine. Maybe I'm like my dog's just a couch potato, but then I work with them. And suddenly they turn into a playful, outgoing, happy little guy who wants to go for walks and stuff. And it's not that they're a couch potato, it's that they've been living with chronic pain that they're humans can't see.
Dr. Judy Morgan 9:24
And that is so true. So oh gosh, 2020 years ago ish. When the first NSAIDs came out. Rimadyl was the first one that came out. I was not a holistic vet at the time and I had a nine year old dog, a doberman. So big dog, and I thought he was getting older and he was just a couch potato because he was pretty laid back and he laid around a lot. And so you know, this new drug came on board and I was like, my dog probably has some arthritis and I started him on it. And honestly, within three days that dog was leaping over the back back of the sofa, chasing deer around our three acres like going crazy. And it was one of those eye opening things where I went, Oh my gosh, you weren't a couch potato, you were in pain. And I had no idea. Now Rimadyl's not my recommendation. But we've made the dog actually, the dog was on it for a year, and he actually ended up dying of liver abscess. Thank you Rimadyl. So, we don't recommend that. But there are a lot of things we can do for pain. And I will say, especially with the soft tissue pain that you're talking about, if I were not trained in acupuncture and chiropractic and Reiki and doing a lot of that sort of work with my animals and my patients, I never would have thought to look for it. I wouldn't notice that pain reaction that you're talking about. And so I do agree that the traditional Veterinary Teaching does, you know, it's sort of like, oh, let's flex and extend the joints. Oh, look at that his stifle hurts because he blew his cruciate. Okay, great, we can diagnose that. But what you're talking about is not looked at or diagnosed. Obviously, 53% of the time we need we need to be looking for this.
Dr. Edward Bassingthwaighte 11:17
Well, absolutely. And I think the other thing, and you know, I really don't want to beat up on vets here. And it's not that they're bad. This is like a knowledge gap, a skill gap. And I think part of the reason for it is that if you look at an x ray, or an MRI, CT or an ultrasound, this pain doesn't show any changes on diagnostic imaging. So the vets, look at pictures, and they go, there's nothing there. Well, there's nothing you can see. But there is everything you can feel. And the other thing I really want to stress for all of your community who's listening is, it's easy to learn how to do this, you know, I can teach people how to do this in a matter of weeks. It's not It's not rocket science, you don't need to know anatomy and physiology, or be a vet, or a vet nurse or anything, anyone can learn how to do this for their animals. It's, it's, I mean, it's like everything, it probably took me 27 years to make it simple and easy to learn, right, because it took me a long time to learn it in experience. But once you know how to do it, it's like like riding a bicycle. It's super easy.
Dr. Judy Morgan 12:20
Very cool. And I actually I have a client, I think she lives in Minnesota, who has a dog that this dog gets body work all the time, as far as acupuncture, chiropractic, and X rays look good. And they basically are equating it as being like a person would feel with fibromyalgia that this dog just is in constant pain. And so the dog self regulates by not moving around much. And then when the dog feels good, and does move around more than the dog is in more pain. Because so this is really interesting. And I know she'll listen to this podcast, so and she'll know who I'm not that I'm talking about her. And so I hope this is something that can be really helpful because for seven years, she has been struggling trying to find an answer for this dog.
Dr. Edward Bassingthwaighte 13:16
Yeah. I think every pet owner should learn how to do hands on work with their animal. It's not only will you learn how to find pain ongoing, and you know, Mitzi here, I check him around about every week. And I nearly find about probably two weeks out of three, I'm missing some kind of soft tissue pain in his body now that he's older, and I need to do a little bit of extra kind of hands on work to help him with that.
Dr. Judy Morgan 13:40
I think it's also definitely going to help with the bond with your pet with hands on work. So we need to take a quick break to hear from our sponsor. When we come back, we're going to dive into this a little bit more and learn a little bit more about what we can do for our pets. Stay tuned.
PRODUCT SPOTLIGHT 13:57
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Dr. Judy Morgan 14:44
Welcome back. My guest today is Dr. Edward Bassingthwaighte and he is from Melbourne Australia and he has developed something called the Whole Energy Body Balance Method, really talking about neuro fascial bodywork energy work work to help pets, people and horses with soft tissue pain. And so I am familiar with and I know this is something that you have developed, but I'm familiar with cranial sacral therapy, Ttouch, Reiki? Are those kinds of things sort of getting along the lines of what you're doing, or is it totally different from anything like that?
Dr. Edward Bassingthwaighte 15:28
Well, we do teach some kind of sacral type skills and connections in the program. So sacral is something that I've had found profoundly helpful for myself as having therapy for me. Ttouch as I understand it, is kind of gentle circling movements on the body.
Dr. Judy Morgan 15:48
Yeah, all different kneading and circles. Yeah. But mostly the circles.
Dr. Edward Bassingthwaighte 15:52
mostly circles, some kneading, and I think you do wraps and stuff like that. Yep. And then Reiki is energy healing. So what the Whole Energy Body Balance method, at the heart of it is a whole body, soft pain, soft tissue, soft tissue pain assessment process, we learn how to feel right throughout the body. I mean, if you just feel into your own forearm fairly firmly, right now, you'll probably find some pain you didn't know you had in there?
Dr. Judy Morgan 16:20
Oh, yeah, then I have to go which acupuncture point is this?
Dr. Edward Bassingthwaighte 16:25
Glide your fingers across the top of your forearm, you'll go oh, you know, so then we have a lot of this too. And that's why having body workers on humans is one of the best self care things you can do is go and have a good massage once a month. But what what happens in we've got more than there's more than 25 different types of hands on skills that we teach in a structured way. So we teach the skills in a very structured way how to do them. But then then we teach you how to apply them in a very fluid, flexible, adaptable way. So you never use the same pattern of how you interact with the animal's body from time to time, because your animal's body is different day to day and week week, it changes all the time, it's different needs. So we have a whole range of really what I call Yin or gentle type skills, cranial sacral, there's a loving touch one and a somatic relaxation, one, which is also really good for relaxation, so they're slower, and the pressure is less, the intensity is less you using kind of gentle approaches, we use a lot of pulsing as well. So bringing rhythmic movement in the body opens up restrictions and releases pain and tension. And then we have a whole range of really where we get into the fascia, the neuro fascia and use releases of different kinds to release superficially and then work right deep into the core to, to unlock and release, where we find pain or restriction from healthy movement in the body. And that the the assessment process is kind of ongoing throughout as you're working hands on, because you continually adjusting to the animals communication, you bring the pressure to the point, like I say, where you want to, if you've ever had a message, when you're hands on with your animal in a therapeutic sense, they want to be feeling like, Oh, that hurts, and it feels good. And they stay with you, right, they can be relaxed with that level of connection and touch. So you're going to be continually it's a whole process of deep connection and communication with your animal while you're hands on in that you're totally connected with all their nonverbal, subtle communication and adapting how you're touching them in response to how they're, they're telling you what's going on as you're touching them.
Dr. Judy Morgan 18:38
Absolutely, it's very cool. Yeah, when I would talk to clients about if I had somebody come in, and their dog is having back pain, or whatever. And I would go down the back. And it's like, this is like palpating a brick wall, like they are just so tight. And they're like, when the muscles are that tight, if you try to do a deep massage on them, the they're just going to move away. It's, they can't. So you have to meet the animal kind of at their level. Okay, you know, and I would always tell people look, your goal is when you come back in two weeks or whatever, you will have worked on this area enough that now it's gonna feel like mashed potatoes and not a brick wall anymore. Like we've got to get some energy moving. You know? And I can say because I tend to do things around the farm that Oh, I lifted that hay baik wrong. Oh, I lifted that bucket wrong. And then you get that muscle spasm and it's just like, oh my gosh, don't touch me, but I'm so miserable. So now, do you do acupuncture and chiropractic?
Dr. Edward Bassingthwaighte 19:49
No, I don't do chiropractic. I don't do any manipulations, which are the kind of the more high velocity
Dr. Judy Morgan 19:55
I just didn't know if this was if you were combining anything like that with this,
Dr. Edward Bassingthwaighte 20:00
No, so I use the whole bodywork type of thing which is touch and then the energy work thing which is intuitive perception, empathic connection and working with energy to to work from, you know through the chakras and energy systems and all that kind of thing. So that the energy work is, is kind of similar to Reiki and that is working with with healing energy, but the quality and vibration of energy that we use is very different. And the range of different types of skills that we use to move that energy is totally different to Reiki. I have studied Reiki back in the past, so I know what it is. This is kind of the same but different.
Dr. Judy Morgan 20:42
And is this something that you have like a virtual course so that somebody could get on and learn how to do this?
Dr. Edward Bassingthwaighte 20:56
Yeah, we have Two programs and the third one about to launch for working with animals, we have WEBB body work for pets, which is the real hands on science, you know, physical and anxiety, trauma type work. And then we have web energy work for animals, which is another program that helps people reawaken their intuition, because we all were incredibly intuitive, empathic, little beings when we were babies, and the human jungle tends to kind of squeeze that out of you, I find. So yeah, we have two programs that you can learn as either a home practitioner, or if you want to be a certified practitioner, and get out there and have a whole lot of fun working with animals as a living.
Dr. Judy Morgan 21:34
That is very cool. How, how long does it take to learn this, like, is this a 20 hour course a 40 hour course. But am my gonna spend the rest of my life trying to learn this?
Dr. Edward Bassingthwaighte 21:43
It's if you do that, if you can put in two to four hours a week, you get through the whole thing in probably three to six months in terms of practicing and really getting getting into the skills. But then it is a lifelong journey. Because, you know, I've been doing this for 27 years, and I'm still learning something new every time I work with an animal. So it's an open ended thing. It's a bit like playing a musical instrument or doing creative pursuits. You don't stop growing into it, you grow into it forever.
Dr. Judy Morgan 22:15
That's very cool. So as people are working through the program, I assume that they're kind of working on their own animals and their animals are teaching them while they're trying to get issues solved?
Dr. Edward Bassingthwaighte 22:29
Yeah, exactly. And you know, I don't think your friends are going to say no, if if you offer to give their their pets a bit a lovely message or energy healing as well. So and with the energy healing, of course, you can do it in person or at a distance. It's not constrained by time and space, like, like science thinks everything is.
Dr. Judy Morgan 22:49
Right, that is very true, because everything is energy. But the hands on stuff is very cool. And it's interesting. You say people won't say no, and they probably wouldn't say no to this kind of work. I remember when I was learning chiropractic on horses, I had my own horses to work on but then you know, I have a lot of friends with horses and I would say well, I can I can I practice on your horse? And some would say yes, and some would say no.
Dr. Edward Bassingthwaighte 23:14
We're actually actually launching Whole Energy Body Balance for horses for the first time later on this year, so that's incredibly exciting. And that's more like an advanced program that builds on on on the skills from the other one so I grew up with horses. as horse mad, we did all our cattle work on the on the farm or the ranch on horseback and competed and I've been 20 years without horses in my life so it's kind of lovely to come back to that
Dr. Judy Morgan 23:42
yeah, I showed hunters and jumpers in equitation when I was younger, and then with school and kids I got away from it and then got back into it and now now I have horses and donkeys and let me tell you, donkeys are really really really fun. Their their personalities are totally different
Dr. Edward Bassingthwaighte 24:04
I remember when I was still at vet school at a big equine specialist place and they had a donkey that came in and then it got well and then they tried to put on a horse freight. Well, you should have seen you know, eight people trying to get this donkey donkey was just immovable.
Dr. Judy Morgan 24:22
yeah, you know, you lead a donkey to where they want to go. They don't want to go. That's where they get that reputation of being stubborn. But well this is so cool. So you have a I have a thing on here it says an invitation to attend Dr. Ed's free pet silent pain masterclass what is that?
Dr. Edward Bassingthwaighte 24:43
I'll look up. I'm just in the process of totally rewriting this but what what it is is a 90 minute session where I talk about physical silent pain. what it is so you get the you know, I always think that if you want to be able to help your pets number one you need to understand what the problem is. And then number two, you need to have some tools to do something about it. So the first part is all about physical silent pain. The second part is all about the mental emotional silent pain, which is anxiety and trauma. And then in the third part of this masterclass, I show you the beginnings of how to feel in your pet's body and start to get an idea of where they've got hidden pain and how much it is, and teach you with loving touch, which is a lovely, relaxing, connecting type of way to use therapeutic touch that helps anxious animals relax, does release a little bit of the kind of outer layers of pain and tension, because any kind of touch does, has a therapeutic impact on the body. And it really can help anxious animals as well.
Dr. Judy Morgan 25:49
That's so cool. So you are on all the social media, and two websites, wholeenergybodybalance.com And thehealingvet.com. And so I'm guessing there's a whole lot more information on those two websites about this. have you written a book yet?
Dr. Edward Bassingthwaighte 26:07
I'm in the closing stages of writing this book, it should be out before the end of this year. And that is about the silent pain issue as well. And, you know, I'm also available for kind of intuitive, energy healing work with animals online as well. So if anyone's interested, in exploring that.
Dr. Judy Morgan 26:26
And that is through one of these websites, the whole energy body balance or thehealingvet.com That is very cool. So for those of us on this side of the globe, you do have to deal with the time difference of about 12-13 hours. When we're trying to get these things done, the time difference can sometimes be just a little tricky. Thank you very much. This is quite, quite intriguing. And I I totally agree with you that I think a lot of animals and a lot of people are walking around with pain or laying around with pain and not moving as much. And I think that it's really our responsibility to figure that out and help our animals. So I really appreciate the work that you're doing. And I really appreciate that you have offerings available so that other people can learn about it. So thanks for all the work.
Dr. Edward Bassingthwaighte 27:21
Thank you. Thanks for letting me you know, speak to your people and get this word out because it's so important.
Dr. Judy Morgan 27:27
Absolutely. Thank you very much.
Dr. Edward Bassingthwaighte 27:29
You're welcome. Thank you.
Outro
Thanks for listening to another great Naturally Healthy Pets episode. Be sure to check out the show notes for some helpful links. And if you enjoy the show, please be sure to follow and listen for free on your favorite podcast app. We value your feedback and we'd love to hear from you on how we're doing. Visit DrJudyMorgan.com for healthy product recommendations, comprehensive courses, upcoming events and other fantastic resources. Until next time, keep giving your pet the vibrant life they deserve.
DISCLAIMER
The purpose of this podcast is to educate and to inform. It is no substitute for professional care by a veterinarian, licensed nutritionist or other qualified professional. You're encouraged to do your own research and should not rely on this information as professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Dr. Judy and her guests express their own views, experience and conclusions. Dr. Judy Morgan's Naturally Healthy Pets neither endorses or opposes any particular view discussed here.
